villa4europe Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 26 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: You think its a myth? I think you are going to be in for a reality shock if you think so. The step up is huge as we will find out. I don't think it's a step up in terms of quality I just think there's a learning curve as to what European football is all about and as we showed last season we are very green, hardly any of our team have any experience beyond the games last year Off the top of my head our players with CL games under their belt are Pau and Tielemans, that's it unless the new juve boys have some, maybe bailey at Leverkusen? Carlos? I wouldn't even say we are blessed with players with tons of international experience either That is our biggest issue, not that the likes of Sparta Prague are better than us But like I keep saying I really don't care, hope we get a good draw in terms of exciting matches and good away trips, hope we get at least one game that goes down in villa history, another Ajax at home moment, if we don't get out of the group then so be it if it's in the context of a tough draw, I moan about PL teams who are happy to be there and don't look to compete but for us in our first CL season that's where I am, I'd rather play real Madrid away and not qualify from the group than Leipzig and go through I'd love Bayern at home in the 150th year, imagine if we beat them 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 27 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Yeah draw its all about the draws. We will definitely have to be better away from home in europe. We were pretty poor against lille, and olympiakos in the latter rounds Was also pretty poor away to Legia Warsaw and Zrinjski. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brommy Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 40 minutes ago, ender4 said: I'm slightly more optimistic than you. Mainly because the team that finishes in 27th position out of 36 qualify for the play-off round. We only need to be better than 9 other teams which i think we will be. Of course, a lot depends on the draw - we could get stinkers or a pretty easy draw. My understanding is the team that finishes as low as 24th, from the league of 36, qualifies for the home and away two leg ties, with 1st to 8th already through, 9th plays 24th, 10th plays 23rd, 11th plays 22nd and so on. We need to be better than 12 teams in the league of 36, but I do agree with your general point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ender4 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 7 minutes ago, brommy said: My understanding is the team that finishes as low as 24th, from the league of 36, qualifies for the home and away two leg ties, with 1st to 8th already through, 9th plays 24th, 10th plays 23rd, 11th plays 22nd and so on. We need to be better than 12 teams in the league of 36, but I do agree with your general point. Oh yes, you are right. We need to finish 24th to get through to the play-offs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomav84 Posted August 1 VT Supporter Share Posted August 1 1 hour ago, Demitri_C said: You think its a myth? I think you are going to be in for a reality shock if you think so. The step up is huge as we will find out. step up from what though? city and arsenal? we beat them both last season. lille are in the CL...we beat them too i'm not saying it's easy. but people talk like it's some super league, at a whole other level to the PL. it's not. there's a handful of teams in pot 1 that would challenge for the PL title most seasons but aside from that i'd expect anyone in the top half of last season's PL to qualify for the playoffs in the new format i imagine a lot of it is based on newcastle's performance in the competition last season. they got the group of death...we don't have that this time 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 32 minutes ago, villa4europe said: I don't think it's a step up in terms of quality I just think there's a learning curve as to what European football is all about and as we showed last season we are very green, hardly any of our team have any experience beyond the games last year Off the top of my head our players with CL games under their belt are Pau and Tielemans, that's it unless the new juve boys have some, maybe bailey at Leverkusen? Carlos? I wouldn't even say we are blessed with players with tons of international experience either That is our biggest issue, not that the likes of Sparta Prague are better than us But like I keep saying I really don't care, hope we get a good draw in terms of exciting matches and good away trips, hope we get at least one game that goes down in villa history, another Ajax at home moment, if we don't get out of the group then so be it if it's in the context of a tough draw, I moan about PL teams who are happy to be there and don't look to compete but for us in our first CL season that's where I am, I'd rather play real Madrid away and not qualify from the group than Leipzig and go through I'd love Bayern at home in the 150th year, imagine if we beat them Maatsen just played in the final and then Digne, Olsen, Emi, Tielemans, Pau, Carlos, Bailey, Barkley, Onana, Kosta, Kamara and Dendoncker have all played Champions League at one stage of the career 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa89 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 1 hour ago, Demitri_C said: The step up is huge as we will find out. Its not. Newcastle beat PSG last year. In reality Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal are as good as any team in Europe apart from Real Madrid. There are 8-10 really good teams in the CL and then the rest aren't any better than us. Not saying we will qualify but it's nothing to be feared. We could easily win four group games and that *should* be enough to qualify. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 36 minutes ago, tomav84 said: step up from what though? city and arsenal? we beat them both last season. lille are in the CL...we beat them too i'm not saying it's easy. but people talk like it's some super league, at a whole other level to the PL. it's not. there's a handful of teams in pot 1 that would challenge for the PL title most seasons but aside from that i'd expect anyone in the top half of last season's PL to qualify for the playoffs in the new format i imagine a lot of it is based on newcastle's performance in the competition last season. they got the group of death...we don't have that this time We beat city (but they did have a lit of players out) but then we git beaten quite easily at their place. Arsenal was two exceptional victories i agree. Yeah thats true abiut group stage. I have no idea if this means it will be better or worse for us qualifing for next round. Its just going to be annoying we will have two extra games if we finish in that middle tier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 21 minutes ago, villa89 said: Its not. Newcastle beat PSG last year. In reality Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal are as good as any team in Europe apart from Real Madrid. There are 8-10 really good teams in the CL and then the rest aren't any better than us. Not saying we will qualify but it's nothing to be feared. We could easily win four group games and that *should* be enough to