How many qualify this year? 4 for the CL, FA Cup winners, Worthington Cup and on or two from the League? If it's two then we will be in the UEFA cup guaranteed? If it's only one then we need Arsenal OR Chelsea to win tbe cup.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

Answers

I've been wondering that myself. Is the Worthless Cup winner in the CL or UEFA? I guess either way it takes a spot away from one of the top 6 finishers in the league?

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

Kegsy, AFAIK, the top 2 in the Premiership get automatic qualification into the CL. Places 3-4 go into a CL play-off and if they fail, they get a UEFA Cup place. Beyond that, I believe the FA has 4 places up for grabs in the first "proper" round of the UEFA Cup (there are qualifiers for that too - Inter-Toto group winners, Fair-Play winners etc). Of the four English places, 1 is already decided - Blackburn having won the WC and of the last 4 in the EPL, only @rse are also in the FAC. Our goal must be a CL qualification spot - ie 3rd or 4th in the EPL. That way, the rest doesn't matter. It's going to take some strange results elsewhere (not to mention our own) to get 1st or 2nd.
From the orificial UEFA site: Entrants The UEFA Champions League is open to each national association’s domestic champions, as well as clubs who finish just behind them in the domestic championship table. The number of clubs which can be entered by an association depends on the association’s position in UEFA’s coefficient ranking list. Restructured The UEFA Cup has been restructured following the decision to abolish the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup after the 1998/99 season. It is open to teams who are ranked just behind the leading clubs in each country’s domestic championship, as well as to winners of domestic cup competitions. Again, the number of clubs which can be entered by an association depends on the association’s position in the UEFA coefficient ranking list. Sixteen clubs eliminated in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League take part in the UEFA Cup first round, and the eight clubs which finish the first group stage of the UEFA Champions League in third place in their respective group enter the UEFA Cup in the third round. Various entry points Entry to the UEFA Cup (at the first-round stage) is also assured for the three teams who win the final matches in another UEFA club competition, the UEFA Intertoto Cup – a summer competition introduced in 1995. UEFA has made great efforts to promote the ideals of sportsmanship in recent years, through its widespread Fair Play campaign, and three places in the UEFA Cup qualifying round are awarded to clubs from associations on the basis of UEFA’s Fair Play ranking list, which is drawn up at the end of each season.

As clear as mud then, eh? I couldn't find the coefficients nor their consequent qualification numbers :-(

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

Thought I read somewhere that qualification for England teams are as follows:

Top four = CL (3rd and 4th to play qualifiers) 5th, FA and Worthless winners = UEFA 6th or the next best team that apply for Intertoto gets Intertoto spot.

In the event, Arse win FA Cup, then 6th gets UEFA and 7th get Intertoto. Now if the Intertoto spot is for the team that finishes highest without getting into CL or UEFA, that team must have applied to enter two months back, if not they don't get the spot which goes to the next highest that have applied. For example:

Arse don't win FA Cup,Chelsea finish 6th but they didn't apply for entry into Intertoto, Villa who applied but finish 7th get the spot.

I think that's how it works. As Screacher says, there are other factors like Fair play spot so there might be more spots for English teams.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

What if.. Liverpool or Manure win the champs league and finish outside the top 4, do we get 5 places?

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

No - I believe I heard that being discussed on 5Live recently.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

That's right Clarky. I think we're limited to 4 places in the CL in total. Now, should the eventual winners of this year's comp finish outside the top 2, I dunno how this would affect the allocation of teams into next year's comp - CL winners plus 1st & 2nd in EPL strihgt into PL proper or only the EPL winner with 2nd joining the qualifiers? Ee, it's a right bu99ers muddle, innit. Only UEFA could concoct something as daft as this to make even more money for themselves. We're probablyj ust as well out of it as it's far to complicated for a bunch of thick Geordies to grasp. I have the feeling it's all been done just to confuse YBR :)

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

......you're right Screach - he's still struggling with the comparitively trivial concept of "tactical substitutions"! ;o{)

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

Try http://www.uefa.com/uefa/News/Kind=32768/NewsId=13582.html for an even more full, and incomprehensible explantion

Spain Italy England get the same numbers of teams in. England give up 6th place in the League to allow Worthless Cup winners to have a place.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

The holders autoamtically qualify. The top 4 in England are also entered. If Man U won CL and finished 5th I think we'd have 5 teams in it.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

MacB, I always thought that was the case too but have heard from various people that they've scrapped that rule. Nobody seems to be too clear on who the 4 teams would be though - would be a real shame for the holders to miss out but surely they couldn't take away a place from the 4th place team? It may be that the winners don't get to defend their trophy - apparently Fifa in their wisdom have decided that the World Cup winners will no longer qualify automatically.

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

My understanding is that the winners will automatically qualify to defend their championship but will take up one of the slots allocated to their country. Otherwise, with so many as four teams already qualifying from some countries, this could make it five. That's almost the whole of the Scottish Premiership, er not that that's a very suitable example like. Champions League. Pah!

-- Anonymous, March 24, 2002

Well that's us fucked then...we're gonna finish 6th and not get in unless Arse win the FA Cup....

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Morning Gav. Surprised at your cheery optimism. You must be out of your young ladies black books then. Otherwise you would have had us at seventh or eighth, with an Intertoto place touch and go. Personally I think we'll just about hang on to 4th, but the Everton game is critical, both for the points, and the confidence factor.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Go on then...I'll agree with you, if we beat Everton then i'll give us a "chance" of holding onto 4th...if we lose or draw then it's a definite 6th spot...I don't think even this shower of shit could manage 7th....

