Paullow

Right decision by the club, but you got to feel sorry for the way his career has panned out. 23 now, so still young enough, but not crazy young and he wasn't a guaranteed starter when on loan at Mansfield, and was sent on loan again to League 2 last year for a club not necessarily expecting a promotion push, so you'd probably think that would be the sort of level he'd end up at to restart his career.

Finally signed up to Viaplay Sports for a month. Will get to see the Nations League semis and final, hopefully including Sven Botmans Holland debut vs Croatia tonight, a few Euro 2024 qualifiers this weekend, and also just saw they are covering the CONCACAF Gold Cup in a week or so, so will watch the odd match of that, although typically, the final is due the day after my sub expires, ha.

What is the deal with TNT Sports? Will it be completely separate to BT and no longer any reduced discount for BT internet users? Obviously will want it next year with them having Champions League, but don't really fancy paying two full subscriptions for both Sky Sports and TNT (and IPTV / equivalent isn't really an option).

Just found out that all of these ties will be played at Kópavogsvöllur in Kópavogur, the home of Breiðablik, so they could well be the favourites to make the lucrative First qualifying round.

I was just about to say 'can't believe the draw is at 11am today, barely 3 days after the final' and not specify to see if I caught anyone out.

"sí, obviamente!"

Yeah, both born in Coventry, which is another link, Wilson was last there in the 13/14 season, Maddison was part of the first team squad that year, but didn't make his debut until the following season, but they would have trained together for at least a year.

I wasn't flexing about anything, just stating that £48 to watch 23 league matches, working out at £2.08 a match, is crazy low - what can you get for £2 these days?. I wouldn't really describe that as 'affordable', it's beyond that, and not too far off given them away.

https://safc.com/seasontickets/select-your-seat It's crazy how little the U16 season ticket prices are - £48 for about 90% of the stadium (in terms of U16 tickets sold), just over £2 per match, and not too much more for for U18s or even U22s - U22 seems a pretty random bracket to have. Good to put more bums on seats, and possibly more importantly thinking longer term, especially with developments up the road, to make sure young fans, particularly those in 50/50 areas get the bug early, but they must surely be missing out on so much revenue with those insanely cheap prices.

I was just looking at the upcoming football schedule and fancied watching both Nations League semi's (and the final), but they are on Viaplay (and not the free channel) so I might finally get round to signing up for a month this week - pretty expensive for like 4 or 5 games max, but something to watch. Might hold off until like 6.45pm on Weds and if big Sven is confirmed starting, then go for it.

I believe we have faced at least 4 of those in the PL era (Barcelona x2), Feyenoord, Benfica, and Inter, possibly another I've missed, (and Porto in the much earlier campaigns) so I would probably hope to avoid those having seen us play them, but aye, pretty surreal, probably more so for those under 25/30. Although in terms of actually progressing from the group, Feyenoord would probably be the best to get in Pot 1.

Stream is almost unwatchable. Like one of the old Firstrow things.

FIFA U20 World Cup final between Uruguay and Italy coming up at 10pm on the below link for anyone interested: https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en

Where at? Can't find any odds anywhere. Edit - just found them on SkyBet.

Quite enjoying this. Thought Man City would be at least a goal up by now, but the longer it stays 0-0, the more intriguing it is.

Arsenal were in a title race, played some great football, and made massive strides, but effectively their season was pretty similar to ours - no trophy and a return to the Champions League. They certainly wouldn't have swapped their season for West Ham if offered, despite the latter winning the Conference League, nor Brentford, if (hypothetically) they finished where they did and won the League Cup. I think our season was generally better (than West Ham) - like Arsenal, we made massive strides, played great football, no team lost fewer games nor conceded less goals, and a real chance to continue to build, attract better players, and really push on as a club, so as a business you wouldn't swap, it's obviously just as fans, the vast majority of us haven't seen us win anything in our lifetime, and we are desperate for that to change. I probably would have preferred us to finish 6th or 7th and win the LC than finish 4th and lose the final this season (as was widely discussed leading into the final, and those Magpie TV type YouTube channels), just because of the emotion of finally winning a cup, but in a general sense, if your club is right up there in the upper echelons, have won plenty of trophies in reasonable recent memory, then a top 4 finish would normally top winning lesser competitions like the Europa Conference (and even the League Cup), but at this stage, we're obviously not 'above' those competitions.

Oh, don't worry, I'll be vigorously bumping this thread throughout June and July Aye, that will likely be a factor, although the mighty Football Club Ballkani of Kosova don't enter until the next round.

Ludogorets win their 12th straight Bulgarian title, 1 point ahead of CSKA Sofia, to take the final CL qualifying spot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying_phase_and_play-off_round Preliminary draw on Tuesday, which sounds crazy early - obviously that's the absolute minnows, the champs of San Marino, Andorra, Iceland, and Montenegro, one of which will make it through to the first qualifying rounds. I don't know anything about the Montenegrin league, but I thought it might have been considered better than the Gibraltar, Faroe, Malta, or Luxembourg leagues. Iceland too, to a lesser extent.

West Ham outnumbered the Fiorentina fans by 2 to 1 in the stadium? Didn't they both get less than 5,000 tickets for this?

I can just about remember Everton winning the FA Cup (and subsequently knocking us out of Europe) and Dalian Atkinson for Villa in the League Cup, but since 1996, hardly any clubs have won anything outside of the obvious. Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and now Man City have won loads, Spurs a couple of League Cups, Leicester the league, FA Cup and probably a couple of League Cups, Portsmouth, Wigan the FA Cup, Swansea, Birmingham, Blackburn, Boro the League Cup, don't think there are any others, so if you're under 35 you've only seen 13 English clubs win anything significant in your life time.

Think I'd like to see West Ham win tonight. It will be another English club winning something in my lifetime before Newcastle do, but I've never really disliked them, they're probably not a massive threat to us going forward, and it's obviously been a very long time since they won anything, so would be good to see them have a bit of joy. There's no doubt this time two years ago under Ashley and Bruce I'd have been wanting them lose

Looks largely correct, but guess it mainly depends where you are, as there are a few notable omissions. Darlington are in a higher league so will possibly be more attractive to attend a match, but Newton Aycliffe are now in the same league as the likes of Consett, and closer to Newcastle than Darlington.

1-5 on agg at the moment with just over 5 to go. A 6th season in the 2nd tier for Hamburg, which is mad, but each season that goes by, the more normal it will seem, a bit like with Leeds. 53k ave crowds, main club in Germany's 2nd city with a near 2m popn, former European champions. Constant top half finished from 1997 to 2013, yet another season in the wilderness beckons for them. The GFA are probably content that it's effectively just 2 changes to the league each season, but they should probably look into changing the system to freshen things up, and maybe to the system we have over here with 3 guaranteed to go down each season. Probably won't be easy to get top 2 next season either with Schalke and Hertha dropping down this season.

Don't really mind who goes up / stays up, but hope Hamburg can get an early goal tonight to make the tie more interesting for the neutral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_UEFA_Champions_League#Qualifying_rounds All the group and qualifying spots have now been filled, apart from the Bulgarian league which will be decided on Wednesday - Ludogorets now big faves over CSKA Sofia to take it yet again.