Blues handed Kyiv test

That’s also 3 big rivals who will exit.

If anyone saw the draw online, you will have heard Jerzy Dudek praising Wolfsburg when asked about strong teams left in the competition. He forgot to mention us beating them home and away – typical Kopite.

In footballing terms though, this is a winnable tie. Their team is nothing special. And playing at home first shouldn’t be too much of a handicap, we’ve shown that we can go away in Europe and get results.

Hopefully get a good result at home in the firat leg and take it from there..

Yarmolenko is the danger man. Will be a tough game. My advice would be for any blues to stay away from the away leg. If Uefa let them play at their stadium after what happened last match it will be a disgrace.

The Guingamp president, Bernard Desplat, reportedly told RMC: "I saw a stadium at war with rabid dogs that wanted to fight. There were 11 heroes in Guingamp colours on the field because organising a match in these security conditions, when the safety of a certain group is not assured, is catastrophic for football.

"These are not fans, they are militiamen. Restarting play? How do you expect the players to focus on their game? It was extremely dangerous. This match could only have happened in Ukraine under these conditions."

I really did think we looked good, not as dangerous without Lukaku but still creating good chances. Fingers crossed we can keep going like that in Europe and who knows whether Uefa might not do us a favour in terms of the venue for the second leg. COYB.

Villarreal, Seville, Roma and Fiorentina get a hard deal, only one of each to go through into the quarterfinals.

The other 4 sets of two in the draw can fight it out between them to be round of 8 cannon fodder.

We will get through and we won't draw Wolfsburg... if they win.

It's a hard road to Warsaw.

This could all end in tears.

Kiev is not such a long haul as going into deepest Russia, either, but the security situation may be a bit hairy. Wasn’t aware of last night’s crowd problems in Kiev, so there might be a travel ban for away fans.

We could be playing the away leg in a closed stadium, or neutral ground...

Fuck the bookies - our odds are well worth a few quid.

If your face fits you're in

Bookie odds are worked out on how many bets are placed. More bets on Wolfsburg have obviously been placed. Not really the bookies' fault.

"We have to acknowledge around the previous rounds of matches, scenes of violence and racism in and out of the stadiums that neither Uefa nor any true football fan can tolerate," Mr Infantino told the audience.

"That is why we call once again upon all stakeholders to unite and do their utmost to put a full stop to these ugly scenes that we do not want to see any more.

Just shows they are not going to do nothing about it, except ask the countries FAs to deal with it. We will be going to a war zone to play football, a war zone! The British government is saying "Let's stop our youngsters going away to countries where there is war," but Uefa think it is fine?

I said in another thread earlier in the week, that my main worries were the domestic sides. Now they're both out and the other big sides have been drawn against other favourites, the path to Warsaw could be wide open.

Ah well. I won't be heading that way anyway. Kiev is not directly in the war zone, but still like a volcano ready to erupt.

We've got a real shot at this cup with those two gone and many of the 'big guns' pitted against each other. I reckon Wolfsburg, Sevilla and Napoli will be the teams to beat.

Interestingly, we could be the only English team left involved in a couple of weeks, with City and Arsenal heading out, and the Chelski tie in the balance (Although I expect them to progress). It will do English's differential no good.

Of course, we got and difficult situation at the moment, and some of this French fans provoked us with banner "Crimea is Russia" and russian national Flag, thatÂ’s not an excuse, cos we should still be polite etc, but that doesnÂ’t mean, that every supporter in Kiev or Ukraine will answer on such a Provocation.

Yesterday there were 55.000 people on the stadium, and you made conclusion on behavior of 20 idiots... Other 55.000 screamed "shame!" on them. I guess you know, what screamed Chelsea Fans in Paris Underground? So should I think, that every football-fan in UK is a Racist?? In Dynamo Kyiv we got players from Surinam, Morocco, DR Kongo, Brazil, Portugal etc. Should I worry about them? And do you think it would help you, if the game will be on the neutral pitch?

Or why are you so happy about that? I just what to see a good games and support my team on our beautiful Stadium with 70.000 other supporters. Wish you a good day, and to be more polite. And, by the way, Kyiv is in 600km from Donetsk (where the conflict is).

Best Wishes from Kyiv. Hope weÂ’ll beat you on the field.

P.S. Sorry for my "Bad" English, I studied German as foreign language at school.

Put it this way: if that were Everton fans last night, they would have fought back, got battered by the police, and the racist fans and Everton would get blamed by Uefa anyway and probably kicked out. All because they hate English teams.

Martinez needs to keep an eye on the two league games. We cannot afford to squander points against Newcastle and QPR. To me those games are just as important. I don't mean to sound stupid here, but I hope that Martinez is not on some personal crusade to add the Europa League trophy to his CV.

The bigger picture here is that Everton Football Club are a Premier League team next season. When that is secure, then I will start to take this Europa League for real.

Why could we not get a team like Ajax? I hate these bloody Russian/ Ukrainian teams. Remember the 5-1 mauling we got a few years ago.

A lot of games will be coming thick and fast in the next few weeks. A real test of character for Martinez and his players. Here's hoping that they are up to the challenge. COYBs.

Fingers crossed it all goes well. I want a mega team soon. An Inter or Roma, would do. Would that count as going east?

