Thursday Night Lights: The 2014/15 Europa League thread

Mignolet, Clyne, Toure, Lovren, Moreno, Can, Milner, Lallana, Firmino, Coutinho, Sturridge. Subs: Ward, Benteke, Lucas, Allen, Skrtel, Ibe, Smith.

this may be the only game all season where i'd have liked benteke to start at CF. Villareal don't allow much up the middle and instead allow teams a lot of freedom to go wide and cross.

glad emre can is back but with firmino in as well that's the same CM that got exploited vs dortmund, would have liked to see allen or lucas in there. oh well.

mcmanaman "liverpool will win comfortably"

owen "villareal conceded 3 at madrid, 3 at barcelona, yeah those are top teams but so are liverpool"

otm

listening to this on the radio. it is p amazing that both hosts, lawro and green, are massive liverpool fans. does this happen for any other club? i am quite enjoying it, not so much those two, just normally when i can't see it on tv i use minute-by-minute, i suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that radio is far better.

Radio is far better, except when Alan Green is on it.

reckon liverpool will need the 3 here. best get started.

get in

https://twitter.com/LiverpoolGifs/status/728320687438499840

greezy

still reckon need a third here. no way this team sits on a lead.

aye the one goal lead wi the potential winning-on-away-goals on-aggregate-equalizer is the apotheosis of squeaky bum time

yeah even against 10-men, this team is so soft sometimes, they have to get the third, they have to keep playing. sitting on it just isn't part of what they are.

I often hate the away goals rule and feel like it should be scrapped, but from a neutral's perspective the great jeopardy inherent in these kind of situations - where one goal can change the winning side into the loser - is pretty great sport

yeah i was thinking that tonight is a good example of it making a game work, even though like you i think it's sort of stupid most of the time.

oh yes

otm

― Camberwicker Man (onimo), Thursday, 5 May 2016 20:13 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

is he definitely onside there? lallana i mean...

Man on the line had his hand on the pitch, playing everyone onside.

Benteke on to shore up the defence.

that'll do klopp :))

i love europa league

love big european nights back again - nothing beats them as a liverpool fan over the last decade or so.

shame the final can't be at anfield.

2 finals in 8 months ain't bad

sevilla winning this 3 times in a row would be whoa

yeah it's extraordinary

couple of flaky sides could go either way i think? konoplyanka v moreno might be ugly

be tempted to play flanagan (if fit) myself, but that's not how klopp rolls.

That was a damn near perfect performance. Final should be a ding dong battle and no mistake.

How good was Emre Can btw

love emre

player of the season for us i think with only milner and coutinho coming anywhere near

love firmino

he was the best player tonight. he's been great all season

IN KLOPP WE TRUST

Flanno la's not in the Europa squad I think (unless you get a free call for the final). Seem to remember Klopp expressing some regret at leaving him out.

Haven't seen any of these games due to other Thursday commitments, and will be on holiday in Berlin for the final with my girlfriend's family who find the whole concept of football quite comical.

moreno's fine going frwd obv but he's a penalty waiting to happen, got away with one tonight.

don't know if this is post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking but the champ's league qualification you get for winning the Europa seems to have turned it into a good tournament

It was good anyway, apart from English clubs treating it as a burden on their ambitions to finish 4th.

Moreno was lucky alright

i was v pleased with this game, ty

Just realised that Liverpool achieved this while starting Kolo Toure over both legs.

I was thinking about this just now. Kind of amazing.

Shame that City are out because the possibility of United finishing fourth and Liverpool nicking their CL place was just too beautiful.

I'm not massively confident about the final really. Anfield has been at the heart of most of these good performances.

ISTANBUL.

a 35k stadium in basel doesn't quite have the same potential. i'm guessing sevilla are going to be more likely to score goals. still - it is p great just to have something to care about in may. i know how rare that is!

i mean football-wise - i care about other elements of life

I've been joking around that Klopp '16 = McClaren '06, with the dramatic comeback wins in the UEFA/EL (ok, this semi wasn't on a par with Boro's semi ten years ago) and, hey, it's a final vs Sevilla.

I am fairly confident that Liverpool will not lose 4-0.

Sevilla winning three times in a row would be unprecedented, right? Five times in ten years would also be frankly ridiculous.

eleven years

bit of a failure holding the final in such a small stadium.

have you all seen this btw?

http://www.espnfc.com/video/latest-videos/600/video/2864398?&ex_cid=espnapi_internal

craig burley murdering gabriel marcotti about "expected goals".

as much as burley is just going radge, and probably just hates stats, i can't stand marcotti and a quick look at twitter sees all these stats idiots patting themselves on the back because they're smarter than burley.

I have zero interest in in-game football stats, but CB isn't really making any sense at all there, which is not to say it isn't fun watching these dudes shout at each other.

yeah he's definitely wrong. i prob just hate marcotti.