European and Domestic Cups Discussion 2016/2017

The draw for the Champions League group stages is on Thursday. Arsenal will be, of course, in Pot 2 once more (meanwhile, Leicester fcking City sit nice and cozy in Pot 1), which means playing a super club and so on. The pots aren't complete just yet - those will be up Wednesday night when the playoffs have concluded.

There are also EFL Cup 2nd round matches this week. If you don't know, the EFL Cup was the Capital One cup last year, and the Carling Cup before that. I've never seen a cup go through so many name changes. Just goes to show the worthlessness of it... anyway, the draw for the third round will be on Wednesday I think, and we'll be involved.

FA Cup draw not for a few months yet.

Hope we can make it to the quarters this time.

There are some shit teams in pot 1 so maybe we might get lucky after finishing 2nd in the groups

Well if we're lucky we'll get either Benfica or CSKA Moscow from Pot 1. Pot 3 actually doesn't look that bad because at the moment the hardest team we could draw would be Lyon/Sporting CP/PSV and maybe Roma. There aren't any surprises in Pot 4 either.

Hardest possible draw imo would be:

Barcelona, Arsenal, Roma, Besiktas

Easiest:

CSKA, Arsenal, Club Brugge, Ludogorets/Plzen

After tonight's results, this is what the CL pots look like:

Pot 1: Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Juve, PSG, Leicester, Benfica, CSKA Moscow

Pot 2: Atleti, Sevilla, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Porto, Napoli, Arsenal, Manchester City*

Pot 3: Spurs, Dynamo Kyiv, Lyon, PSV, Sporting CP, Club Brugge, Basel*, BMG*

Pot 4: Monaco, Besiktas, Legia Warsaw, Ludogorets, Celtic*

Still to be sorted: Ajax/Rostov, APOEL/Kobenhavn, Salzburg/Zagreb

* City need to be knocked out for Basel to be Pot 2, which is highly unlikely. BMG have 3 away goals on Young Boys so it's likely they'll be through as well. That would put Celtic in Pot 4.

So my revised hardest group:

Barca, Arsenal, Sporting CP/PSV/BMG, Monaco

Juventus
Arsenal
Club Brugge
Ludogorets

pls

I just don't want to see Barca or Bayern again. Any other Pot 1 team would be more interesting to watch. Not like we're going to win our group anyway.

Would love to face Madrid or PSG. Might even give us an outside chance for a home win.

Updated pots:

Pot 1: Madrid, Barca, Bayern, Leicester, Juve, Benfica, PSG, CSKA Moscow

Pot 2: Atletico, Sevilla, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Arsenal, Napoli, Manchester City, Porto

Pot 3: Basel, Spurs, Dynamo Kyiv, Lyon, PSV, Sporting CP, Club Brugge, BMG

Pot 4: Celtic, Monaco, Besiktas, Legia Warsaw, Ludogorets, Copenhagen, Rostov, Salzburg/Dinamo Zagreb

Nottingham Forest away in the EFL Cup.

Something different

Seems like that sort of match which we would lose by playing kids but no one at the club would be bother.

Group A: PSG, Arsenal, Basel, Ludogorets

Good draw.

Group A
PSG
Arsenal
FC Basel
Ludogorets

Good draw. I like the teams. Wanted to play PSG for some time.

Looking forard to the PSG ties. And contrary to what Sportsczy might say with all his France-bias, I think we will give PSG two really good games.

Good group

New interesting challenge and should get enough pts(10-12) to finish 2nd

The fixture list doesn't look too bad but we do have one run in November of Spurs - United - PSG that looks terrifying.

At least the only Matchday that we play Wed-Sat in CL-PL its two home matches



No Wednesday away in Europe followed by Saturday early kick off Nonsense this time

Thank heavens for that!

It's a tough group, all the teams in this group have european experience. If last year has taught us anything is that we can't underestimate anyone. Not looking forward to the basel and ludo games at all

Sina wrote:At least the only Matchday that we play Wed-Sat in CL-PL its two home matches



No Wednesday away in Europe followed by Saturday early kick off Nonsense this time

#PSG's next game, at home to St Etienne, brought forward to Friday to give them maximum time to prepare for #Arsenal the following Tuesday

— Matt Spiro (@mattspiro) August 29, 2016

Wow!

FA come thru...

FA have no power on that.

EFL Cup 4th round draw:

West Ham vs Chelsea
Manchester United vs Manchester City
Arsenal vs Reading
Liverpool vs Tottenham
Bristol City vs Hull
Leeds vs Norwich
Newcastle vs Preston
Southampton vs Sunderland