timeEd32

He does, he's a good follow. There is zero reason to believe they would change that rule / go against UEFA's approach when the whole thing is modeled after UEFA to begin with. Player sales have been 44% of Chelsea's income in the last decade, 39% of City, 34% of Liverpool's, and ~20% of Arsenal/Man United/Spurs. There's no way they'd want to make an unpredictable source of income even lumpier in their books.

There is absolutely zero chance they are going to limit player sales profit to only a single year. He's just generating engagement with that.

I think we need ~3 more points. Should get there either way. Makes a Europa League or Conference League run where we stack some coefficient points more attractive. As you said, not so much a competitive advantage anymore but still significant revenue differences (primarily in CL).

Very poor with the ball and multiple times where he had the space to take a touch and instead tried a harder first time ball. Moments where we could have really used some possession too.

I don’t think we can complain about a decision for awhile. That could very easily be a pen and down to 10.

Feels like we’re some scrappy underdog, but frankly don’t care right now. Just need 3 points.

Thiaw’s passing is ridiculous.

This might be the worst Tonali I’ve ever seen. He’s given the ball away three times trying to one touch it.

We’re being careful with Hall: "He's closer [to a return to the starting XI]. I thought it was a really good cameo from him. We have to remember he's had very limited training time so I have to be careful with him. He's very much in my thoughts because of the quality of player he is. He's had a difficult period with injury. He's such an important player and we need him fit for the long term."

Ha, no idea what I did there. Nine.

He won't be here forever. But he was also asked a question and chose to answer it honestly in a language he didn't even speak 2 years ago, so ultimately there's not much to panic about. If he goes in the summer it will be because we're not in the CL and someone is offering a massive salary increase + six figure transfer fee. I doubt we'd sell for less. Summer of 2027 he goes is my guess unless we are in the CL / have made significant progress (and can pay him more).

I'm really struggling with what essentially sounds like "the format is bad because we're in such a strong position." I feel like I'm on repeat but at least part of that complaint is actually English football is too rich and powerful, an altogether different problem. Also, considering three of our four remaining games are away we could quite easily be on 10 points with two to play, one of which is the champions away. PSV at home would have all sorts of jeopardy at that point. And, back to the point about English football, if finances were spread more evenly across Europe then we'd a) likely not have 9 points b) really not like our chances going to Leverkusen and Marseille away. Through four games: English clubs are averaging 2.75 ppg Spanish clubs 1.30 ppg German clubs 1.75 ppg Italian clubs 1.625 ppg French clubs 1.42 ppg (and had one eliminated in qualifying) This format would feel dramatically different with a more level playing field. It certainly doesn't feel free of risk to Atletico, Leverkusen, or Juventus right now.

Well if we're being serious about a knockout format still existing in 2025 then pot 1 clubs obviously wouldn't be joining until a round or two after the beginning and there's no chance they'd have an opportunity to play each other until the round of 16 at earliest. The whole thing would be geared towards them staying in it as long as possible.

I'm guessing those who really dislike this format would, in an ideal scenario, return to the European Cup knockout format? If that's your basis for what it should be then I can see how this new format has strayed even further from that than the past one (sort of, the dual group stage was still weird). If the FA Cup suddenly had a league phase then yeah, that would seem terrible. But also terrible would be we drew Barcelona > we lost > European adventure over in a fortnight.

I think the easy answer to that is money / "drama" / attention. Last season they still did home/away draws for the QF and SF but thankfully got talked into that being pointless.

This is how it works with just two draws (playoff round and round of 16). Seeded teams (9-16) get second leg at home in playoff. 1-8 teams get second leg at home in R16. After that there's no more draw for home/away in the QF/SF. The higher placed team from league phase gets second leg at home, except that home priority can be stolen (e.g. if team 8 defeats team 1 in the QF then team 8 will have the second leg at home in the SF regardless of opponent).

More importantly you play one of the playoff winners.

I am sure - certain in fact - that had this been the format since the 90s and it was recently changed to one where pot 1 clubs could not play each other and got their own neat, little groups featuring the likes of PSV, Lens, and Sevilla or Leipzig, Young Boys, and Crvena Zvezda or Napoli, Braga, and Union Berlin (those are Arsenal, City, and Real Madrid's actual 2023/24 groups in which they collectively dropped 5 of 54 points) there would be absolute hell on about how rigged the game is for the absolute elite. And it still is to be clear, but at least they have to play each other and the pots don't mean as much as they used to and qualification to the knockout rounds depends more on a larger sample of performances than a random drawing of balls. Yes, it makes things murky in the first half of the league phase, much like the league table doesn't mean all that much for a couple months, but the last 2-3 gameweeks last season were very interesting. And I think the massive advantage you get from finishing top 8 is being underrated, not to mention the big financial bonus you are guaranteed. I also think everyone would like it more if finances were spread more evenly across Europe, in which case we'd likely be trying to scrap our way into the top 24. But that's a separate problem.

Barcelona and Chelsea currently 11th/12th and they play each other next. Dortmund 14th and still to play Spurs and Inter. Nee jeopardy though.

Goal disallowed.

Had to get on a call. What happened to Burn?

If this Bilbao team had to play with a rugby ball I think they'd control it better than we're dealing with a round object.

We'll just take the free kick there referee.

We're about to look significantly better.

Not sure Gordon has any chance against this RB. His body language also makes it seem like he's in the second period of extra time.