Baggio

Just so people know how we can qualify, I'll put a copy of it in the opening post too. English European Competition Qualification 2011/12 1st Champions League Group Stage (currently Manchester City) 2nd Champions League Group Stage (currently Manchester United) 3rd Champions League Group Stage (currently Tottenham) 4th Champions League Third (Final) Qualifying Round (currently Arsenal) 5th Europa League Third (Final) Qualifying Round (currently Chelsea) League Cup Winners - Europa League Qualifying. (Liverpool or Cardiff City) If winners achieve Qualification via League Position this slot goes to the highest placed team not qualified via other means. FA Cup Winners - Europa League Qualifying. If winners achieve Qualification via League Position the runners-up will take their place in Europa League. If both have achieved qualification via League Position the slot goes to the highest placed team not qualified by other means. How can NUFC get in to Europe? Champions League: NUFC Finish in the top 4. Unlikely. Less unlikely than before, but still pretty unlikely. Europa League: NUFC Finish 5th NUFC win FA Cup NUFC reach FA Cup Final but lose to Champions League Qualified Team NUFC Finish 6th with Liverpool winning the League Cup and finishing 5th NUFC Finish 6th with two teams contesting the FA Cup Final who have already qualified for Europe (CL place or Europa Lge via League or League Cup) NUFC Finish 7th with two teams contesting the FA Cup Final who have already qualified for Europe (CL place or Europa Lge via League) AND Liverpool win the League Cup whilst finishing in a position that would afford them European Qualification.

A great FA cup draw for us! Basically means we can't be screwed by the draw in not getting 2 of Chelsea, Liverpool or Spurs in the final, it's down to them now to keep winning to keep 7th for Europe open. EVERTON v SUNDERLAND STEVENAGE or SPURS v BOLTON CHELSEA or BIRMINGHAM v LEICESTER BRIGHTON or LIVERPOOL v STOKE

Done.

Chisora has shown he's durable enough with good stamina, 2 things that Haye struggles with so I think it could be a good one. Haye's fast with excellent power but his run at heavyweight is overrated due to winning a close fight with someone who's 7ft, even though the same bloke got a gift decision against old man Holyfield. Speaking on the brawl I always remember Larry Holmes drop kicking someone off the top of a car. Others were Lewis vs Tyson, Barrera vs Morales and Riddick Bowe put 2 on someone in the face off. Who were the 2 British guys (I think) rolling around in the street with their suits on in the build up?

I don't think it was put on like the Audley fight, these 2 genuinely hate each other as does Frank Warren hate Haye too. I can remember when Haye fought Enzo Mac (Not even going to attempt to spell it) and Warren said if he loses he will give up promoting which he took a lot of shit for, he's also insinuated that Haye and his trainer have used HGH to bulk up from Cruiserweight in the past too. I'd like to see them fight as I think it would be competitive unlike a Haye vs Vitali fight, I wouldn't read too much in to Chisora's recent record as he was robbed on the scorecards in his last fight, I know compubox doesn't give a fair reflection of the fight but he landed nearly double the punches of his opponent and still didn't get the decision. Heavyweight boxing is terrible though and has been for nearly a decade.

Did Haye attempt to glass him?

Vitali Klitschko has one of the best chins I've ever seen in boxing, I don't see Hate knocking him out at all.

Not the best results for us today, we really need 2 of the other top teams to make it to the cup final otherwise we stand a good chane of missing out on Europe. If they don't meet then we could come 6th above Liverpool and still not qualify. The flip side of it is it would be a great time for Arsenal and Chelsea to hit a bad patch, the difference between them and us is the pressure that they will be under, it's just a shame we've got to go to both of their grounds still. 7th season without a trophy for Arsenal now unless they get a miracle in the Champions League.

Get in! Sturridge is quality.

We really need Chelsea to qualify today to help keep 7th place qualification open btw.

No to Mourinho? Fucking hell.

I can't think of many games this season we've played badly under Pardew, even the West Brom game we played well and rightly pushed for tue winner, I thought we looked good in the second half and the scoreline flattered them massively. People seem to be complaining that we've shut up shop against the likes of Wolves and Everton yet we still took maximum points from those games. We're approaching the last dozen games and people are still dwelling on the Norwich and Fulham fixtures, crazy.

