Realistically how many points can we expect from our Europa group?

Think some are seriously underestimating Young Boys, make no mistake we are in a very difficult group. That being said I don't see any reason why we can't take at least 10 points from it. We are a strong side ourselves nowadays.
 
We're getting the confidence from the fact that we should have scored about five against Feyenoord. We bossed them.

Are you seriously suggesting we'll only win one point from our remaining five matches?

That takes masochism to a whole new level.

Beyond belief.

Feyenoord were really poor on the night and the reality is we never scored the 4 and 5 goals we should have. They will be a completely different team in Holland. As I said, watched Young Boys against a good Red Star Belgrade team and they were impressive to me. Very British style of football and like to cross to two big strikers. Porto are a champions league team and could get 18 points if they want them.

3 weeks ago a piss poor Celtic team with 2 rookie full backs and Biton in centra half strolled up and beat us at Ibrox and people think we are taking 9 points out of 9 at home for the first time in my lifetime. Is that not beyond belief?

As I say hope I’m wrong but I’d rather be realistic then pleasantly surprised if we better it than be optimistic without any substance behind the predictions.
 
Feyenoord were really poor on the night and the reality is we never scored the 4 and 5 goals we should have. They will be a completely different team in Holland. As I said, watched Young Boys against a good Red Star Belgrade team and they were impressive to me. Very British style of football and like to cross to two big strikers. Porto are a champions league team and could get 18 points if they want them.

3 weeks ago a piss poor Celtic team with 2 rookie full backs and Biton in centra half strolled up and beat us at Ibrox and people think we are taking 9 points out of 9 at home for the first time in my lifetime. Is that not beyond belief?

As I say hope I’m wrong but I’d rather be realistic then pleasantly surprised if we better it than be optimistic without any substance behind the predictions.

They did beat us with a patched up team and us going in as favourites. We were beating them 3-0 80 odd minutes played with a patched up team and our club in administration. They still won the league and would have regardless of the points deduction. You have a very black and white view of things.
 
They did beat us with a patched up team and us going in as favourites. We were beating them 3-0 80 odd minutes played with a patched up team and our club in administration. They still won the league and would have regardless of the points deduction. You have a very black and white view of things.

My point was, we are playing much better opposition than them in Porto and YB. Look, hope I’m wrong and we get 10 points, club and country coefficient improves, and I get a trip away in February.
 
Would be great if we win our home games and sneak a draw away giving us 10, will need to be clinical to get them though.
 
We’ll get one from Porto.

Four from Young boys.

And possibly one from Feyenoord.

We’ll do well to get more than eight.
 
Conversely I think a few are over estimating young boys. They have done nothing of note in Europe bar a couple of isolated results. They finished behind basel who lost home and away to an Austrian outfit we would beat in the CL play off. We'll get minimum 4 points off them.
 
we have a tougher group than last year, but feel we are well suited to play on the break away from home. We should be capable of getting a minimum 3 points from YBB at home. Look at how Moscow came to Ibrox to avoid defeat. YBB will likely be the same. I would think anything from Porto a bonus
8pts should see us though. I wouldnt be devastated going out on 7-8 points TBH
 
I see no reason why we can't beat Feyenoord away. They are absolutely dire. Usually when we play a team in Europe, even the diddy ones, there's always at least one player who stands out - Feyenoord didn't have a single one. They were all crap and shit themselves at Ibrox. They are tenth in Eredivisie. We should be turning them over away. We scored three goals away to Spartak last season with a weaker team than we have now. Three points absolutely has to be the target against Feyenoord.

I can't comment on Porto and Young Boys because I haven't seen them this season but we should be beating at least one of them at home.

9 points ought to be the target.
 
Conversely I think a few are over estimating young boys. They have done nothing of note in Europe bar a couple of isolated results. They finished behind basel who lost home and away to an Austrian outfit we would beat in the CL play off. We'll get minimum 4 points off them.

Young Boys finished 20 points ahead of Basel to win the league last season.
 
If anyone is being underestimated here it's us.

We dominated the game against Feyenoord and should have scored about five goals. Why then are folk shitting their pants over Porto and Young Boys?

Play to win, play with no fear. See each game as an opportunity for three points and something to be looked forward to, not a pitfall to be dreaded.

This is the problem with Scottish teams in Europe, including us. We give opponents far too much respect. It's as if some have imposter syndrome and feel we don't belong in Europe, that the quicker we're out the better so that we can return to our comfort zone of the SPFL.

Time to think big. It's only football. If we get beat so what? I'd rather lose a game having had a go, than lose it with a whimper.
 
