BShearer

i guess a long drawn out EL run and matches every Thursday would not help us much to fight for top4-top5 in PL while some rivals have none of those games like Spurs, United, Chelsea. also can give us multiple injuries and less time to relax. dont forget not having much of a fixture nightmare last season helped us a lot to finish 4th. on the other side a great EL would be fun, dont underestimate teams there, they often fight for their life, and Thursday-Sunday tempo is quite hard when you play late on Thursday then a big game on Sunday. but we could be favourites in most of those games unlike vs quality CL opponents in group of death. also EL trophy guarantees CL qualification albeit that is far from easy to clinch. I think teams that drop down from CL do have one extra round of EL games, like Barca failing in group stage last year had to play United while teams like Arsenal had a free round in EL and did not play only from next round. The way I see it City, Arsenal, Pool are more certain to get top3 places. Us and United, Chelsea, Spurs will fight it out for 4-5th places. 2 of these clubs will not be in CL. (5th only worth CL is English clubs do well this season on coefficient country list, top2 we England need to hit I think, usually thats doable eg if City goes very far in CL and Pool goes very far in EL while the rest also do decent...) I cannot see us getting much in Paris, we beat them fairly at home, but that looks like a one off, as the 3 three performances were not great. Albeit where I think we mostly played as an underdog was the Milan away one but got a good result. Can see Milan getting something vs Dortmund, so chances are we either need to beat Milan at home for 3rd or dont lose to them. having said that I hope before the game our lawyers grill them over the Tonali mess haha.

normally we wouldnt have faced a group like this. United and Arsenal and City could have got Milan from Pot 3 who they got instead? Copenhagen, PSV, Zvezda. levels below Milan. dont even get me started on the Carabao draw lol.

getting back to CL next season is the most important for status, revenue, getting new to players, pedigree etc. will be brutal hard but top5 PL finish will do it, and we can do it if we manage injuries well.

Gordon and Almiron on and we might find something upfront.

getting back to CL for next season so much more important than go one more round in CL and lose to Real-Bayern in last 16. but these 6 games will give us hell of en experience as these are all knockout level opponents/matches. we clearly are inexperienced in some of the match situations in this tournament which is quite different to the usual PL games vs other top sides but we need to be around these teams each years

I think we could have a good chance with a fully fit squad but we are far from that. Sick group, even hard to finish 3rd lol. Dortmund got handed a huge beating at the weekend, they will want to put it right tomorrow, we need cold head especially Bruno, last thing we need a suspension for next round. Feels like a draw to me to be fair.

last thing we need Chelsea to "wake up" and start putting together wins. having said that Spurs needs to come down on the table as well as they are way higher than should be.

We need to dip into the Saudi loan deals imo. otherwise our season be over if injuries continues at this rate. anyone can loan players from Saudi league its not against any law.

we need to get some good news of players returning because all this additional injuries can crash our season if it continues at this rate. we really need to be clever and creative on the loan market in January imo as I cannot see much money available to spend given we needed to be creative already with the Hall deal. probably need to do an extensive search on the bench of other top clubs for players wanting to make Euros but not playing much. and yes we need to explore options of loan from the Saudi league, media backlash is fixed on but couldnt care less.

I think 5th will be CL place as well, and we might have a chance to be top5. Injuries can cost us a lot if it continues at this rate. top3 imo is all decided between City, Arse and Pool dont think another club can get into top3. United and Chelsea so far under expectations luckily, while Spurs and Villa are above it. longer term I would expect Spurs/Villa start to drop points but also Chelsea, United to be more solid. Spurs having no CL/EL and no Carabao is a huge advantage as we lose a player to injury almost every game on average. it will leave us in a huge fight for places 4-5-6th. on top of that we got the most horrible CL + Carabao draw and English club ever got. having said that Howe is doing immense job so far, yes that few games where we threw away leads that are important points dropped, but yesterday we needed to dig deep and get a clean sheet to win and we did it. more of the same needed, winning games 1-0 and 2-1 rather than 1-1 and 2-2.

Arteta is a sore loser. loser nonetheless.

huge week, two big wins, should give us lots of momentum. injury list will be bigger tho soon than the players we can pick. we need some creative tricks in January, 3 complete free top signings from Saudi league lol. Mahrez, Neves and a defender.

we cannot keep losing 1-2 players each game with injuries. injury list ill be bigger soon than the available.

we did throw away some important leads already this season, concentrate please and lets get this 3 points. what a week it would be, United away and Arse home two wins.

Gabriel lol, what a joke this guy.

Burn out injured, injury list keeps growing every game.

media was talking for days about the Kovacic tackle vs Arse, guess this Havertz one will be forgotten rather quickly rather than analyzed by Webb himself. Eddie needs to make a big thing out of it if we lose tho lol. if we can get this ref off of our fixtures for good thats already something.

lets be honest if Joelinton pulls the same tackle on their little boy Saka its a red instantly.

we need to get another yellow for Havertz, bit of dark arts needed before they sub him. provoke him, get a reaction out of him etc. close game, but still can go either way, we need to test their keeper lot more tho if we want to win this.

nothing in that from Bruno, max yellow, not red at all.

wonder media reaction will be the same for Havertz as it was for Kovacic vs Arse few weeks back.

we need to test their keeper a bit

would be a huge scalp, imo will be very hard game, we need to play the best we can and hope for a clean sheet.

Will be brutal hard game but I really hope we can get something out of it. first goal is crucial, and of course defensive blunders need to be cut. we will need some top scalps at home if we want to make top5 this season (I assume 5th will worth CL). we should have beaten 10 man Pool at home, we need to create those kind of situations here as well maybe to get them red carded .:) they lost in Carabao, we put in a top class performance, this bit of momentum should help us more.

its fuc*ing sick draw for a Carabao run. WTF? I bet no English teams had as hard combined CL group draw + first 3 Carabao games in last 20 years. yo can almost feel FA cup third round draw will result a draw vs Arsenal, Pool or City while there are still clubs from Conference League in it... even if beat Chelsea imo its dead certain that we are vs Pool in semis rather than the winner of Port Vale/Boro.