Brendan110_0
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Some daft comments on here, I expect us to finish top of the group. Bayern/Villareal/Napoli will be sh@ting themselves home and away. The Napoli president is already celebrating the draw like a victory!
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If we went out at the group stage.
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Didsbury Dave
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Brendan110_0 said:Some daft comments on here, I expect us to finish top of the group. Bayern/Villareal/Napoli will be sh@ting themselves home and away. The Napoli president is already celebrating the draw like a victory!
So do I, I posted that in another thread.
We'll win games away in this tournament with more space to play in.
Didsbury Dave
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The OP isn't being a "doom and gloom merchant", he's hyopthesising and it's a valid and interesting discussion.RandomJ said:Fuck me a draw and the doom and gloom merchants come out to play. Can't always win 5-0.
halfcenturyup
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RandomJ said:Fuck me a draw and the doom and gloom merchants come out to play. Can't always win 5-0.
Wait till we don't win in the league ...
Anyway, to answer the question. What we all want year on year is progress. For the league, I guess that means at least challenging for the title this year, and getting closer than last year. For Europe, and for me, group stages of the CL would be perfect, but if not, we need to do better in the Europa.
As far as AD is concerned, I think you will find they are pragmatic and don't do knee-jerk reactions. Good businessmen understand the long-term as long as they believe in their management team. If we don't get to the knock-out stages, it won't be a problem for RM as long as there is progress overall. I think he would need to screw up big time to be in any trouble.
I don't care about money spent etc all I know is we have a very very difficult group and we only played the weakest team in it the other night. If we get through (and I do think we are capable) it will be a fantastic achievement. Remember it took the rags years of Champions League football before they started competing and they spent the equivalent money back then.
larderland
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id be very dissapointed if we didnt get through,but to be honest were lucky in that chances are were going to be in it again next year were as spurs couldnt have said that last year with us on their heels.
well be playing champions league football for years to come so putting all our hopes into this year is silly
well be playing champions league football for years to come so putting all our hopes into this year is silly
kiam06 said:I don't care about money spent etc all I know is we have a very very difficult group and we only played the weakest team in it the other night. If we get through (and I do think we are capable) it will be a fantastic achievement. Remember it took the rags years of Champions League football before they started competing and they spent the equivalent money back then.
But the weakest team did what weak teams do they parked up and used the breakaway.. we will do better against the better more openly confident teams home and away.
Tricky_Trev
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I think it's unfair to say Napoli parked the bus. In my eyes, parking the bus is playing for a 0-0, with no ambition to score a goal. At no point during the game did i feel Napoli were playing for a draw. It was a near perfect away European performance and their execution of the manager's tactics was such that i could not have argued had they beaten us. Sure, we had more shots and more possession, but i was hugely impressed with them and their coach.samharris said:kiam06 said:I don't care about money spent etc all I know is we have a very very difficult group and we only played the weakest team in it the other night. If we get through (and I do think we are capable) it will be a fantastic achievement. Remember it took the rags years of Champions League football before they started competing and they spent the equivalent money back then.
But the weakest team did what weak teams do they parked up and used the breakaway.. we will do better against the better more openly confident teams home and away.
Chris in London
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Tricky_Trev said:I think it's unfair to say Napoli parked the bus. In my eyes, parking the bus is playing for a 0-0, with no ambition to score a goal. At no point during the game did i feel Napoli were playing for a draw. It was a near perfect away European performance and their execution of the manager's tactics was such that i could not have argued had they beaten us. Sure, we had more shots and more possession, but i was hugely impressed with them and their coach.samharris said:kiam06 said:I don't care about money spent etc all I know is we have a very very difficult group and we only played the weakest team in it the other night. If we get through (and I do think we are capable) it will be a fantastic achievement. Remember it took the rags years of Champions League football before they started competing and they spent the equivalent money back then.
But the weakest team did what weak teams do they parked up and used the breakaway.. we will do better against the better more openly confident teams home and away.
This, and I'm not sure you could describe napoli as the weakest team in the group. Villareal just got turned over by Bayern, and Bayern aren't exactly Barca in disguise. Napoli are in Pot 4 because of their comparative European history, just like we were in Pot 3. FFS, Arsenal are a Pot 1 side, but you wouldn't think that to watch them play at the moment.
Napoli were determined not to lose, which is not the same thing as playing for a draw. Their priority was to go home with something, and if it's a win, it's a bonus.
We are in an incredibly tough group. It is a good group in that we don't have any trips to Eastern Turkey or Ukraine before being away at Stamford Bridge the next weekend, but if you take the 4 teams in the group together the aggregate strength of the group is IMO far and away greater than any other group in the tournament, including the group featureing Barca and Milan.
The encouraging thing to my mind is that the anxiety around our debut has now gone. Usually, VK is immense, on Wednesday he was pretty ordinary. I think for the next 5 games he will probably be back to being immense. Dzeko statched at a couple of chances, which in the next group games I suspect he won't. Silva and Narsi were pretty quiet, they wont be usually. In other words, our performance was pretty disappointing and we still got a draw and looked the more likely to win in the last 15m. If we play to our full capacity in the rest of the group games we will qualify without a problem. It is only if we choke that we won't get through, and whilst you can understand first night nerves, I don't think we will have a problem in the future on that score.