Champions League group stage deciders

Feel guilty at watching RS but,at least, the score is in the right direction. Just heard that Sterling ( 20 ) is exactly a year younger than Barkley. I'd bite their hand off for a swap. Ross could be their new Stevie G!

If they end up in the Europa League, I think we already know who we will play next then.

Great! They’re a rubbish team and if we can’t beat them now over 2 legs then that’s just sad. They’ll also be gutted to be out of the CL and we’ll walk right over them... hopefully

Can't play them next Colin. Arranged so two teams from the same league can't play each other in the first knockout round.

Would rather they won and got dumped out in the knockout phase of CL.

Brian #4 It was said more toungue in cheek than anything!
I wonder if UEFA still have Collina's phone number?

Colin - apparently it diverts straight to Andre Marriner

BBC already assuming they will win Europa by the look of it.

Welcome to Thursday night football gobshites!

What a bunch of rubbish? They manage 5 measly points in 6 games and are now favorites to win the Europa League?!! Haha who’s making the odds? Steve Nicol

Pain in the neck - On the one hand I'm glad they can't spawn their way to No6 on the other it's going to steal all our coverage in the media. BTW what happens if they both get drawn to play the home legs in the same week will we as usual have to play second fiddle and bow to them getting their second-legs played at home and we switch to playing at home first?

I would like to express my commiserations to the rs for going out of the CL after a sterling effort.
Argh - what a shame.
Terrible, terrible decision by the ref to send of a rs player. What is the world coming to? Hadn't he read that this was Anfield?
I do hope those poor laugh-a-minute fans don't get wet on the way home. Or stand in any dog shit.
Once again - argh.
(snigger)

Patrick, the Europa league group winners play theifirst league away

I feel slightly soiled after watching them but it's nice to know that last season was a freak and they are back where they belong.

Cheers Peter, I assume that no matter who the other lot draw they will be at home first, unless they draw a EL group winner?

Patrick, they will qualify as a lowest ranked third place qualifier, so will end up with a EL group winner, but not us or Spurs

Peter - that was such a blonde moment from me of course if they get a group winner they will play at home first - Der.

So are all the Europa group winners seeded?

Just seen Ramsey's goal for Arsenal - absolute peach of a goal.

Pot 1 - 12 EL Group winners + 4 best CL drop outs
Pot 2 - 12 EL Second place + 4 worst CL drop outs

Looking at the excellent Bert Kassies site, the Group Winners and the four best ranked 3 place Champions League dropout are seeded and play their second leg at home.

http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedel2014.html

Of the four that's dropped down tonight the RS are third.
Zenit St.Petersburg 73.899
Olympiakos 67.720
RS 58.949
Anderlecht 50.260

Looking at tomorrow night we need any two of Man City, CSKA Moscow, Ajax or Schalke, to finish third in their group and the RS won't be seeded.

News just in.
Andy Townsend has been assured that the stain in his trousers (caused when Stevie Me scored his free kick) will definitely come out, as long as he puts them in on a hot wash.
He can spin dry "on the half turn".

Colin - I read it that the best ranked 4 drop outs (what a wonderful phrase for them!) are seeded and it is not the UEFA seeding that counts. So 5 points puts them down the list. But as my info was also from Bert's site, he has obviously corrected it or I read it wrong first time around.

I'm surprised that they have such a poor seeding co-efficient. You get 15 points for just being English.

Phil - I thought you got a 100 points for being from the Beatles birthplace and wearing red, but obviously being a team from Liverpool is not sufficient to add any points.

I hope they get Wolfsburg

Phil #23 I see what you mean.

It says the 4 best third ranked drop-outs from the Champions League. It doesn't mention how they are 'ranked' though.

Give me a minute and I will try and see how it worked last season!

The shite have been made 10-1 favourites to win the Europa cup.

Phil you're right, I am wrong, last season Napoli, Benfica, Shaktar and Besel were the best drop outs. Ajax, Juventus, Porto and Plzen where the worst and weren't seeded, it went off the ponts gained in the Groups and not the UEFA co-efficient.
Had it gone off the co-efficient then it would have been, Porto, Benfica, Shaktar and Juventus as the best.

So as it stands the RS are the fourth best drop out, as long as 1 team from tomorrow night finishes third with more than 5 points the RS wont be seeded. I think.....

Who cares?

Patrick #11 It won't happen. We all know they will draw us together at the earliest 'legal' opportunity...the million to one shot is an all merseyside final... but they have a habit of coming up every now and again.