Without too much thought, my gut would be:

Young boys
opinion - 3 pts
best case - 4 pts

Porto
opinion - 1 pt
best case - 3 pts

Feyenoord (secured 3)
opinion - 4 pts It's close
best case - 6 pts

Opinion - 8 pts
Potentially - 10 pts
Best best case - 13 pts (I think that's a bridge to far)

realistically though there's probably some bias in the opinions and there's an argument for between 5 and 8 pts.

I think it will be close, I don't think we'll get everything our own way, and I don't think there is a single easy point in the above.

My absolute priority is the league though, so it will be interesting to see how the squads are managed in between times. It's another step in Gerrards management career, tough fixtures to handle whilst making a serious push for the league.
Correct.

Well you need to be, you have covered every single outcome barring 3 and 4. :D
 
I think we will get in the region of 5-7 points from this group. I think we will get a result against Porto away but will be undone at home/away against Porto/Fey.

In all honesty it's a mental that we even qualified 2 years in a row from the early stages.
 
I reckon a lot of people are underestimating young boys. They beat Basel to the league title by 20 points last season.
 
I reckon a lot of people are underestimating young boys. They beat Basel to the league title by 20 points last season.
Perhaps, but a lot of people are also underestimating Rangers. We should be looking to qualify from this group, and we are more than capable. None of them will be overly confident coming to Ibrox.
 
8 or 9. I think we'll get a couple of draws on the road and home win vs. YB. The question is whether we take a point from Porto at home.
 
Porto will beat Feyenoord in Holland imo so if they beat us on match day 3 that puts them on 9pts and probably through to the next round so might see them put out a weakened side against us at Ibrox which is beatable.

I reckon the game between us and young boys will be to see who goes through with Porto.
 
My head says 7 or 8 points and my heart says 9 or 10. My head usually wins, however we seem better suited to the European matches and need some luck for a change. Last years disallowed goal in Moscow completely altered the game and but for that we would have won and qualified.
It might suit us for Porto to get 16 points, only dropping two against us.
 
We have 3 in the bank already and I think at home we will get another 3 from young boys and I think we are good enough to get 1 point minimum from Porto .

Away from home , we will manage at least one draw .

I think we are good enough to get at least 8 .
 
I think our hardest games will be against Young Boys. No reason we can't win our next home games and take something from our away ties.
 
Where the most we’ve ever got from a group stage? I’m not sure but there’s usually wild optimism at the start of most groups and it never ends that well.

It’ll be a huge, huge achievement if we qualify from the group.
 
If I was the gaffer- I would be looking no further than YB away and the prospect of a win for us and Porto- this gives us a great platform going into the double headers where YB and Feyenoord could possibly play out as draws in both their double headers and a win each for us and Porto in our double header, would see us and Porto through all before the last 2 games are played - see how easy it is if you apply yourself positively!!!!!!!
This scenario has Porto coming to Ibrox having more or less already qualified
 
We have the potential to score against any team in this group. Hopefully YB and Feyenoord cancel each other out. I really think we could get through on 7 points.
 
I expect 6 points but with a bit of luck 8 points could be attainable.
Young Boys away - 1pt
Porto away - 0pt
Porto home - 1pt
Feyenoord away - 0pt
Young Boys home - 1pt (with luck 3pt)
 
I’m just enjoying the group stages which is a fantastic
Achievement and I wouldn’t bet against us to get through
To the knockout stage this year fingers crossed
 
I think we’ll end up with 6/7 and finish 3rd/4th. Beat YB at home and get a point at home to Porto. I think we’ll lose all 3 away from home unfortunately.

It’ll be up there with our greatest performances in any group stage in Europe if we get out this group.
 
Think we should maybe have a little history lesson on our record in UEFA Group Stage competitions.

From 92/93 to last season , we have competed in the group stages a total of 13 times. We've progressed twice. Champions League 05/06 and UEFA Cup 06/07.
That's a very poor record in anyones eyes.

The year we qualified for the last 16 of the champions league, we did so on 7 points. I recall at the time it was a record or joint low points tally to get out of the group.

The only time we have achieved double figures in a group stage was the UEFA Cup 06/07 group that included the giants of Auxerre, Livorno, Partizan Belgrade and Maccabbi Haifa. We won 10 points out of 12.

In 92/93 where we registered 2 wins and 4 draws we finished on 8 points. Had the 3 points for a win system been in place at the time, we would have finished on 10.

I've seen us get off to good starts in these groups too many times to get carried away with one win over Feyenoord. For example ;

00/01 CL - Wins over Sturm Graz and Monaco. 6 out of 6 after two games. We then go on to pick up only 2 more. We drop out into the UEFA cup.

03/04 CL - Good win over Stuttgart to open then a draw in Greece against Panathinakos. We then lose the next 4 games. Bottom of the group.

