you couldn't make it up...

[Nigels Tackle]

just when you think we've turned a corner....

even when times are good, they're bad!

i love you city!

night all

x

[Bridge'srightfoot]

There's nothing embarassing at losing away to one of the top sides in Europe. We'll bounce back, I'm sure.

[guv111]

There may be worse to come, such as the living death which is the Europa League.

Personally, I'd rather we finished bottom of the group than ended up in that awful competition.

On the other hand, if we win our next two CL matches I'll be very excited again.

A strange and disappointing evening, but not a terminal one.

[Michigan Blue]

There may be worse to come, such as the living death which is the Europa League.

Personally, I'd rather we finished bottom of the group than ended up in that awful competition.

On the other hand, if we win our next two CL matches I'll be very excited again.

A strange and disappointing evening, but not a terminal one.

Not giving up on qualifying for the CL knockout myself, but I cannot accept that 4th is better than a Europa consolation. We have a squad built to compete in Europe; how would we give everyone games? Try to sprinkle in some FA Cup replays like last season?

If it comes to that, it will be a winnable trophy and Mancini had better not trot out any excuses about tiredness. He could even give Villas-Boas a ring and ask him how he did it.

[guv111]

There may be worse to come, such as the living death which is the Europa League.

Personally, I'd rather we finished bottom of the group than ended up in that awful competition.

On the other hand, if we win our next two CL matches I'll be very excited again.

A strange and disappointing evening, but not a terminal one.

Not giving up on qualifying for the CL knockout myself, but I cannot accept that 4th is better than a Europa consolation. We have a squad built to compete in Europe; how would we give everyone games? Try to sprinkle in some FA Cup replays like last season?

If it comes to that, it will be a winnable trophy and Mancini had better not trot out any excuses about tiredness. He could even give Villas-Boas a ring and ask him how he did it.

The thing is, if we did fail to qualify in the CL, carrying on in the Europa League would be nice in theory because, yes, we have the players to do well in it. In reality, though, Mancini would do as you suggest and use it for fringe players and it would still mean extra games for the likes of Milner, Yaya, Adam Johnson, etc etc (and, yes, David Silva too, if we did well enough) who would be better deployed helping us do win the Premier League, the FA Cup and League Cup.

Anyway, doing well in the Europa League wouldn't help us prepare better for Bayern and Barcelona next season, it would just make us better at playing the likes of Dynamo Kiev and Helsingborgs.