timeEd32

Yes, so basically Villa for CL. And Man United / Spurs for Europa.

No, can be 7. Five from league and two European winners.

Wouldn't really work with the UEFA rules anyway.

Rough timeframes. Since Jan 18: Bournemouth (h) - thoroughly dismantled Southampton (a) - good; worst team in the league Fulham (h) - awful second half City (a) - no good Forest (h) - excellent most of first half; poor-ish second half Liverpool (a) - lackluster (for a legitimate reason) West Ham (a) - solid Brentford (h) - ok, not great Leicester (a) - good but they are awful We've gotten enough results to look good in the form table, but the performances haven't been as good as the nine games (all comps) before that. But five of those, including three of the defeats, are firmly in LC excuse territory so you can draw lots of conclusions. If there's one thing worrying me it's that we haven't played a good 90 minutes at home in the league in almost two months. If we can show that next week then I'll be wondering whether we can get 3rd more than if we'll get CL.

Yes, that's the game that was moved for the cup final. 15 games includes our genuinely excellent form in Dec/Jan. I think it's fair to say we haven't looked quite as convincing in Feb/Mar but you can also point to the League Cup as the reason.

For me it's still just fun to look at all the what-ifs as we compete much higher up the table. The only thing that adds stress is the fact that the difference between 5th and 6th could be a true crossroads for the near term future of the club.

The fact it's our third game in a week and we actually get one less day of rest/prep than them is what worries me. After that though we have just one game a week for the rest of the season. I think Eddie will get the players up for a huge CL qualification week.

This is the thing the average big 6 supporter either misses or chooses to ignore. They tie the progress that's been made directly to PSR limits being pushed. Ultimately it doesn't matter if they don't give Howe or Emery proper credit, but I find it infuriating.

They’d be in quite the relegation battle at the moment.

I hope this is as fun as I'm imagining it could be.

"Now that we've won a trophy I don't even care what happens the rest of this season." Three weeks later up 3-0 away: "UNACCEPTABLE SLOP"

Would really like us to put up 4 or 5 here. It's what we would have done a couple years ago. This season it seems as likely we end up holding on 2-1.

Think he's been decent honestly.

2 of the 3 best assists of our last few years aren't actually assists.

I would have never forgiven Murphy if he messed that up.

It would be spectacular if we qualified for the CL with Forest. Feels slightly more likely after this weekend.

Tomorrow will feel awful if we don’t get three points. All in our hands.

Everyone is forgetting that Emery wakes up every night in a cold sweat thinking about his last three meetings with Eddie.

Pending the rest of the weekend there could be a real gap starting to form for the top 6. We have a real opportunity on Monday.

This game is hilarious.

Wish we were playing Palace next.

This is a key point, but I’m sure they’ll still be able to do it.

If the extent of the PL rules were: Clubs must be solvent and/or have the ability to cover future debts Clubs can spend whatever you want Clubs qualifying for European competition must adhere to UEFA's rules. Club's found in breach of those rules will also be punished by the Premier League in the season it occurs with <X fine> and/or <Y points deduction> Then they would avoid so much hassle, shift most blame / oversight to UEFA, and largely have the same outcome for the puppet masters. The group who would absolutely hate this are the Championship gatekeepers - the likes of Palace, Fulham, Brighton, Brentford.

We're going to have finished ahead of Spurs twice, Man United twice, Liverpool once, and Chelsea at least once in Eddie's three full seasons. We've also won more trophies than half of the big 6 in that time.