You said 'easy and correct' to a post that says we would be sat comfortably in 4th with a deeper squad. If you don't agree then why say it's correct?

so easy and correct I agree with some of it but I don't share your optimism that we would be 4th, we've seen earlier in the season when people wanted Ben Arfa, Santon and Marveaux brought in despite the team being undefeated that better players don't always guarantee an improvement, however we definitely have to improve the depth if we are competing in Europe next season or not. Hopefully some of the promising youngsters are capable of making the step up too.

We will have Didier Claude Deschamps managing us by then apparently if Pardew can't get the best out of Ben Arfa, despite Deschamps being the one that kicked him out of Marseille in the first place...

The one thing I love about this seasons is the different opinions that people have on how well the team is doing. For example there's the view of Leases that we're over achieving with the squad we've got and Parses will be off when a more ambitious club come in for him, an opinion he's perfectly entitled too. Then there's my opinion that a few people share that we are where we deserve to be and probably have the 7th best squad in the league. A quick visit to N-O has HTT and Mick calling for Pardew to be replaced as we're not playing like Brazil and we are where we are on the quality of the squad but a better manager would have us 4th. Crazy how different the opinions are.

Half price season tickets were sold prior to the name change. So it hasn't decreased then.

Have attendances dropped this season since the name change or have they remained consistent?

Steve Bruce had an interview there today.

Only Tottenham came top 4 of them as well. 2010/11 - Sunderland 37pts (10th, 47pts) 2009/10 - Spurs 43pts (4th, 70pts) 2008/09 - Everton 40pts (5th, 63pts) 2007/08 - Villa 41pts (6th, 60pts) 2006/07 - Portsmouth 38pts (9th, 52pts) 2005/06 - Wigan 39pts (10th, 51pts) 2004/05 - Boro 37pts (7th, 55pts) 2003/04 - Charlton 37pts (7th, 53pts) 2002/03 - Liverpool 39pts (5th, 64pts) 2001/02 - Leeds 42pts (5th, 66pts) Yes, I've added the final league position and points total to make it easier for people to see how they went on to do, only Sunderland, Portsmouth and Wigan went on to finish outside of the top 7.

In recent years, after 25 games played the teams sat in 6th were as follows... 2010/11 - Sunderland 37pts 2009/10 - Spurs 43pts 2008/09 - Everton 40pts 2007/08 - Villa 41pts 2006/07 - Portsmouth 38pts 2005/06 - Wigan 39pts 2004/05 - Boro 37pts 2003/04 - Charlton 37pts 2002/03 - Liverpool 39pts 2001/02 - Leeds 42pts So only Spurs have had more points than us while sat in 6th after 25 games in the last decade.

The Mackems spent 19 weeks in the top 7 last season. Bolton did too. No red at all in the first 11 games and 50% red in the last 14 is the worry. Fingers crossed. If the last 14 read like the first 11 we'd be challenging for the title. We always knew that wasn't going to be the case and we always knew we'd start to lose. This is a recently promoted team trying to perform in every game-it can't do that because the quality isnt there over the squad, but it has more of a go than is standard for NUFC teams. I would be interested to see how the top half of the table looked at the 25 game mark in recent seasons, just to see if the points totals for clubs were similar based on league position at the time. I've seen comments saying we're only up there because some of the teams in the mythical top 6 have slipped, but were they that much better off after 25 games in recent years? After all our record against them so far is P8 W1 D3 L4 so we haven't taken many points off them.

The Mackems spent 19 weeks in the top 7 last season. Bolton did too. No red at all in the first 11 games and 50% red in the last 14 is the worry. Fingers crossed. We're a bit further on from 19 games tbf, if we pick up the same amount of points in the next 13 league games as we did in the last 13 then we will finish the season on 59 points so it's not so much of a worry to me.

Richard Branson will have his company plastered over it before next season kicks off I reckon.

Here's a table that shows our league position after every game this season, as you can see we've only had one week out of the top 7 all season and that was was after the 0-0 draw with Arsenal back on the opening day of the season.