Champions League pots

[Oystercatcher28]

Draw it like the FA Cup, scrap the Europa League. Random. That's sort it all out. No UEFA quotas, no points. Good old fashioned chance, might see more interesting knock out stages later on and the development of stronger lesser-ranked nation's teams. And actually allow Champions into group stages with t'other sides ranked 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc qualifying by virtue of qualifiers. Put some romance and some equality back into football. Loads of qualifiers, then a group stage of 12 groups, then more knock out rounds. Then list every final venue for 20 years ahead. UEFA don't care, all about £$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€£$€.

E.g.

Pot A
Real Madrid
Juventus
Bayern Munich
RB Salzburg

Pot B
The New Saints
Chelsea
Dinamo Zagreb
EB/Streymur

 

[jayfx]

We don't deserve any more to be honest.

I still think the Champions of the top leagues should be automatically placed in pot one. Obviously that won't be us nest season but would have been this.

We need to start improving our European co-efficient to be sure of less difficult group placings.

I agree with this too. It's the 'Champions' League, yet runners up can go in a higher ranked pot than the champions of the same league?

 

[cityboy2602]

We don't deserve any more to be honest.

I still think the Champions of the top leagues should be automatically placed in pot one. Obviously that won't be us nest season but would have been this.

We need to start improving our European co-efficient to be sure of less difficult group placings.

I agree with this too. It's the 'Champions' League, yet runners up can go in a higher ranked pot than the champions of the same league?

Never mind runners-up. Arse haven't had a sniff of the title for years and in some seasons have just scraped in fourth, but would get pot 1 if they qualify.

 

[kippaxchris]

The Europa League is a trophy worth winning despite the tediously arrogant attitude the English media and many fans (including some of our own) have towards it.

100% correct and this is why I was surprised to see so many on here write it off as a pointless risk, when the chance to finish the group in 3rd was still in reach.

We did finish the group in 3rd haha Ajax went through on head to head games which is a ridiculous rule as we finished 3rd

 

[Mr. Aguia]

Last season Villareal were in pot 2 and didn't gain a point in our group. This season Dortmund were in pot 4, won the group and were undefeated

There won't be many teams hoping to draw us in their group whether we're in pot 2 or 3, despite our poor showings over the last two seasons

In fairness Villareal lost their 2 best players to injury. Not the same club without those 2 dynamic strikers.

Sure there is a chance that you can get stuck in a tough group no matter what pot you end up. But the chances are less if you are in the top pot.

 

[Deleted member 52846]

The main reason we're so high is due to the success of Chelsea United and Liverpool, and the continual qualification of Arsenal, in the CL; and the fact we play in the Premier League.

Through our own merits we've not really amassed that many points. We're lucky to be ranked where we are.<br /><br />-- Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:49 am --<br /><br />

We don't deserve any more to be honest.

I still think the Champions of the top leagues should be automatically placed in pot one. Obviously that won't be us nest season but would have been this.

We need to start improving our European co-efficient to be sure of less difficult group placings.

I agree with this too. It's the 'Champions' League, yet runners up can go in a higher ranked pot than the champions of the same league?

Never mind runners-up. Arse haven't had a sniff of the title for years and in some seasons have just scraped in fourth, but would get pot 1 if they qualify.

We got into the competition last season and hadn't win a title for 43 years.

 

[moomba]

Last nights results were pretty good to us. Dinamo Kiev knocked out, they were only a point behind us. Ajax weren't too far back either.

Only 6 teams left with a realistic chance of overtaking us.

So second pot still a possibility. You can get a hard draw wherever you finish but better for us the higher we end up.

 

[citytilidie85]

For me the points and pot system is just another way of UEFA trying to keep the status quo of the "elite" teams in Europe. As others have said, how can a team who finish third or fourth be placed higher than a team who wins their league? For me, the winners of the top 8 countries based on FIFA rankings should go into separate groups and the rest are drawn out at random, none of this pot 2, 3, 4 rubbish. Cant make my mind up on the teams from the same league cant play each other though. Over the last 10 years, most seasons I could have picked 80% of the teams who would make it through to the KO rounds, there are always surprises but generally you can predict the teams once the groups have been drawn. If Platini really wants FFP then it has to be fair across the whole board, the way to earn more money is to get into the later rounds, so make it fairer for teams to make the later rounds. If you end with 4 top teams against each other in the groups, then we will really find out who the best are, not playing some non-descript Bulgarian team made up of part-timers!

 

[Oystercatcher28]

For me the points and pot system is just another way of UEFA trying to keep the status quo of the "elite" teams in Europe. As others have said, how can a team who finish third or fourth be placed higher than a team who wins their league? For me, the winners of the top 8 countries based on FIFA rankings should go into separate groups and the rest are drawn out at random, none of this pot 2, 3, 4 rubbish. Cant make my mind up on the teams from the same league cant play each other though. Over the last 10 years, most seasons I could have picked 80% of the teams who would make it through to the KO rounds, there are always surprises but generally you can predict the teams once the groups have been drawn. If Platini really wants FFP then it has to be fair across the whole board, the way to earn more money is to get into the later rounds, so make it fairer for teams to make the later rounds. If you end with 4 top teams against each other in the groups, then we will really find out who the best are, not playing some non-descript Bulgarian team made up of part-timers!

For everyone the points and pot system is a way of UEFA trying to keep the status quo of the elite teams in Europe and inherently stifle development of new competition.

Financial Fair Play goes one further and says, you are either in or you're out. If you're out, you ain't coming in. Like Tescos versus a family ran cornershop, there is only one long term winner.

 

[K-Bo]

Doesn't matter who we get if we play like we do in europe. Ajax got properly done by Bucharest last night, and yet made us look complete chumps.

Performance a bigger problem than the draws, got to sort ourselves out before we can complain about being unlucky.