leffe186

Oh man, I fell asleep and missed the pens. Raith was my Dad’s Scottish team (something about Subbuteo). I have a shirt of theirs from the 90s. Well chuffed - they play lovely football which has often been their thing. There’ll be dancing on the streets of Raith etc

Amazing night to be a Southampton fan though. Game won, going to Wembley, and it’s Friday night. Would be even better if you weren’t spending it in Southampton.

…great penalty though.

Not convinced about that at all.

We had a great view of that - lovely finish.

Feels like we’d still be better off without it…but then there’d be one of those games where the ref blatantly bottles it at Anfield or the Emirates and I’d be putting a brick through the telly. Did the ref book both the West Brom players there?

Yeah, or there’s no VAR, West Brom get on a roll, equalize, win on penalties, earn millions and millions next year, Southampton have to sell loads of players, eventually get relegated, go into administration etc etc .

Oof, that looked stonewall at first and such a penalty on replay. One of those where the ref just needs glasses.

These both look a step behind Leeds, which makes sense.

Ref finding it very hard not to get in Southampton’s way.

Genuinely don’t think I care who wins this tonight.

This is just so weird to watch.

Lots of empty seats and people putting tickets on the exchange - people didn’t want to go because of the weird situation.

Nah, any result is ok tbh. Win or draw means we played well and guarantee Europa, lose and obviously that’s fine too.

Anyone else watching? Crawley absolutely taking all of the piss here

Crawley have been absolutely relentless here in both legs. Done everything right and also got the breaks. Bit of a surprise tbh.

Disagree, but can obviously see why it was given. Just…look at the Kulusevski one against Arsenal. Gets tripped, tries to stay up but goes down. No penalty. This time, O’Riley gets tripped, could stay up but flings himself to the ground. Penalty. *sigh*

…and missed in a very deserved way .

The more times you see it the more it’s just a dive.

Oooof. Was convinced he wouldn’t give that.

Commentator “He goes down very easily, but there is contact”. So…not a penalty then.

The way they’ve changed the BBC text updates so that any update now comes up as a flash of yellow rather than just goals.

You already get special dispensation. Don’t be a dick

As long as you put us where we’re supposed to be I’ll be happy.

I think it’s a bit of a hangover from the last 20 years or so. The financial differential between CL and no CL used to be even more severe but the increased PL money has narrowed the gap. It has also given all English teams a leg-up versus the rest of Europe, which means we are more likely to dominate the EL and ECL. This coming year you can add on the fact that CL clubs (finally) will not drop down to the EL mid-season. Then there’s the fact that you have more games to contend with and the pressure on the squad…but that is also offset by the additional money available in England. Teams further down the PL are able to sustain larger squads than before and also attract more young players from abroad (and lower divisions) to their youth programmes. Some clubs are better placed than others to exploit this, but when you factor in the good chance to win a meaningful trophy then it matters that little bit more too.