Nice to see Everton look like their getting a bit of form for our match this weekend.... :((

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Don't worry, Dunc is bound to pull up lame now he's scored :-)

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Oh for the days of a more civilised and gentlemanly competition such as the Inter Cities Fairs Cup, the labyrinthine rules of which, meant that you could qualify in a leisurely 10th place, and teams above failed to qualify because the 5th letter of their name wasn't a vowel or some such thing.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Bobby, since Dunc has been made captain, he's supposedly in great form. We'll lose or draw on Friday. Also think we'll lose to Fulham after listening to their webcast yesterday. Their announcers were all but slitting their wrists and moaning about how awful their run in will be and how they know there's no chance when they visit us. Meaning....the black and white Santa will be in full giving mode. ;-)

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Ciara, have you met Gav yet?

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

You implying that my footiepessimism(tm) disease is catching? it's been awhile developing Ciara but she has indeed met me...so you'd better watch out!

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Pessimists and misery guts of the world unite! We'll be down at Ye Olde Spilled Pint if anyone wishes to join us. ;-))

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Pessimism softens the fall on the way down and enhances the high on the way up. Fail safe method for survival. Thing is I'm still a glass half full person as regards this season - for instance I never thought we'd get much out of the Arsenal game. However, I don't think we've been playing as badly as people are making out and I reckon we may still see another twist in the tale. With ManU playing Leeds and Chelsea, it's not inconceivable that they drop to 5th with us and Chelsea sharing 3rd and 4th ;-)

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Very true, Pete. Not getting my hopes up, but I'd love it (just love it) if that scenario came true. :-)

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Pessimism softens the fall on the way down and enhances the high on the way up.

Bollox!!!! I'm sorry - this theory is ludicrous and I'll tell you why in the following irrefutable manner. Let's imagine a scenario where we win the title on the last day of the season Ok - that's testing our imagination quite a bit but bear with me here :-). During that entire season the doom-mongers will have written us off with no chance - whilst the optimists will have been wetting themselves in anticipation all through the season. Come the final day and the title is won - are you seriously trying to tell me the doom-mongers will enjoy it more because it's more than they expected? I think not - I think we will all enjoy it equally. But the doom- mongers have been unhappy for the whole season whereas the optimists enjoyed it all the way through!

Consider the scenario where we lose out on the final day of the season. Again the pessimists were happy throughout and are disappointed on the final day. Is the doom-mongers unhappiness less because they expected to lose? If you tell me yes I'll tell you it was not because they are pessimists but because their love of the Toon is less. We would all suffer equally to lose out on the last day but the pesimists will have suffered that all season.

Optimism is the only approach to football support and I've got no time at all for smart-arse predictions of a 0-2 defeat and then coming up afterwards and saying "told you so". We should all be equally disappointed by any defeat regardless of our prior expectations.

Here endeth the lesson.

BTW if we win the next 8 we will go very, very close :-)

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Correction to the last post. The 2nd sentence of the 3rd paragraph beginning "Again the pessimists" should read "Again the optimists". What a shame we're not on a board that allows u to edit the errors in yr messages.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

We can pretty easily finish 2nd.

Assuming we win the games in hand we're 2 points behind Manure & 3 behind the Scouse lot. Not totally unachievable.

The tricky bit is the 7 point gap behind Arsethingy.

Come on guys we've achieved miracles this season already coming from behind against many teams. 2nd is a lot easier.

Signed a paid up member of the 1/2 full brigade.

PS I still believe in Santa

PPS & the Toothfairy

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

a yeti ate the toothfairy I believe

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

a yeti ate the toothfairy I believe

What a fanciful imagination you have Macbeth. I'm surprised you've got to this age without finding out but let me put you straight. There's no such thing as a yeti.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Well said Jonno - and I reckon if we win our last 8 we'll win the whole thing. Bit concerned about this 4th place thing though - Does this mean we all have to desperately hope Man United or Arsenal don't win the CL and finish 5th, thus potentially pipping us for our rightful CL spot? It's all too complicated - normally I want Man United to lose in the CL, but this season I've been wanting them to progress to pile up their fixtures..... so now I have to want them to lose again?

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Well said too Jonno - I'm a born optimist. ANd Manu playing Arsenal may yet have a bearing on things. Anyway it could be worse - how about having the Mackems run in given their position? 30.03 Arsenal A 01.04 Leicester City H 07.04 Leeds * A 13.04 Liverpool # H 20.04 West Ham A 27.04 Charlton A 11.05 Derby H

I still hope they take some points off Arse, 'Pool & Leeds - say 1 from each and then lose the rest! :o))

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

AdK, Ar$enal are already out of the CL marra, the Scouse are still in!

Surely you meant Manure or Ar$e (L'pool) to win the CL...er, for our 'benefit'?

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

...agreed, way to complicated, let's just finish second or, dare I say it, FIRST!!!

-- Anonymous, March 25, 2002

Liverpool, Arsenal, Man United..... no wonder I'm confused, they all play in red!! Probably best if I just continue to ignore the CL and focus on our games, at least I always know who I want to win.

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002

Should we change our away strip to red?

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002

Well, I've got 50 quid riding on us finishing in the top four, so I've got to be an optomist. :-o

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002

Go ahead Mick....join the fools if you wish...

I don't view myself as a pessimist, more as a realist....you lot are just nutters! how you can really believe that we're going to finish 4th when we've a history of bottling, falling at the final fence and disappointing....

Our current form is poor, the goals have dried up and the teams below us are putting some form together....

I will not be back to tell you I told you so when it happens, I rarely if ever do that! i'm usually too disappointed by the let down as well...

-- Anonymous, March 26, 2002