****ing sick of playing these ****s every ****ing year.

[SWv2]

how many 3rd ranked teams got through to the last 16?

Tell us P, I don't actually know.

[Luis Anaconda]

I was talking specifically about this year's vintage who I thought were very poor.

They were not great to be fair, but a well run club, can be a handful again

[World's End Stella]

I was talking specifically about this year's vintage who I thought were very poor.

So in other years they may have been much better? Yes, that makes sense as football teams change, often quite dramatically, from year to year.

So explain this 'predictable' theory to me again?

[Pokster]

Tell us P, I don't actually know.

Neither do I, that is why i was asking...... looking at the last 16 I can't say there are many teams you wouldn't have expected

[SWv2]

They were not great to be fair, but a well run club, can be a handful again

I am not disputing their corporate governance, purely that (from my point of view) I find most of the group stage matches to be footballing mis-matches and in that sense not hugely interesting.

Of course you get the odd anomaly and upset in this respect, sport and all that. You will also get the odd clash that is intriguing to watch such as last week’s encounter in Madrid.

Last 16, knock-out stages, wheat from chaff, rutting stags, other clichés. Simply better matches in general.

[SWv2]

So in other years they may have been much better? Yes, that makes sense as football teams change, often quite dramatically, from year to year.

So explain this 'predictable' theory to me again?

In previous seasons they had a better team. As indeed we did also.

That's surely not that difficult to understand?

[World's End Stella]

If you tracked the variability of who gets through to the knockout stages against who makes the top four in the PL I would be surprised if there is much difference. If anything I would expect the knockout stages to have more volatility than the PL.

[Pokster]

So in other years they may have been much better? Yes, that makes sense as football teams change, often quite dramatically, from year to year.

So explain this 'predictable' theory to me again?

If you look at the last 16 teams how many would you say you are surprised they qualified? You will always get the odd freak result but the end result (who qualifies) is usually predictable imo

[Sir C]

I am not disputing their corporate governance, purely that (from my point of view) I find most of the group stage matches to be footballing mis-matches and in that sense not hugely interesting.

Of course you get the odd anomaly and upset in this respect, sport and all that. You will also get the odd clash that is intriguing to watch such as last week’s encounter in Madrid.

Last 16, knock-out stages, wheat from chaff, rutting stags, other clichés. Simply better matches in general.

Better matches they may be, but that doesn't make the group stage matches a waste of time.

No, I'm afraid we are all agreed, you are wrong.

[World's End Stella]

In previous seasons they had a better team. As indeed we did also.

That's surely not that difficult to understand?

It's not difficult to understand. Nor, for that matter, is it relevant to the question I asked.