Colin
Liverpool cannot finish in the top 4 of the drop outs. Maribor and Schalke play each other in Group G (currently lying 3rd and 4th). Schalke have 5 points Maribor have 3. A win for either club puts them above 5 points. A draw puts Schalke above 5 points. Currently the second place team in that group already has 7 points. So the minimum points total for third place from that Group will be 6 points - the Satanists only have 5 points.

Expect a new Rule any day now which states that any team playing in red, whose name starts with L and ends with L and who have a "right" to play in the CL, will get an automatic bye into the knockout phase should they fail to qualify by actually deserving it... ie, beating the other teams in their Group.

Surprised so many watched that crap.

RS are living on their reputation. TheyÂ’re not a threat.

I turned over to watch the last ten , as I knew it was 1-0 and just checked my Livescore app and saw the red card.

Jinxed the fuck out of them as was able to witness the dive by Stirling and the cracker of a free kick from old creasehead.

Saw them blow a gilt edge chance and then turned over.

It's a knapp that we will face them and once again we will bottle it and another little piece of my soul will wither and die.

We seem to be the only team that still worries about their reputation.

As we won our group we can not draw any other Europa group winners or Champions League drop outs. We will draw a team who finished second in there Europa group. I think there's a good chance we will get Celtic next up.

How about this? We pick up our form considerably in the league and manage to somehow sneak 4th from Arsenal. On the last day. We then play RS in the final of the Europa, dominate them but lose out to a dodgy refereeing decision and Creasehead free kick that Howard fumbles in. They win the cup and get our CL spot from the 4th place finish... the stuff nightmares are made of. Though part of me wouldn't complain if we reach Europa final and come 4th!

Be interesting to see how seriously they go for it in the Europa League, I have a feeling they will make it a priority.

Andrew - You mean like Everton have already done? Well it certainly feels that way at any rate. No need for everybody to go all giddy because the other lot have made it through; if we draw them we can worry about it then, although personally I don't want them involved in the Round of 16 or beyond.

I'm not interested who we get. The best part of going to the match is Operation Goodison Exercise. The footy is shite.

John Keating – the man who just can't waste an opportunity to belittle his own club.

To be fair Patrick, he's not that far wrong at the moment.

At least the announcer calling out, "Commence Operation Goodison Exercise" brings a smile to my face – our turgid footy surely doesn't.

Patrick
I think I have a right to comment on my club. I've been going since 1960 and if I think the footy is shite I will say so!

Maybe some folk accept the dross we're getting this season – if so, then good on them, that's their opinion. I have gone through the good times and the bad – more bad I think – and seen some great managers and players and some crap ones. If we can't express our opinion then nothing will change and if you are happy to accept the fare served up so far then good on you.

I personally couldn't watch Barcelona or Arsenal every week as it would bore me to tears. The difference between their tippy tippy and ours is that they have the players and nous to play that win, and in general get a result. We just look stupid.
So Patrick, you may not like my comment on our shite football... but really I don't give a shit.

I love the way so many people on here need to tell you how long they have been going to the match to justify their right to complain.

Sam (#39), that can't happen as Uefa have changed the rules, if an English team wins the EL or CL then they do not replace a top 4 qualified team, we get a fifth place, although I do not know what happens if English teams win both European tournaments and both finish outside top 4 (however unlikely that may be)

We are not yet in the darkest days that Goodison has seen though Tony, that of course doesn't make everything OK, but we have seen some really awful players and teams in the last few decades and I know we as supporters have resorted to gallows humour on many occasions.

The constant negativity from some supporters isn't going to help the current players to improve and it might result in a bad season being turned into a complete disaster – add to that, being scared of potentially playing the other lot in any game adds to the feeling that some fans have given up on this team. In the past, Everton sides were light years behind the others but at no time did we cede defeat before a ball was kicked and quite often we won some of those fixtures because the crowd got behind their team, despite knowing deep down that their team was inadequate.

I've always advocated supporting the team to the maximum in any given game and if it produces a poor performance then the supporters are entitled to have a go; it's no good if the supporters are going into matches with a negative mindset and turning on their team at the first hint of a mistake...

Now they're in the Europa, can we appeal Markovic's red card? I'd like them to have as much overpriced dross available as possible.

Patrick,

Players and teams have been given stick from day one. I remember poor Derek Temple being the whipping boy of the ground in the 60s. Remember the early eighties when not only didn't the support turn up but they were booed off regularly – Coventry at home around Christmas? It's the nature of the beast and when you take away the supporters' right to scream, shout, criticise, slag the team, then you might as well play behind closed doors.

