Champions League draw: Arsenal to face Fenerbahce

 

 

Champions League draw: Arsenal to face Fenerbahce

 

Arsenal have been drawn against Fenerbahce in the play-off round of the Champions League for a place in the elite 32-team group stages.

 

Fenerbahce were given a two-year ban from European competition in June over match-fixing allegations but were later reinstated while an appeal is heard. The Gunners will face the Turkish runners-up away on either 20 or 21 August, with the home leg a week later.

 

Celtic travel to Kazakhstan champions Shakhter Karagandy for their first leg. Fenerbahce appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after they and compatriots Besiktas were punished by European governing body Uefa.

 

Cas say a final decision will be made by 28 August, which could be the date of the second leg of the play-off, but Uefa have said no decision has yet been made regarding what would happen in the event of Fenerbahce winning the tie against Arsenal and losing their appeal.

 

The teams met in Group G of the competition in 2008-9 with Arsenal winning 5-2 in Turkey and the return at the Emirates finishing goalless. Celtic's opponents Shakhter Karagandy have won the Kazakhstan Premier League for the last two seasons.

 

They were beaten in their first Champions League match, a second qualifying round encounter with Slovan Liberec last term, and lost 3-2 on aggregate to Irish side St Patrick's Athletic in the Europa League second qualifying round the season before.

 

Tottenham and Swansea are involved in the Europa League draw which takes place at 12:00 BST.

 

Champions League play-off round:

 

Dinamo Zagreb v FK Austria Vienna

Ludogorets v Basle

Plzen v Maribor

Shakhtyor Karaganda v Celtic

Steaua Bucuresti v Legia Warsaw

Lyon v Real Sociedad

Schalke 04 v FC Metalist Kharkiv

Pacos Ferreira v Zenit St Petersburg

PSV v AC Milan

Fenerbahce v Arsenal

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23620244

PSV v AC Milan looks a juicy one at this stage of the competition

http://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2013/aug/09/manchester-united-financial-sector

What the fuck have Sky brought Carragher in as a pundit for? Hes a blithering idiot who talks absolute crap very quickly. Surely there must be some people in sky management team thinking they've made an embarrasing mistake with that one?!

PSV v AC Milan looks a juicy one at this stage of the competition

 

Yes but it's pretty ridiculous, Dutch and Italian teams shouldn't be facing in the qualifier, they'd walk over several of the other teams in the draw.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2013/aug/09/manchester-united-financial-sector

 

I guess this would explain why the value of Man U as a business is so sporadic, they're like a stock market in themselves.

 

What the fuck have Sky brought Carragher in as a pundit for? Hes a blithering idiot who talks absolute crap very quickly. Surely there must be some people in sky management team thinking they've made an embarrasing mistake with that one?!

 

I agree, BT Sport got Michael Owen, Sky should've went with a safe and completely monotonously dull option like that. It'll be interesting to see how David James is on BT though, he's meant to be very intelligent (For a footballer) and could express himself decently in interviews.

Christ I remember watching a program where it was saying how intelligent David James was. He was talking about art and sounded like a bellend. But many intelligent people sound like bellends when talking about art so i guess it proved nothing.

Brilliant talent though. It's hard to tell who is a hothead sometimes, certainly he was un-settled and showed his frustrations last season, but it might be the club around him (Some say that shouldn't be an excuse but that is sometimes just the reality of the situation) and you look at the rest of the squad and wonder how that team got so few points, you have to wonder about the state of the entire dressing room.

 

Well what I'm saying is, if he's happy for Fulham this season you could have a great player.

 

Brilliant talent though. It's hard to tell who is a hothead sometimes, certainly he was un-settled and showed his frustrations last season, but it might be the club around him (Some say that shouldn't be an excuse but that is sometimes just the reality of the situation) and you look at the rest of the squad and wonder how that team got so few points, you have to wonder about the state of the entire dressing room.

 

Well what I'm saying is, if he's happy for Fulham this season you could have a great player.

