OTF

On the Shola, he's turned into a handy sub off the bench. Frustrating as hell, and injury plagued but has somehow endeared himself despite having a shoddy league goal scoring record. On Demba Ba, we should do all we can within reason to keep him. Letting him go for 7-7.5M whilst a reasonable bit of business would hurt the squad. I'd say him beeing here will help Papiss Cisse and realistically I don't think we'd replace him with someone as good for that price. He is a hot and cold player though as we've seen, started very cold, went very hot and then cooled off to warm in the latter part of the season. Ultimately another capable striking/winger option might help to keep him fresh and on the goal scoring sheet. If we can't keep him, then we can't keep him. There would have to be some contingency players that could be brought in, just hope that it's sorted well before the season starts.

Passing it about can work if you've got a bit of tooth up front and more importantly someone who can unlock the defense/create a chance. Don't really think Liverpool have the latter and Suarez is good at everything apart from scoring. It would be virtually impossible to be worse than they were under Dalglish as they seemingly had no structure whatsoever. Rodgers will have multiple hands up his arse the whole time regardless of the assurances that he was given to get him across the line. He's an easy signing to make because he looks promising, is young and could easily be disposed of if things don't go well. The Liverpool supporters won't be realistic in their aspirations so having a good start will be key. He won't really know how to spend significant money so they're not likely to give him much meaningful say in the transfer of players.

(to the tune of that's amore) He's slim and he's sleek, With a nose like a beak, Amal-fitanooooo He came here from France, In size 28 pants, Amal-fitanooooo When the ball hits the net, It's a goal don't you bet, Amal-fitanooooo

Would be happy for him to stay, but honestly for his footballing development we would not be his best option.

Would be happy for him to stay, but honestly for his footballing development we would not be his best option.

Don't say it too loud in front of Cabaye though, or he might... push your kid over

Probably shouldn't be so negative, but wonder what the wording on their contracts is in regards to their League position, hopefully bonuses are straight out based on finishing in the top four and not contingent upon actual qualification to the Champions Legaue...

What's with everyone wanting to take Crouch? Apart from being shit and a free kick giving machine he's 31. Carroll didn't have a good season, but IMO is better, certainly at the same age he's leagues ahead.

Shame he's going though he has been mixed bag. Had some very good performances in the Championship and then again this season. Could go on to be a very handy player for another team establishing a spot in the first 11.

Their coefficient will be different to Tottenham, but generally they keep teams from the same league apart so it won't affect us. Both will have vastly superior coefficients to us. It doesn't make sense to me that we could enter the competition above Tottenham (if Chelsea were to win Champions League).

Is that right? I think it will stay the same. Tottenham will enter the competition at the same point that Chelsea were scheduled to - that is directly into the Group Stage.

Of our own merit that's right, but we do garner a co-efficient by virtue of the Premier League havign the top league co-efficient. I think ours would be 16.875 (20% of the Premier League coefficient). A team from the Dutch league would have a starting co-efficient of 9.13 so would have to have picked up 8 point on their own to be ahead of us. It's 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw with additional points for making it further in competitions. We could still have a shot at being seeded for the play-off round.

Well done mate.. congrats to the three of you.

From: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2012/draws/round=2000271/index.html So the determination of the seeding will be important.

From the Ashley and Dekka perspective luck is a noticeable chunk of it. At the same time I think Ashley's pay up front approach to transfers must also make us more appealing than most other clubs which would help.

We need to sign another striker even if Best was to stay (on that front I'm not too fussed either way). For roughly a month we'll be without Ba and Cisse next season (Mid January-Mid Feb). Conveniently though the Africa Cup of Nations slots right into a gap between the Group stages and the knockout stages of the Europa league, so at worse if for example Senegal and Ivory Coast both made the final four and we made the round of 32 we'd probably miss our three African players for the first leg of that knockout round.

We only have one home and away leg before the group stages. With that in mind I feel we should play a strong side for that and take each week of the group stages as it comes pending who our opponents are. It is definitely a good chance to get some of our promising up and coming players on the pitch in some meaningful competitive matches. For me it's all about playing football, and so this competition gives us a great chance to pit our side against some of the stronger teams in the rest of Europe. It seems to mainly be an English attitude to discount the importance of this competition.

Having now sewn up our qualification directly into the playoff round of the Europa League, thought I would have a look at some of the clubs that we'll be competing with in this competition. Despite having a bit of a reputation as a bit of a Mickey Mouse competetion there's quite a number of formidable sides who have qualified for next season, and as a result it should be a fiercly contested trophy. In addition to those noted below 15 losers from Chapions League 3rd Round of qualification will enter the playoff stage of the competition, 10 Champions League cast-offs will join directly into the Group Stages and another 8 will join in the subsequent Round of 32. Those already qualified include: Inter Milan, Lyon, Marseille, Athletico Madrid, Athletic Bilbao, Bayern Leverkusen, PSV Eindhoven, AZ Alkmaar, Liverpool, Chelsea/Tottenham, FC Twente, Sporting Club Portugal. Some here have already suggested that our qualification in this competition will adversely affect our League position for next season, but for me we have to treat this competition based on what it means for the club - and for me our qualification in this competition is an amazing achievement and should be treated thusly. The draw for our playoff round opponent takes place on the 10th of August, with the matches scheduled for the 23rd and 30th of August roughly 1 and 2 weeks after the start of the Premier League season. If we progress through that phase to the Group Stages that will be 6 mid-week matches spaced every 2-3 weeks from 20th of September through to the 6th of December. In the scheme of things I don't think that's a particularly huge 'burden' to bear. Each additional stage is a straight out knock-out across home and away legs, excluding the final which is a one off encounter on neutral ground. Given the quality of the sides in the comptetion the teams drawn in each stage will have a huge bearing on the chances of qualification to the subsequent round, how mucch importance and focus would you give this competition? and what do you think a good result for us would be?

Should be a massive suspension from the FA. There's absolutely no reason why they would have any hidden agenda with Barton so I can see them throwing the book at him.

Bwahahaha...

The Cahill reaction seemingly wasn't anything to do with the ballboy incident - not directly anyway. Cabaye also got a yellow for his involvement at the end (though nothing was showed on camera) so he must have done something to provoke Cahill.

Took Cisse 45 minutes to realise that we were the team in maroon.

Posting from a phone at 2AM makes me seem even more illiterate than I actually am.

Cabaye went to get the ball off the ball boy, the kid didn't give him the ball. Cabaye gave him a shove across the chest knocking him back into his chair and took the ball. It was embarrassing, and Cabaye knew it subsequently apologising to the kid at the break.