The table isn’t even worth looking at right now and you don’t need to look at it to know there can only be a few points between top and say 18th, I’d be surprised if that didn’t carry through the whole way.
For me personally, I like this format. 8 different teams. It’s more competitive, more 50/50 games, especially when it comes round to the play offs as they’ll be 8 fixtures where all 16 teams will have an equal chance of qualifying.
Yeah, got a headache just by looking at the amount of clubs.
Not even gonna look at it until a few games to go.
It was that line of thinking that had me looking at it and wondering about tie-breakers. One merit is definitely a reduced number of ‘dead rubber’ games in the last rounds, although from a player health point of view that is not entirely positive.
Don’t like the format.
The increased number of games (for a team which finishes 9th or more) that are potentially played can have a real prospect of derailing the domestic season.
So be better and not finish 9th - simple 
Not that easy when there are some real crap teams there that we haven’t drawn against.
Teams like Celtic persist in gifting major goal differences.
Just take care of business. If they get 4 points from the next three, I believe they’ll make the top 8. We got a tough draw by comparison, but do the job, and we will be all the better for it, hopefully.
Any good games tonight? Got my room/TV back, and tomorrow is weekend 
Dont know about good but it could be fun watching Porto smack Utd around a bit 
No!
We want a Man U win, as it increases the chances of ETH keeping his job.
And it’s Europa League tonight, btw, not Champions League. The presence of Man U should give you a clue.
I know it’s the wrong thread but if someone asks me on this thread who’s the most pedantic old git on here i’d still link them to you even though it’s irrelevant to CL
If we get 4 points from our 3 hardest games and we don’t finish top 8 we have seriously fucked up. We should be winning our final 3 so 4 additional points puts us in the 6.1.1.19 points territory that is likely 3rd-5th
So, in your opinion, what I said was correct.
No team will dominate the competition from the league stage to the finals.
I see 13 teams with one or zero points. Two more games and most of them will realize that they have no chance to qualify for the playoff round (let alone round of 16).
In the old format at least they had the chance to fight for third to continue in the Europa League.
Pretty sure on matchday 7 and 8 we’ll see more dead rubbers than make or break matches.
Interesting point, you are right, there are almost certain to be multiple matches where neither side actually cares about the outcome at all.
For a lot of those clubs though, money reward, coefficient wise, transfer market (a lot of selling clubs) and reputation wise it will be important to keep going. But yeah, we’ll see. Need to go through one year to be able to reflect well.
That is another aspect I have only just realized - the last match day is just 2 days before the transfer window closes.
Cue Bayern needing 3 points versus Bratislava so buying their best player…
For Dinamo Zagreb for example, just qualifying for the league stage (I think it was worth around €30m) and getting the odd point here and there, perhaps a win or two, it means a lot to them. Also for some key individuals to show themselves at the biggest possible stage for them (Marko Baturina will probably be the next big export from them). They will keep trying until they’re out.
Taken with a pinch of salt over the identity of the teams, but this is another simulation/model of what it will take to finish in the top 8 and avoid the extra 2 games of the play-in round. I’d previously seen 14 points be suggested as around 80-90% likely to be enough and this one here by the Athletic is right in the same ball park (inter claiming the final spot with 15 points).
Playing that out, if we beat Leipzig in our next game and pencil in 3 points in the home game against Lille, that will give us 12 meaning only 3 points from the remaining 4 games against Real, Girona, PSV (A) and Leverkusen (H) will be enough to get us to the comfort of 15 points.
While I agree with the 14-15 points for top 8 (and why I posted in response to another above), I think the top 2-3 teams will have significantly more points than suggested there.
