weeyin

Still no idea what the squad will look like in a month, or how the season will pan out, but difficult not to be pleased with how it's started.

It's the classic Euro strategy, although not as effective now there is no significance to away goals. 1) Score draw away from home 2) Two goal victory at home

Still unbeaten in competitive matches.

I think we need a deeper MOTM poster squad. Far too many games every week and too many long names. Helsinki today, Helsunky tomorrow? (I don't even know what that means, but I'm at work and it's the best I've got) Take your pick...

Is it too soon to ask for the "away goals count double" rule to be reinstated? If you'd offered me 1 - 1, I'd have been fine with that.

Saving him for the big game at the weekend. We're so huge, we rotate in the middle of Euro ties.

Need to bump up JT's goal stats to keep his transfer price high.

I bet it's Maswinhese. Are we all in different stream delays because I seem to be ahead.

Glad we kept Cookie on. What a player...

DIdn't realise we had VAR in this one! So many bad decisions.

Much more positive this half so far.

Livi and Killie had pitches last season they claimed had passed UEFA inspection, so I'm guessing the bar is not that high.

Meh is acceptable if it means 0 - 0 away from home in the first leg. I swear every team with a plastic pitch sees us play then decides to make the surface as slow and sticky as possible.

Missing Said and Williams. Cookie a bit loose down that wing and JT not up to speed yet.

It's even making the HJK players trip and fall over. Agree about Cookie. HJK getting down that wing too easily most of this half.

That big screen in the corner would really put me off if I was playing. It seems quite low.

Do they still exist? I really hope so.

I bought it from SolidSport too, but still have the American commentator. I understand why teams in Finland play on plastic, but to keep things fair I think they should award the away team a 2 goal start.

I have the American bloke again.

I imagine bigger clubs have the resources to ensure all (or most) possible visa issues are taken care of well in advance. Its probably more common these days because there are a huge number of teams participating in Euro competitions these days, and wide range of countries to visit. Then there are the politics that mean some countries are applying more rigour (to put it politely) to their visa and immigration processes. Brexit didn't help either, although that won't be the issue for Said, but citizens from countries such as Nigeria or India often face more hurdles. Most visa challenges can be resolved, but it's the quick turnaround for football matches that is the problem. If you need to make an appointment with someone to answer questions or discuss the application it can be too late as those can takes weeks or months to arrange. It's also probably more common in recent times because teams have players from around the globe. 30 or 40 years ago most teams had players that were home grown with only a handful at most of overseas players, and most of those players were European.

Or if JK is fit, he can play right back and Sparrow can move to mid.

The Record was reporting it, but seemed to be directly from an interview with Alfred. I work with a lot of people from different countries and continents and it's often a real pain to manage travel and visas. If there is a reciprocal arrangement between countries it's easier, but otherwise it can be a hassle, especially if you need something quickly African and Indian nationals have the most problems because there are so many scam agencies trying to rip people off with fake credentials that there are often lengthy delays while everything is verified. If we want anyone from our India office to come to the US the standard processing time for visas is around a year.

Said not travelling for the first leg now due to visa issues. Unfortunately, often a risk for non-European nationals travelling at short notice.

Starts at noon for me, so I'll need to book a long lunch.

Same here. I was 100% on board with the latitude given to the World Cup referees and would rather see a few potential fouls not given, than a dozen soft or non-fouls.