Saints Finish Sixth ! Now We Need United To Win The Cup !
Bournemouth ended up getting a pasting at Old Trafford tonight which means Saints are in sixth place, still a great end to the season, but it does mean we need Manchester United to do us a favour in the FA Cup on Saturday.
Bournemouth went down 3-1 at a half empty Old Trafford to leave Saints in 6th place in this years Premier League table, a fantastic achievement as Saints stormed up the table in the second half of the season with only Leicester City getting more points than the turn of the year.
So the only question that now remains is where do we start in the Europa League ? is it the group stages or the 3rd qualifying round like this season.
England has 3 Europa League places with the first two of them (5th place and FA Cup winners) going straight in at the group stage and the third, technically the place for the Capital One Cup winners going in at the 3rd Qualifying round.
At the moment Manchester United go into the group stage as 5th placed team and we sit with the Capital One spot, if Crystal Palace should win the Cup then they would get the second group stage place and we would have to go into the qualifying round, West Ham in 7th would not qualify.
But should United win the FA Cup then we would get the second Group stage place and West Ham would take the third Europa League spot.
Understand now ?
It's complicated as they say, but the downside for us is that if we want Saints to go into the Europa League group stage then we need to be cheering for Manchester United to win the FA Cup on Saturday, that will mean four less games and instead of playing the first of them on 28th July, we won't start our Europa League campaign till 15th September.
The final next season will be played in Stockholm as Solna's Friends Arena with a capacity of 50,653 for football matches.
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