The UEFA Champions League and Europa League Thread 2016/17

[Duty281]

Might as well make a poll on this one...

[Fernando]

Are Celtic showing great character though

[Duty281]

Well, they nearly went 2 down, so probably not!

They just need that crucial away goal....

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

Amazing scenes

[Duty281]

So Brendan Rodgers has started with the worst result in Celtic's history.

[whocares]

https://mobile.twitter.com/PurelyFootball/status/752957118463021056

A police officer scored !

[Duty281]

A 34-year-old police officer, no less!

[Guest]

The Imps aint no joke.

http://uk.soccerway.com/national/gibraltar/premier-division/20152016/regular-season/r32202/

Man Utd struggling for form in Gibraltar too!

[Duty281]

I like how they all play at the same ground. It is the cutest thing imaginable.

And yes, the Red Imps with a goal difference of +121 would easily win the Scottish Premier Division.

They deserve a promotion after all this winning.

[Crimey]

Embarassing

[Guest]

To be honest, hardly surprising. Game is in July, Celtic in pre season & the opposition mid way through their season, Celtic were always going to be under-cooked.

This is really only a story, if it was a one-leg tie. Fully expect Celtic to bang at least five past them at Celtic Park.

[Duty281]

Second leg tonight! Celtic are available at 1/80 to win in 90 minutes.

[Duty281]

20 minutes. 0-0.

It's only a matter of time.

EDIT: 1-0, 23 minutes. Took long enough!

[Crimey]

I can see Rodgers' time at Celtic being a huge disaster.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

And we're 1-0 down from a penalty. Wasn't a pen but there you go

[Dolphin Ziggler]

1-1 from a pen. Nobes

[Crimey]

With Allardyce now in charge, wonder if Noble finally has a chance of making an England squad.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

He should.

2-1 down, Antonio is not a right back

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Well, I best not mock Celtic any time soon

[Guest]

Celtic 2-1 Astana

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Through that one.

Really happy to see that people are genuinely very pleased with the new stadium. Atmosphere and sight lines

[Guest]

Manchester City vs Steaua Bucharest in CL playoff

[Dolphin Ziggler]

And we've got Astra again, the team that knocked us out last year. I'd expect a stronger team though

The team beaten 2-1 by Astra last yr:

Randolph, Nolan, Jenkinson, Maiga, Poyet ,Henry, Lanzini, Lee (Brown), Page (Pike), Cullen, Knoyle.

[Guest]

New CL rules for 2018

- No fourth place play-off for England, Spain, Germany
- Higher proportion of prize money to clubs from four highest ranked leagues
- Serie A to have four direct entries
- More entries for top leagues
- Matches on Saturday's rather than midweek for some clubs
- Protected places for storied clubs with global fan base

[Crimey]

Think they are poor changes personally - even if they probably help Liverpool.

[Guest]

So far

Leicester/Porto/Club Brugge/Copenhagen - Very nice for Leicester

Juventus/Sevilla/Lyon/Dinamo Zagreb

Real Madrid/Borussia Dortmund/Sporting Lisbon/Legia Warsaw

PSG/Arsenal/Basel/Ludogorets

Benfica/Napoli/Dynamo Kiev/Besiktas - God awful group

CSKA Moscow/Bayer Leverkusen/Tottenham/Monaco

FC Barcelona/Manchester City/Borussia Moechengladbach/Celtic

Bayern Munich/Atletico Madrid/PSV/Rostov

[compelling and rich]

city really should stop booing uefa's anthem

they got the toughest groups out of the English sides. think spurs did the best considering they are in pot C

[whocares]

Tottenham group is at least interesting as could see the teams seeded 3rd and 4th to qualify. As for the other ones it's pretty much 1 and 2 to go through.

[Crimey]

Leicester and Tottenham have got very good groups. 

Arsenal should get through.

