soxfan121 said:
Way to step on the joke, TB. ;-)
That said, great post that explains how it works clearly.
As your avatar says, let's party.
sachmoney said:
I'm not sure Arsenal is under a threat of losing Pot 1 status this year, but if Arsenal continues to make early exits in the knockout stages (as is very likely this year), I'd imagine some of the Pot 2 clubs would be creeping up on us.
They are currently
10th in the five-year ranking that includes the current season. They will very likely pass Valencia, who are not in Europe this year, and will pass Manchester United if they reach the R16. If Atlético and Schalke have poor campaigns, they are also vulnerable to being leapfrogged as well.
On the flip slide, a strong run from Dortmund, Porto, and/or PSG could see Arsenal fall behind them in the rankings. But still, these are just the seeding rankings. For Arsenal to fall out of Pot 1, they need to slide out of the top 8
and have at least eight teams ahead of them qualify for the CL group stage. That doesn't always happen, as we see from Valencia and ManU this year.
The bottom line is that you get four points just for making the group stage and five points for making the knockout rounds. In addition to that, you get two points for a win and one for a draw. So just reaching the R16 with regularity brings you at least 9 bonus points + ~7 match points (assuming something like a 3-1-2 record to get out of the groups). Using 16 points as a per-season baseline, plus England's five-year country coefficient contribution of ~17, we're looking at 16*5 + 17 = 97 coefficient points. That's borderline Pot 1 as it is, and add in a few dominant group stage performances (10-12 pts), a QF performance (1 bonus pt + 2-4 pts in R16 + 0-2 in QF), and the assumption that all R16 eliminations aren't home-and-away losses (extra 1-2 points per season), maintaining Pot 1 is easy without making deep runs.
Of course, if you crash out of the GS and have a bad season, maybe you slip to Pot 2. Then you aren't avoiding Real Madrid and Bayern Munich anymore and all of a sudden life gets a bit riskier in the GS. It can accelerate a team's declining fortunes in Europe if, in fact, they are declining in quality. (Not saying I expect that for Arsenal in particular, but this can happen.)