Quote: Saddened! "But isn't that because having no relevant history and performing poorly in the Champions League itself leads to them having a low ranking, thus always being 3rd seed in a group behind two mega-teams?'"
We've had to go through the qualifying stages a couple of times to reach the CL group stages.
We've never seen anything approaching as hard as Citeh's CL group this season. I think our CL group this season is a strong group, and one of the hardest we've faced, but it's nothing compared to Citeh's group this year.
I thought Man Utd's exit at the group stages last season was an embarrassment. Citeh's exit was understandable.
I think us and United have two of the strongest CL records in the last decade. I think we'd both struggle with the group Citeh have this season.
I'm not a fan of Mancini. I think he's a decent manager, but not a great one. But I do have huge sympathy for him over the CL because the draws have been really hard and tripped him up before he really had a chance to show anything.