qualify. Arsenal lost to Lens and Porto last season while United got knocked out by Copenhagen and Newcastle while they did beat PSG they still finished bottom of the group Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomav84 Posted August 1 VT Supporter Share Posted August 1 23 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: We beat city (but they did have a lit of players out) but then we git beaten quite easily at their place. Arsenal was two exceptional victories i agree. Yeah thats true abiut group stage. I have no idea if this means it will be better or worse for us qualifing for next round. Its just going to be annoying we will have two extra games if we finish in that middle tier i think that would be considered a sucess (qualifying for the next round) first time in the competition, i don't think we can expect much more than that but equally i think we're more than capable of doing that and i'd be disappointed not to finish in the top 24. should only need 3 wins out of 8 to get that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 6 minutes ago, tomav84 said: i think that would be considered a sucess (qualifying for the next round) first time in the competition, i don't think we can expect much more than that but equally i think we're more than capable of doing that and i'd be disappointed not to finish in the top 24. should only need 3 wins out of 8 to get that. Pretty much this. I hope people arent thinking we can win it. I remember at the last final was actually comparisons that if Dortmund get to the final then so should we. If people think that way then be very disappointed I think knockouts should be the aim and its achievable and anything after a bonus. The new league structure might throw teams off guard if havent prepared for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Playing teams like Dortmund or Leipzig or Porto is not a problem. We can match them. The problem is playing teams like Arsenal, Porto, and Liverpool in a space of a week. And doing so for a number of weeks. That's where the quality kicks in. We can beat teams of Arsenal level in a one off game. But can we do so consistently? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterSw Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 Guaranteed 8 games and a top 24 finish guarantee's another 2.. big financial incentive there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duke313 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 2 hours ago, Demitri_C said: Qualified and being able to compete are two veey different things though. I think we are going to struggle. I was expecting to sign some proven CL players to be honest. Only maatsen really has been bought in that has that. If it's proven CL players you're after, maybe we should have kept Countinho, Sanson and Chambers about, lots of CL appearances between them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Posted August 1 VT Supporter Share Posted August 1 It's almost hard not to qualify; The old villa would find a way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 1 hour ago, Zatman said: Maatsen just played in the final and then Digne, Olsen, Emi, Tielemans, Pau, Carlos, Bailey, Barkley, Onana, Kosta, Kamara and Dendoncker have all played Champions League at one stage of the career You take Olsen and tielemans off there and I think the rest have less than 100 appearances between them, we've got maybe 180 CL appearances across the group, then you trim that down and look at our realistic best 11 it drops to maybe 100 ??? If you look at our key players and say Emi, Konsa, Pau, Tielemans, Bailey, Ollie none of them have over 50 champions league games or more than 5 CL campaigns, emi has 2 games, Konsa Ollie (and Mings if he comes back firing) have 0, only 3 players in our squad have more than 50 caps and one of those is Olsen Depending on the qualifiers there's only 3 new teams I think (us, Girona, bologna) You then look at say benfica and say we can give them a game, otamendi has over 100 European games under his belt by himself... In general we are amateurs at European and international football and that's why I think we sometimes struggle, there is a difference to it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 2 hours ago, brommy said: My understanding is the team that finishes as low as 24th, from the league of 36, qualifies for the home and away two leg ties, with 1st to 8th already through, 9th plays 24th, 10th plays 23rd, 11th plays 22nd and so on. We need to be better than 12 teams in the league of 36, but I do agree with your general point. From my (not very) extensive research on FM24, 9 points generally sees you qualify for the top 24. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders129 Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 (edited) 34 minutes ago, villa4europe said: You take Olsen and tielemans off there and I think the rest have less than 100 appearances between them, we've got maybe 180 CL appearances across the group, then you trim that down and look at our realistic best 11 it drops to maybe 100 ??? If you look at our key players and say Emi, Konsa, Pau, Tielemans, Bailey, Ollie none of them have over 50 champions league games or more than 5 CL campaigns, emi has 2 games, Konsa Ollie (and Mings if he comes back firing) have 0, only 3 players in our squad have more than 50 caps and one of those is Olsen Depending on the qualifiers there's only 3 new teams I think (us, Girona, bologna) You then look at say benfica and say we can give them a game, otamendi has over 100 European games under his belt by himself... In general we are amateurs at European and international football and that's why I think we sometimes struggle, there is a difference to it Emi is not a great example to use tbf. The guy won the world cup Edited August 1 by rodders129 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 7 minutes ago, rodders129 said: Emi is not a great example to use tbf. The guy won the world cup Yeah he has But he has 2 games worth of experience of travelling across Europe to play mid week CL games He's a prime example of what I mean, one of our best players, won the world cup, has international experience...doesn't know what the CL is about, we're playing say fenerbahce, their keeper has 82 European games under his belt and 57 caps, he's obviously not better than Emi but he's more experienced You will find that all over our team Legia was not because they were better than us as a team, we're green to the occasion, it's not the step up in quality that will be our problem because I agree largely the step in quality bar pot 1 and half of pot 2 is a myth, it's going to be the lack of comparative experience that gives us problems We as a team don't know what this tournament is about, every danger even our "lesser" opponents do Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 1 Share Posted August 1 2 hours ago, duke313 said: If it's proven CL players you're after, maybe we should have kept Countinho, Sanson and Chambers about, lots of CL appearances between them. When was chambers ever proven at CL level? Sanson? Id never heard of him before he signed for us. Coutinho was out in the cold when we signed him only someone silly enough like gerrard would have signed him permanently Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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