04/05 UC - 2 wins to start with. Away to Polands Amica Wronki and a home win against Grazer AK. We then shit the bed and lose final games at AZ Alkmaar and a home defeat to Auxerre. We do not qualify.

07/08 CL - Best start of the lot. 7 points from 9. Wins against Stuttgart and Lyon, a point at home to Barcelona. We follow that up with 1 point from the final games and it's not good enoough to get us to the last 16.

18/19 EL - 5 points from the first 9. Again our later half form is poor and only take a further point.

And those are our better seasons in the groups. We've had some horror stories for sure.

We've had a very encouraging first half against Feyenoord and despite a shakier second half deserved the win. Some of the posts on here predicting double figure point hauls are hopeful at best. I'm not saying we can't do it, I think this squad on top of their game are capable. We just need to buck history that tells us we rarely get out of group stage competition.

Let's just take it a game at a time starting in Switzerland next week.
 
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We must try to win our home games as that is the key to this group. If we do that and take even a point on the road we qualify. Failure to win our home games last year was disastrous in terms of qualification .
 
Would it shock people to find out that we were actually the 2nd highest spenders in our group over the Summer window? Of course this doesn't mean we have the 2nd best squad, especially as Feyenoord & Young Boys were starting from a stronger position than us, but it does point to a potential trend of downsizing for those 2 clubs, while we have almost certainly strengthened.

Feyenoord
Estimated spend - £6.57m
Estimated departures - £16.56m

Young Boys
Estimated spend - £5.63m
Estimated departures - £16.38m

Rangers
Estimated spend - £10.70m
Estimated departures - 250k

Porto
Estimated spend - £54.00m
Estimated departures - £80.10m

Could have no actual baring on how the group turns out but interesting to see nonetheless.
 
Think we should maybe have a little history lesson on our record in UEFA Group Stage competitions.

From 92/93 to last season , we have competed in the group stages a total of 13 times. We've progressed twice. Champions League 05/06 and UEFA Cup 06/07.
That's a very poor record in anyones eyes.

The year we qualified for the last 16 of the champions league, we did so on 7 points. I recall at the time it was a record or joint low points tally to get out of the group.

The only time we have achieved double figures in a group stage was the UEFA Cup 06/07 group that included the giants of Auxerre, Livorno, Partizan Belgrade and Maccabbi Haifa. We won 10 points out of 12.

In 92/93 where we registered 2 wins and 4 draws we finished on 8 points. Had the 3 points for a win system been in place at the time, we would have finished on 10.

I've seen us get off to good starts in these groups too many times to get carried away with one win over Feyenoord. For example ;

00/01 CL - Wins over Sturm Graz and Monaco. 6 out of 6 after two games. We then go on to pick up only 2 more. We drop out into the UEFA cup.

03/04 CL - Good win over Stuttgart to open then a draw in Greece against Panathinakos. We then lose the next 4 games. Bottom of the group.

04/05 UC - 2 wins to start with. Away to Polands Amica Wronki and a home win against Grazer AK. We then shit the bed and lose final games at AZ Alkmaar and a home defeat to Auxerre. We do not qualify.

07/08 CL - Best start of the lot. 7 points from 9. Wins against Stuttgart and Lyon, a point at home to Barcelona. We follow that up with 1 point from the final games and it's not good enoough to get us to the last 16.

18/19 EL - 5 points from the first 9. Again out later half form is poor and only take a further point.

And those are our better seasons in the groups. We've had some horror stories for sure.

We've had a very encouraging first half against Feyenoord and despite a shakier second half deserved the win. Some of the posts on here predicting double figure point hauls are hopeful at best. I'm not saying we can't do it, I think this squad on top of their game are capable. We just need to buck history that tells us we rarely get out of group stage competition.

Let's just take it a game at a time starting in Switzerland next week.

A recurring trend seems to be optimistic starts tempered by some fairly awful stuff, particularly away from home. Would be interesting to work out why that is.
 
Would it shock people to find out that we were actually the 2nd highest spenders in our group over the Summer window? Of course this doesn't mean we have the 2nd best squad, especially as Feyenoord & Young Boys were starting from a stronger position than us, but it does point to a trend of downsizing for those 2 clubs, while we have almost certainly strengthened.

Feyenoord
Estimated spend - £6.57m
Estimated departures - £16.56m

Young Boys
Estimated spend - £5.63m
Estimated departures - £16.38m

Rangers
Estimated spend - £10.70m
Estimated departures - 250k

Porto
Estimated spend - £54.00m
Estimated departures - £80.10m

Could have no actual baring on how the group turns out but interesting to see nonetheless.

Really interesting, actually.

If we've invested financially more than the other two comparable clubs in the group, it should actually make not qualifying from it something of a disappointment.
 
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