I'd much rather Kiev over Inter although we could have done with the away leg first. a decent lead is a must at Goodison to take to their place.

Looking at Kevin Tully’s link to the clashes, it’s not as bad as portrayed and reading some of the comments, the fans not involved are apparently shouting ’Shame!’ at the disruptive element.

UEFA shouldn’t be happy with the invasion and disruption to the match, even if as some reports state the visiting French fans were provocative with banners claiming ’Crimea is Russian.’

All very bizarre, with the Kiev players in close quarters to the invading fans, doing more to persuade them to return to the stands than the stewards.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this one plays out, possibly to Everton’s benefit ... or ... not, as the case may be!

I don't know if many of our fans will be aware of where some away fans were seated at last nights game. I sit in the Upper Bullens towards the Park End, and there is a wooden barrier that usually separates the home fans from the away fans. But last night the part of the Upper Bullens were the away fans sit was left empty and the Young Boys fans were sat in the Everton section, with only a couple of police and stewards to keep the peace.

Thankfully the atmosphere between both sets of fans was very friendly. I did ask a steward as to why they weren't in the normal away section and he said that Uefa insist that fans must be able to see both goals clearly... well, that didn't apply to Wolfsburg or Lille fans who were housed in the away section.

On a serious note, Ukraine is a war torn country. Surely the safety of everyone connected with Everton is paramount. And surely the powers that be will see that. Its a game that we could have done without. On so many levels. And what's the odds that we draw another Eastern block team, should we go through here.

Never bloody straightforward with Everton. Is it???

Bookies don't do tend to lay odds on anything other than hard cold logic. They wouldn't last long otherwise.

Of course they don't always get it right but its not really a surprise they are favourites even given the fact we beat them twice. Don't forget in our last Europa campaign we beat the eventual winners in the group stages.

Anyone who claims if that'd happened in England there'd be repercussions is 100% accurate. It's unacceptable. Thugs jumping out of the stands to cause chaos isn't acceptable and UEFA would quickly sanction any English Club who's supporters did what happened there.

The game should be played minimally at a neutral site, preferably behind closed doors.

UEFA will do nothing and it's a joke frankly.

I wouldn't blame one single Everton supporter for not going. It's a dangerous trip - it's that simple.

This is a game. One people are passionate about but in the end it's just a game. No one watching a game should be hurt or attend fearful for their safety.

Great draw on footballing terms I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbD6W7YT5A

These two countries are at war, unofficially or not. Insane. It would be harsh on the club and team I know, but shouldnÂ’t there be a "if your entire country is currently a No Fly Zone, then sorry, take this year off the Europa League" rule !?

I'm not for a moment condoning how the likes of some right-wing eastern European supporters behave, but in a way the hostility to away teams does have a bit of old-school value in regards generating a "Colosseum like" atmosphere. It's not cricket, it's football!!! and for that matter, I wish they would bring terraces back.

This is an eminently winnable contest, even with our dismal shortcomings domestically.

Kiev should be safe enough; it's far from the conflict zone and it's in the ostensibly pro-Western part of the country, so we should theoretically be made to feel welcome there, even more so now that our government is goading Russia, oops, I mean sending "advisers" there to help out.

Re Bayern playing Donetsk, that was at a venue in the far west of the country, closer to Munich (seriously) than to Donestk, which is in the war zone in the far south east of the Ukraine. I wouldn't compare the two ties at all.

Then again, if things are that bad that we canÂ’t play to our full potential, I would expect the club to take legal action against Uefa.

About time the club stood up for itself for once.

Donetsk play in west Ukraine so even their games are safe.

My guess is that it could be a closed doors affair at Dinamo's ground.

Shame we didn't get the home leg second though.

Nurse! NURSE!! He's doing it again.....

The ground might be safe and sound. The county is clearly not.

Before I headed to the Euro's over there, I was warned by Sol Cambell, the BBC, ITV and every man and his dog to be afraid. The truth being that you would see more trouble on a kids playground than we saw there.

I'm not saying don't travel carefully, but I would advise caution anywhere. Sure, they have Ulta's who are scum, but that's true of many clubs and countries.

Bad draw for players and fans,... It's about the best we could have hoped for.

He makes some very good points about how we wouldn't want to be characterised by the actions of either a minority or another club while also pointing out, as others have done, that the fighting is many hundreds of miles from Kyiv. It is not tantamount to sending our fans to a "war-torn" area at all.

Please carry on posting. Great to hear from you.

The impression a lot of people over here have, which I agree is generalistic and small-minded, is that Eastern Europe is cold, hard poverty stricken with a lot racist nazi factions. Of course there is an awful lot more to the eastern bloc but when it comes to football this is the impression some will have because of the images we see and the articles we read about from time to time.

There's also lots of how worthless the Europa League is. Presumably if Everton were to win it, this would be confirmation that it is easy to win. Still, it is rather amusing how despite its being a really easy competition to win, Liverpool went through it and out faster than a dodgy curry!

Didn't look that bad, on the link, and makes the battle of the valley, look like Zulu!

Hope that fans are allowed to go, and can assure Edward 57, that there wouldn't be a Russian flag in the Everton end.

Chris Davies has got it right for me; let's just enjoy the football!!