It's almost impossible to go to a match with "a positive mindset" when the previous games have produced unmitigated crap! When Howard was beaten at his near post against Hull, did you politely clap and exclaim it was a well taken goal then extol the lads on? Possibly a few expletives were more common and if the players don't like it, then tough

By the way, Andrew, it's not the length of time we've supported the team that gives us a right to complain, so apologies if I offended you. If you have supported the team for a week, you have a right/obligation to let the arseholes know. Just I've been moaning – and celebrating – longer than some!

I am still seeing posts saying we can't draw a team dropping from the Champions League. YES WE CAN!!

There are 12 Europa league group winners who are seeded, and 12 runners up who are not seeded. The four best third placed teams in CL who drop down are seeded, while the worst four third placed teams are not seeded. Making a total of 16 seeded and 16 unseeded teams. Meaning we CAN draw a team dropping from the Champions League!!

The RS WILL go all out to win the Europa League as it's the only way they'll get of playing in the CL next season.
Unless, of course, they stamp their little feet and sqweem and sqweem and sqweem until UEFA let them in.

Again.

Yeah, John, I was sat their in my Blazer with shiny buttons politely clapped as Tim was beaten at the near post. "Hard luck old chap" I thought, "never mind there's always the next game", just as I do when any Everton player makes a mistake, however I always give the team a few "hip hips" at the kick-off have a nip of brandy out of my silver flask and stamp my brogues up and down when we score.

John Keating, so how do you compare this team against, let's say, Catterick's team of the early '70s? Or Billy Bingham's lot? Or the team of the early '80s? Or the teams of the '90s and '00s?

I don't doubt you've seen your share of shite players, managers and football (as I have) but if you are comparing this team to that pile of excrement then mate can I make a suggestion? You should've gone to Specsavers.

Gavihno looks a 10 times better player than he did at Arsenal. Causing Man City all kinds of problems.

Patrick,

I understand your desire for the highest of standards to apply to all things Everton, and I agree with that... in the main.

But I think there's a danger when it comes to applying those standards (or indeed any standards) to our own supporters, and in effect 'requiring' them to manifest their support in certain specific ways.

Back in the day, we we would act en masse and have some level of homogeneity as supporters, but one thing this 'ere web thingy has done is to greatly expand our contact with a vast range of Evertonians, and it never ceases to amaze me how differently things are viewed by them as a whole — no doubt a reflection of diverse personalities amongst us.

Maybe I'm too far out in this particular spectrum but I don't like to see any of us judging each other about how we go about supporting our team. You might argue that goes against the mass of fans on the terraces signing in unison — we can sign together (if so inspired by the play on he field) without all having to think alike.

Rob #51, but isn't the point of having seeded and unseeded teams is that the seeded won't play each other (this time round) they can only play unseeded teams?

Eric - Everton could be drawn against Roma, Ajax or Anderlecht who are unseeded drop-outs from the CL, our neighbours are the last of the four but we can't draw them because of the nationality rule in this round.

Michael - The last thing I would want is for every Evertonian to think the same way and the diverse opinions are what makes this site interesting and addictive, however, I'm not sure that taking every opportunity to give negative vibes is the best way to support the club.

Patrick, that's what I understand but it looks like I mis-read Rob's post, I though he was saying we could be drawn against a seeded CL drop out.

Colin
This present team that's played the last few months in a way is a bit like the early 70's team in that a lot of players are coming to the end of their careers, though as the team had achieved something supporters in a way realised it. This lot have done nothing
Bing hams team and the early 80's like this lot had the potential but just needed that bit extra to go on. Kendall proved that. Somehow I doubt Martinez will be able to emulate that. Hope he can but just can't see it.
What I can say is that many times the teams you mentioned were bood off - probably more so than last week.
Regardless of what Patrick says I want my team to win every game and will be the first person to say how great we were - if we were!
However if we are served up dross then I will also say it.
The teams you mentioned weren't bad every week and not every player was crap. Same as this present lot.
If this lot and the manager don't sort themselves out sharpish then in years to come you'll be adding this lot to your list

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2868270/Brendan-Rodgers-microscope.html

So now the seeding is done.

One English team is seeded - Everton

Two English teams are not seeded - Spurs and Liverpool.

And the draw will now be held on Monday. So that gives UEFA almost 4 days to ensure that Liverpool will get drawn against Brugge or Legia Warsaw while Everton will get Roma or Sevilla. Wouldn't be right for their darlings (remember Champions League 2005-06?) to have a difficult match like the Italians or Saltzburg and the blue side of Merseyside to get AaB or Guingamp.

You know it will happen.