Not worried we have the jeff.

Nothing worse then an international break.

This week's Football Weekly is awesome.

Anyone?

to increase interest in EL / give CL clubs a 2nd chance at a trophy?

I don't really see why it's so bad.

The level of the competition in the Europa League rises with this rule (e.g. the year Chelsea finished 3rd and won the competition) and it also gives more relevance to CL games for the smaller club.

E.g. : I support Anderlecht and we'd always be in pot 4 in the CL groups and be much much weaker than pot 1 and pot 2 seeds. There have been many examples where we're just drawing dead to make it past the group stage (i remember being drawn with Chelsea and Liverpool one year) then finishing 3rd for the EL spot became quickly the only relevance in our games and we'd have much interest fighting for that 3rd spot meaning we can continue in Europe where we have better chance of getting through/bringing fun to the supporters.
It may seem useless if you support a big club but many smaller clubs do care about that 3rd place and makes the group stage more exciting for them.

72o,

And thus completely devaluing the competition by doing so.

Hopefully now that the TV rights are becoming ridiculously expensive as well as exclusive, a network will invest in exclusive rights for the Europa League and try and maximise its appeal factor.

Good points Cinarocket.

that's like your opinion man
i mean idk, seems like most ppl are gonna hate on EL no matter what they do, so yolo

i enjoy it for what it is, you can get some pretty solid games between 2nd tier European sides (who are like still really, really good), some of the crowds are really into it, life's too short to be angry about EL imo

and yeah Cina makes good points

Yeah I don't see how it devalues the EL to add better teams into it

So Welbeck is out for months after a knee injury. Always the same crap for Arsenal almost year after year.

Although the teams who finish 3rd in their CL group are stronger than the clubs who would have taken their places if this rule wasn't enforced, the competition is still devalued because the CL dropouts haven't qualified for the Europa league or played matches to reach the Europa league last 32. The clubs are there because they have been relegated from the CL to the Europa league. In normal relegation circumstances, the clubs who are relegated would start the competition with the same status as all of the other clubs who had qualified, not being let in half way through the competition.

Does anyone think that because all the CL knockouts are let in that a majority of clubs do not take it seriously in the Europa league? Now that TV deals are becoming more equally divided within the five main leagues, I foresee that a lot of middle level clubs who have qualified for the EL like West Ham not take the competition seriously because being relegated is too much of a financial risk especially near the business end of the season when the CL clubs are let in.

no

only teams i can remember not actually taking EL seriously are the bad English ones who have 'boxed an entry, but need every hand on deck to fight for their PL survival

As long as Yanks like me and people around the world want to go see Arsenal at the Emirates tickets will always be pricey. If Arsenal make them cheaper then they just get bought up and sold to people like me who will pay $300 to some dude (or don't go) and be like ah whatever trip of a lifetime, same price as a good seat to a football game here.

Plus tv rules the world and they'll always dictate when games are played and continue to do so going forward. I'm actually surprised more start times aren't staggered and think you'll see even that changing in the future.

Supporting a lower league team seems like fun. The most fun of the 4 consecutive games I saw in March was a Bristol Rovers home game in the Vanarama Conference. It helped they were good and chasing promotion, but it was all standing in the supporters end, people were singing, the football was more or less **** but it was the best atmosphere.

I sympathize with you guys about ticket prices, the experience, etc... but I'm realistic enough to know it's never changing. I cba to go to a Yankee game anymore, especially since the new stadium, and used to go to 4-5 a summer. NBA games are just some awful PA announcer trying to hype the crowd and players not giving a **** til the 4th quarter. No thanks. NFL games can be fun, but the Giants new stadium sucks all the life out of it, and with outrageous ticket prices, I'll go to maybe one game a year, and that's more for the tailgate with a large group of friends than the actual game itself. Used to have season tickets as a kid, saw playoff games, NFC Championship games. Not the same. Hockey I have a connection for free Devils tickets so they're fun, but wouldn't pay for it. That's the reality. Love sports, but cba to pay the money or go to the live events anymore

And that's because of the equally shared btvditw. Now that the other main leagues in Europe are following suit with equality amongst all clubs when distributing funds from TV deals, maybe the bad English clubs have set a precedent that their foreign counter parts will follow.

top of the Sklansky table - injury crisis cycle is the new boom-bust.

It just came to me that buying Martial could quite conceivably turn out to be a ridicolous failure and embarassment. Which of course would be very amusing

It took you 48 hours to figure that one out?

lol. How was that not your initial thought.

It's good that we bought that top striker so we have more depth now

Seriously speaking we're completely screwed if Giroud (or Walcott) get hurt. I guess Campbell isn't all bad. A passable backup.

its alexis false 9

Yeah that's a good option too. Still I hope we buy a striker in January. And I kinda hope we get knocked out of League Cup so we can focus on PL.

i hope you get knocked out too

dont worry about strikers

get KI for lolcoq and you have something good going in midfield

also ramsey worrying too much about scorepoints, like he needs to make late runs and not run forward to be just receiving the ball with his back to goal. receiving on move vs scrabbling defense is way moar +EV than receiving on move only having to turn around vs scrabbling defense. typical lolbrit heroballing

also ox blows and is a jopke and will play for stoke's collection of failed high potential still young attacking mids or similar

Nah loyal Wenger will dump him on a £150k a week contract like Feo to ensure he ain't going anywhere.

150k a week is pretty standard for England internationals, I'm sure that will be Kane's salary at one of the Manchester clubs next year.