Leverkusen (H) Thursday 18 April 8pm live on TNT

thornburyiron

JWP says he loved the European atmosphere and it was one of the reasons he joined us.
Hope no Europe next year stops others from joining.

MIAHammer

thornburyiron said:

JWP says he loved the European atmosphere and it was one of the reasons he joined us.
Hope no Europe next year stops others from joining.

So, you don't want new players to come in!

thornburyiron

Missed a don’t in there.

Bazshuayi

Its one of the things I mentuoned recently too. A club in Europe always gets a better chance to sign a certain level of player. Hopefully, the fact we've been in Europe for 3 seasons will help potential players be persuaded that we can do so again (along with our aattendances and being massive etc)

claretandbluesky

I hope we will be in a good position to strengthen in the summer as I don't thi k we spent much else than the Rice money last year and aside from the Phillips loan nothing in the summer but sold Benni. If we can get 60-85m for Paquetta that should give a reasonable sum for Tim to work his magic once again, or rather just raid Ajax again.

I may be doing him down but I can see Paquettas summer turning into a circus as there is just something I don't like about him. I can see someone wanting him but for much less than the release clause and him saying he won't play in some way and us getting less than we should. I am sure offers will come for Kudus but after only one season I would expect them to turn down all but the most ridiculous. I would see a similar thing with Bowen as he only signed a new contract this season.

chicagohammer

Was not able to watch it live, kept off the internet and resigned myself to what I expected to e a really tough watch, and how wrong was I, what an amazing first half that was, truthfully did not see that coming.

Agree with all the prior comments, we gave it all but ran out of steam in the second half and the ref was appalling.

So proud of everyone on that team, I think that all supporters ever want is to see the players give everything for the shirt and my goodness, that is what we saw last night.

Leverkusen are not just a good team, they are a great team in top form and they know that they were in a game yesterday, and that is the greatest compliment I can give.

That was a special occasion and we so nearly pulled it off

claretandbluesky

I am not convinced they are a great team, we looked much better than them in that first half and were very under strength and we are not a great team, we are a good side no doubt but not great. They only got a draw through a bit of a lucky goal and made few real chances in both matches. They also took 80 minutes to break us down at home.

A lot is made of this unbeaten run but it's really a great feat of consistency than anything else. I have looked through their results during this run and in my view these are the big results.

Bayern Munich 3-0 WIN great result
Bayern Munich 2-2
Broussia Dortmund 1-1
West Ham 2-0 Dominant performance
West Ham 1-1 Lucky to not be 0-3 at half time but held on well.

Regard existing comparable performance to ourselves
BL Vs Frieburg 3-2 win and 2-1 win
WH Vs Friburg 2-1 win, 2-0 win, 0-1 loss and 5-0 win

It's worth noting the other great feats of unbeaten runs are Celtic, when Rangers were relegated and Juventus when they were demoted.

I am not knocking them and really happy they have stopped Bayern mopping up again and they have real potential if buying a couple of game changers that can assert in the Champions league. Alonso seems a really good manager who I have huge respect for his decision to stay with them I am just trying to offer a little perspective regard the hype commentators seem to be applying. I am just not sure what people are seeing, I put them a bit above us at probably Spurs level.

chicagohammer

Imo, it can be tricky drawing conclusions purely from results, it may be the only metric that really matters but in many cases the result does not tell the whole story.

For me, my problem when considering our season is that many of our results have flattered to deceive, in our games against them, we delivered a masterclass in defending and whilst I recognize that is very much part of the game, they were still able to break us down and we shipped two late goals, the other day we more than matched them for 45mins, but it took a Herculean effort to do so and it wiped us out.

By the evidence at hand, I think they are a clear step above us………and spurs :-)

claretandbluesky

I am not sure it was herculean I just think that the idea of them being a Goliath made it look like that, in truth we were understrength without Paquetta and Emerson, and they barely had clear chance. We were determined and put in a brilliant performance to start a match against a good side 0-2 down and nearly pull it off in the first 45 minutes. We were wiped out as we have no bench.

I am not sure what them being a great side is based on, it could be their results this season or their performance over the two legs but I can't see it on either, I don't think they would be ahead of City, Arsenal or Liverpool in our League.

The thing I did notice which in many ways provides some substance to the hype around Alonso is that I don't think one of their players stood out as a star either, they are well coached and well set up however.


If we played them over two legs again and I knew we would set out to attack I would make them slight favourites, were we playing City I would make City almost certainties.