I’m not saying we won’t be favourites against them. I’m saying Atletico are not the only tough opposition left. There are other decent teams we could slip up against. Teams who won’t be in this competition next year due to the improvement of their league form. The competition is a lot tougher than last year.
You’re the one who has been bemoaning our away form as a reason why we won’t get top 4 – do you think we’ll win away to these teams then?
OK we’ll see. I think it’s arrogant to dismiss these teams who have improved since last season — i’ve watched them, they’re good, particularly Lazio - i’ve seen a lot of their games. We’re inconsistent and in no way are any of these games a foregone conclusion.
I personally don’t think we’ll win this competition. But obviously I hope i’m wrong.
Their style of play however might be a real big problem for us. They don’t mind to sit back and let us have the initiative and out play us on the counter.
If we look at Lazio result-wise (since you refer to their place in the table), last season they had 70 points and currently they are on a 76-point average. Improvement yes, but Roma isn’t as good as last season f.e. which explains their current position better.
In comparison we might be in the same bracket as those clubs as far as position in the own respective League goes, but we are, or should be, in the very top of the bracket. Whilst we won’t play them of the pitch; comparing our quality to theirs, 2-0 wins f.e. at the Emirates shouldn’t be that farfetched.
I don’t think it will be easy as nothing is really easy for us, I’m just saying we should be expected to come through over 2 legs and it’s failure if we don’t.
But why should it be expected? The way you’re talking it’s as if we’re way better than these teams, looking down on them like they are peasants. The gulf between us and some of these teams isn’t that big – especially this season. We’ll have no Auba in this competition either.
It should be expected because we have a wage bill that is probably double these clubs, hence we should progress.
Yeah no Aubameyang is a body blow and we are now relying on Lacazette, though he’s had a good record for Lyon in the Europa League.
I’m not dismissing any teams to be honest, I’m just not throwing us under the bus quite yet.
Anything is possible in knockout competition and I’m not going to immediately write us off even though I recognise and respect our competitors that’s all.
I’m not saying we’re going to be bulldozing anyone, but I don’t think for a second we’ll rollover for the likes of Lazio, Milan, Atletico or Marseille like we have done to Bayern in the past.
I feel like you are overstating the case here. People are reasonably saying that we should be able to beat sides like Lazio, Marseille and Milan. We have aspirations of being in the CL, we’re a very wealthy club with some very expensive players, theres nothing unreasonable about thinking we should be beating clubs of that calibre (note: Milan are obviously a massive club but in their current guise…)
Nobody is saying it’s a foregone conclusion, we are all aware that we could run into serious difficulty, people are just saying that we should be competent enough to prevail.
I’m not writing us off. I said I think we’ll be favourites against most opposition. I don’t mean you here but things like this have been said in this thread, “if we can’t even beat them we don’t deserve CL football…” as if the teams are in the third division or something. These are teams who will have Champions League football next season.
You just said it yourself, anything is possible – including us getting beat by a team considered worse than us.
No, it’s as if those teams are in a second tier European competition.
There’s validity to that sentence you have quoted. If we can’t progress against a Marseille or Lazio then who would hold out hope for us against what is generally a better standard of team in the CL?