Castiel

Wow shocker result there. Stoke were excellent. Hughes must have watched our matches against Barca. If we beat Everton now we're laughing.

Since when do Stoke play football?

What a counter. Hopefully they can hold on for a draw.

Di Maria doesn't deserve to be in such a sh*t team.

It's a shame they don't meet anyone good until October. I'd love to see what City or ourselves would do to them in this state.

It's quite a bizarre situation. He's a national team player so he should get his permit in theory. The problem is that he has a charge (or maybe a conviction, it's unclear) for assault in Argentina which has just been brought back up by the authorities, which may mean he's barred from obtaining a visa at all.

He has some kind of heart condition, he's failed a bunch of medicals for other clubs. Some clubs seems to pass him though, like QPR. Remy wouldn't be my ideal option in any case, but he's certainly an improvement on Torres.

They're the champions of England and they're seeded lower than the 4th placed team in England in a competition called the "Champions League". Dortmund was the same case when they were champions of Germany, and Juve for Italy. It's much, much easier for us to collect more points than City this season (and most seasons) because we're so much stronger than every team in our group. Then we qualify in first place and most likely get a relatively weaker opponent in our first knockout. This gives us and most other Pot 1 sides a huge advantage over the others because of how coefficient point accumulation works. Currently Real, Barca, Bayern and ourselves are well fortified at the top. We're 4th with 122.9. Dortmund has 83.3, PSG has 81.7, City has 73.9 and Juve only has 66.7. Because these teams who are or have been recent champions of their domestic leagues have to contend with groups of death, they can't raise their coefficient as easily as we can. They have to contend with other national champions from the start and get no more points for defeating these vastly more difficult opponents than we (as an example) do for defeating Malibor. That, to me, seems like a protectionist system.

I did some reading into his history and it appears he's never suffered from anything serious like ligament damage. He was set back by a series of unrelated and relatively minor injuries last season. It seems he just had an unlucky season. That said, I don't think we're getting him. I really like the look of him but it appears Roma won't allow it.

It makes it close to impossible to dislodge established teams in Pot 1. The only real way to drop out is if you fail to qualify at all like United. We rose to the top just in time to benefit from the coefficient system which was introduced in 2004. Teams like Arsenal are safe in Pot 1 (despite scraping through pre-qualifiers and coming 4th domestically) while the likes of Dortmund, Juve and City have a long slog to build up their tally. We could win every game in our group this year and collect a nice haul. It's clearly a protectionist system, we're lucky enough to benefit from it.

Thank christ this saga is finally over. Good luck Torres, hopefully you can salvage some of your career with Milan.

He plays mostly on the wing. His stats are just a testament to how good he is.

He can play on either wing (mainly the left) or as a "shadow" striker. I've not seen him lead the line before but he can certainly play off another striker. I highly doubt we're going for him though.

It's pretty farcical at the moment in any case. Between the seeding system and the TV influence we're getting some really tedious groups year after year. Since we're fortified in Pot 1 we benefit hugely, but I feel really sorry for deserving clubs stuck in these groups of death year after year because it's so much harder for them to climb the rankings.

City have a rough September: 13 / 9 Arsenal A 17 / 9 Bayern A 21 / 9 Chelsea H 27 / 9 Hull city A 30 / 9 Roma H Hopefully we can exploit that.

I think Pep has taken them backwards to be honest. They were incredible when they won the CL, I liked everything about them. Now not so much. City will probably take a game off them again. Real are frightening on paper but their defence can be shockingly bad.

Maribor beat Celtic didn't they? We could have had them had they made the groups in an alternate reality.

Ok we have: Schalke (H) before City (A) - City has Bayern (A) which is marvellous. Lisbon (A) before Arsenal (A) - Arsenal has Galatasary (H) not ideal. Maribor (H) before United (A) Maribor (A) before Liverpool (A) - Liverpool have Real Madrid (A) pretty good. Schalke (A) before Sunderland (A) Lisbon (H) before Hull (H) We have a few big games around group matches but it's panned out nicely for us again overall.

Around 20m.

Yes some people went off the deep end but imagine if he was out for 3 months or something. The possibility is a horrifying prospect. We desperately need to get rid of Torres and sign Destro, or whomever Jose wants.

United are sh*te and Everton can't go the distance. Liverpool are most likely to qualify again, unless Pochettino really works some magic with Spurs.

City again. Bayern, Moscow and Roma.

Slovenia, not bad. Great group. We'll go through with Schalke second.

If we just get a team from somewhere close and avoid Roma we're set.