It'll be interesting to see how Guardiola approaches the Barcelona game, he isn't going to be able to out-tika-taka them but not sure he's got it in him to try and beat them with different tactics.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

[quote="Crimey"It'll be interesting to see how Guardiola approaches the Barcelona game, he isn't going to be able to out-tika-taka them but not sure he's got it in him to try and beat them with different tactics.[/quote]

Read his opinions on tiki-taka; he isn't a fan of how overdone it is and has changed his play in a few aspects

[Crimey]

It'll be interesting to see how Guardiola approaches the Barcelona game, he isn't going to be able to out-tika-taka them but not sure he's got it in him to try and beat them with different tactics.

Read his opinions on tiki-taka; he isn't a fan of how overdone it is and has changed his play in a few aspects

[/quote]

You know what I mean. Whatever you want to call it, he's still very much focused on possession and I feel like if he tries that tactic he's been using, where the full backs tuck in as midfielders Neymar and Messi will tear the team apart. He'll have to change it up to get a result, I'm not sure he's capable of sacrificing his philosophy like that though.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

Well done West Ham. Really well done

[Crimey]

It's weird as West Ham are in no danger of getting relegated realistically so a run in Europe would be pretty good for them, yet gone out early two years running now.

[Dolphin Ziggler]

We always shop late, and not for back up, for first team players. And it hurts us every year

[Good Golly I'm Olly]

We always shop late, and not for back up, for first team players. And it hurts us every year

Welcome to the life of a Norwich City fan

[Guest]

Europa League

Manchester United/Fenerbahce/Feyenoord/Zorya Lunansk

Southampton/Inter Milan/Sparta Prague/Hapoel Beer-Sheva

West Ham would of been in Victoria Plzen/AS Roma/Austria Vienna group

[Fernando]

Man Citeh leave Yaya Toure out their CL Squad despite naming 21 of 25 players

[Crimey]

Man Citeh leave Yaya Toure out their CL Squad despite naming 21 of 25 players

They would have had to have removed another foreign player though to have included Toure.

[Fernando]

For those interested in donating to charity, Spurs CL game vs Monaco is up for General Sale £20 for Adults - £10 Children

[compelling and rich]

be suprised if the city game goes ahead, worse storm ive seen here

[Jermaine2015]

Brenda's boys getting their pants pulled down. 7-0 with the magnificent Lionel Messi bagging a hat trick

[GSC]

They went down with character though

[Guest]

Just lulling them into a false sense of security for the return leg....

[Fernando]

No Shrek,Valencia, Lingaard or Shaw - Henry is injured

[Guest]

Spurs 1-2 Monaco
Brugge 0-2 Leicester

[Crimey]

Think this shows that perhaps the Leicester players' minds were stuck on the Champions League this weekend.

[Guest]

Brugge 0-3 Leicester
Man City 4-0 Moechengladbach (Aguero hat-trick)
Tottenham 1-2 Monaco

[kingraf]

Two goals in the last handful of minutes sees Real over the line. The hunt for #12 starts as expected

[Steffan]

I was at the Barca v Celtic game. Saw 5 of the goals (second half) right in front of me

Here's Neymar lining his up:



Working for the Man City game though (plus tickets are pretty pricey)

[sirfredperry]

Spurs' boss said the side lacked passion at Wembley last night. But the problem lies with him. He's instilled a pass-sidewise, pass-backwards, always-keep- possession mentality into the side.
The great Spurs' sides always played with a bit of pace. Apart from Walker this team is dreadfully slow and, more importantly, opts to play slowly. Tactically, too, they seem to think there is only one way to play - like a five-a-side team. Someone should tell them they are allowed to play a pass of more than 10 yards, that you can hit long balls into the box, that you can play balls into space rather than always to feet, that the goalkeeper can actually kick the ball into the other half instead of rolling it 10 yards to the nearest defender.
Possession does not necessarily equal penetration. Leicester won the Premier League without having much possession in some of their matches. They didn't do too badly in Europe last night, either.

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