 

Yeah, I'm thrilled as I'd be resigned to a tough season without a new attacking option. Still trying to see how the system will work once Bent comes in, as we've been fielding a 4-4-1-1 in pre-season friendlies and for most of last season. Ruiz is not as effective as Duff or Dejagah on the wing, but the only other way of starting Ruiz, Berba, and Bent at the same time would be a diamond 4-4-2 (which would be weird knowing Jol).

---

Stoke seems to be trying to tap into the American market by striking a deal with Juan Agudelo (Young American forward who scored the tying goal in a friendly against Argentina where Messi had half the field stumbling after him like high school boys at Prom), set for the winter window. They already have 2 other US INT's: Geoff Cameron, and Brek Shea, who scored two game winners this last Gold Cup despite being piss poor a large percentage of the time.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2013/aug/09/manchester-united-financial-sector

 

some of those adverts are hysterical:

PSV v AC Milan looks a juicy one at this stage of the competition

 

Ooh I can't wait for this game... It's time that PSV takes revenge for the lost half finals in the Champions League from 2005.

 

AC Milan 2 - 0 PSV

PSV 3 - 1 AC Milan (With two goals from Phillip Cocu, who is the new PSV manager, and a goal from Park, who came back this summer)

 

Bring it on!!!!

 

I had already seen this but didn't realise how hilarious it is, Rooney's powerful mean pose and a sea of apocalyptic red in the background as they hold some potato chips.

 

I always wonder, is this stuff in their contracts or something? That to get their weekly wage, they need to oblige to partaking in such ads that represent the team? Can they just outright refuse to do it?

 

Or, do they get personal endorsement deals? I would imagine so, I can't imagine they'd want to do this humiliating shit, surely they want a big bag of money thrown at them for each ad.

Hmmm decided to bring up the latest scores and check the Blackburn one as a Bradcock said he's gone to the game and I have no interest in anything else, and within 10 seconds of me loading the page Forest scored.

 

I think I'm a bad omen, sorry. :sad:

They were better the first half, we were better the second half.

We should have had a penalty and missed a golden chance. They almost had the ball bounce to them in open net situations, twice.

 

A draw was fair, so annoying to concede so late. We didn't create enough. I can't really remember their keeper making a save.

New dutch Eredivisie (first league) record, the average age of the starting eleven from PSV Eindhoven tonight against NEC is 20,6 years old.

Georgino Wijnaldum, aged 22, is the oldest PSV player starting tonight.

Hmmm decided to bring up the latest scores and check the Blackburn one as a Bradcock said he's gone to the game and I have no interest in anything else, and within 10 seconds of me loading the page Forest scored.

 

I think I'm a bad omen, sorry. :sad:

keep it up! :D

Zakaria Bakkali, 17 year old Belgian, remember that name

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il2esC3DruM]Zakaria Bakkali (17-year-old ) Amazing hat-trick GOAL (PSV) vs NEC 5-0 (10.08.2013) - YouTube[/ame]

What a pickle Rodgers and Suarez are in. Wonder if Luis will bite :lol:

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Rodgers wants Suarez to apologise to players and the club before being allowed to train with 1st team again <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NotGoingToHappen&src=hash">#NotGoingToHappen</a></p>— BetVictor (@BetVictor) <a href="https://twitter.com/BetVictor/statuses/366289528631214080">August 10, 2013</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

So PSV finally sold their worst player.

The fans where singing tonight: We're not afraid, because Marcelo has left :D

 

shrug

Charity Shield latest:

 

Man Utd 1-0 Wigan (RVP, 7)

I have £1 on 4-0 United.

Zaha's set to full showboat, trying desperately to impress. Wigan are bypassing common sense out of refusal to make this exciting.

Just found out that last week, when the Championship started, TalkSports featured commentary game was... Steven Gerrard's testimonial.

 

Embarrassing.

Stopped listening to talkshite ever since those bumchums from Sky took primetime

I wonder how many of the Charity Shield tickets are given to charity.

Man Utd 2-0 Wigan (RVP, 60)

 

Bit (lot) of a deflection