timeEd32

True, Chelsea more likely to screw us over.

Welp, can say goodbye to extra places. Need 5th to guarantee Europa League Need 6th to guarantee Europe (+ Man City FA Cup win to get Europa League) Need 7th + a City FA Cup win to get Conference League * Note: Conference League would put us in a qualifier; not direct entry to the group stage.

It's so rare I'm impressed by Doku despite thinking he's going to do something every time.

Gordon's December gets a write-off from me. He, and many others, shouldn't have even been playing some of those games. No legs.

Someone on here a couple weeks ago made the point that a final decision on the training ground may be linked to a decision about the stadium. It's very possible there's some truth in that.

I get your point, but there's a big difference between riding some good fortune in a single game (away to a good team no less) and over-performing all of the underlying stats for two years running.

Really need Arsenal to win. I don’t have much faith in West Ham.

Literally can't be worse than having a keeper who is seemingly stuck in knee deep mud at all times.

I've wondered before if I'll still be a lunatic watching NUFC when I'm older. This gives me hope.

Very roughly speaking I think a Europa League R16 appearance would be approximately equal to winning the Conference League. One other pretty sizable difference is in coefficient points. Both give 2 points for a win and 1 for a draw from the group stage onwards (same as CL). But the Europa League bonuses are double the points -- 4 for group winners (vs. 2), 2 for group runners-up (vs. 1), and 1 for every knockout round (vs. only 1 point bonuses for SF/Final).

This is just prize money. All three competitions have the same revenue components: participation, coefficient, TV pool, and performance prize. Then there's the additional matchday income as you said.

This seems quite perfect if we think a loan is the right move.

That £12.5m is just the prize money portion. It's an estimate but West Ham got approx £19-20m in total for the Conference League. The year before they got about £27m from reaching the Europa League semifinal. Arsenal got about £21m from last season's Europa League Round of 16.

I thought the pressure of not being able to have a single slip up would get to Arsenal and potentially Liverpool. Certainly didn’t think it would happen to both today.

That doesn’t help the drunken spending, but it’s not the core reason for the never ending arm’s race.