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New York Times
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Nottingham Forest Conference League explainer: Dates, potential opponents and prize money
Nottingham Forest will be playing in Europe next season for the first time since 1995-96. Though Nuno Espirito Santo's side narrowly missed out on the Champions League football they and the fans craved, their seventh-place finish confirms their spot in the final qualifying round for the league phase of the UEFA Conference League. Here, The Athletic gives you the lowdown on how that competition works, who Forest might face in that play-off and what the overall schedule looks like. The tournament has been running since the 2021-22 season, when it was introduced as UEFA's new third-tier European competition — below the Champions League and Europa League. Roma of Italy won the competition in its first season, to secure their only major UEFA trophy. This prompted the club's manager at the time, Jose Mourinho, to observe that they had 'made history'. David Moyes then led West Ham United to a nail-biting win in 2023, calling it one of the biggest moments of his long career. The following year, Forest's sister club Olympiacos became the first Greek side to win a major UEFA trophy. In the 2024-25 edition, which Chelsea won earlier this week, the Conference League — after the completion of four qualifying rounds — followed the Champions League and Europa League in adopting a league phase with all 36 competing teams in together instead of the pre-existing eight-groups-of-four. This format will be used next season, too. Advertisement Each side played six different opponents (three games at home, three away), rather than the eight matches in the Champions League and Europa League, with the top eight in the final table advancing directly to the round of 16 and those sides who finish from ninth to 24th entering knockout stage play-offs, with the eight victors from those ties completing the last 16. The bottom 12 after the league phase are eliminated. After the league phase, it is a straight two-leg, home-and-away knockout competition all the way to a one-off final in May. Forest's play-off round tie will be held over two legs on August 21 and August 28, which is after the start of the new Premier League season. They will not find out who their opponents will be until the draw on August 4. All 36 teams entering the league phase will do so by qualifying, with none being directly placed into the competition proper. The stage at which teams begin qualifying is based on their domestic association's club coefficient ranking, which is calculated by UEFA. England currently tops these rankings, ahead of Italy, Spain, Germany and France — which is why Forest will enter qualifying in the last round before the league phase. Before that, three qualifying rounds — which will decide who Forest might face in that play-off — will take place. First qualifying round: June 17 Second qualifying round: June 18 Third qualifying round: July 21 Play-off round: August 4 First qualifying round: July 10 and 17 Second qualifying round: July 24 and 31 Third qualifying round: August 7 and 14 Play-off round: August 21 and 28 There are many possibilities. The teams guaranteed to be in the play-off round — other than Forest — are Fiorentina, Germany's Mainz, Rayo Vallecano from Spain and France's Strasbourg. The top five nations in the association club coefficient rankings only have one team each in the competition, with all of them starting their involvement in the play-off round. However, Forest will be seeded for the play-off round so will face, in theory, a side from the weaker half of the pot. This will not influence whether they have a home or away match in the tie's second leg, though. There are places in qualifying given to clubs from all across the continent, ranging from AZ (the Netherlands), Santa Clara (Portugal), Dundee United (Scotland) and AEK Athens (Greece) to some genuine minnows, such as Araz-Naxcivan (Azerbaijan), Astana (Kazakhstan), St Patrick's Athletic (Republic of Ireland), Haverfordwest County (Wales), Calpe City Magpies (Gibraltar) and La Fiorita (San Marino). La Fiorita play in a town called Montegiardino, which has a population of around 1,000. Advertisement Teams eliminated in certain qualifying rounds for the Champions League and Europa League will also join the party at various stages of the Conference League's qualification process. So in short, Forest have no idea who they might be up against in that play-off. The league-phase matches will take place on the following dates: Matchday 1: October 2 Matchday 2: October 23 Matchday 3: November 6 Matchday 4: November 27 Matchday 5: December 11 Matchday 6: December 18 The knockout-stage ties will take place on the following dates: Knockout phase play-offs: February 19 and 26 Round of 16: March 12 and 19 Quarter-finals: April 9 and 16 Semi-finals: April 30 and May 7 Final: May 27 League phase: August 29 Knockout phase play-offs: To be determined Round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final: February 27 The draws for the league phases of all three UEFA club competitions are now done via computer, to speed up the complicated process. All roads for the 2025-26 competition lead to the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig, Germany. Home of Bundesliga side RB Leipzig, it has a capacity of just under 48,000 and hosted games at the 2006 World Cup and Euro 2024. As well as the glory of a European trophy, the Conference League's winners are guaranteed a league-phase place in the following season's Europa League — unless they have already qualified for the Champions League by virtue of their domestic league position, as Chelsea have done this time. As for the prize money, reaching the league phase of the 2024-25 Conference League earned you an estimated base fee of €3.2million (£2.7m; $3.6m), while each win in that league phase worth €400,000 and every draw €133,000. Teams who secured a top-eight finish in the league phase received another €400,000, while finishing from ninth to 24th earned €200,000. There was an €800,000 bonus for reaching the round of 16, €1.3m more for getting to the quarter-finals and €2.5m if your challenge ended in the semis. Runners-up Real Betis took €4m home to Spain and Chelsea received €7m. Advertisement Some optimistic Forest fans have already been booking flights to, and hotels in, Leipzig for the dates around the final, on the off-chance that their team do play in that fixture in a year's time. There is no possibility of Forest's sister club, Olympiacos, dropping down into the Conference League to potentially face them, as they will be in the Champions League as Greek title winners. This means there will be no conflict of interest for Evangelos Marinakis, who owns both clubs. He had placed his shares in Forest in a blind trust and had planned to step away from having any influence in the running of the club, in preparation for both teams potentially being in the same European competition and in order to adhere to UEFA's rules on multi-club ownership, but this will no longer be necessary. The bottom line is that Forest are playing in European competition for the first time since Frank Clark led them to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup (now the Europa League) in March 1996 where they lost to eventual winners Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. The prize money and kudos may not be on the level they would have been if Forest had qualified for the Champions League, but the fans will be determined to enjoy the ride wherever on the continent it takes them. And as we have seen with other English teams in recent years, the chance to compete for a European trophy is not to be sniffed at.
CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Inter Milan carries Italian soccer on its back as club seeks first Champions League title in 15 years
It's been 15 years since an Italian club last lifted the Champions League trophy – a long and barren stretch for the calcio-mad country. To see a team from Italy win the most coveted prize in European club soccer feels overdue, particularly given the nation's history and pedigree in the sport. That could all change this weekend when Inter Milan faces Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in Munich on Saturday – a second Champions League final in three years for the Nerazzurri. A fourth European title for Inter might be a flickering reminder of the golden era of Italian club soccer in the 1990s, back when Serie A was home to the greatest players of the time. Today's teams hardly boast the same number of global superstars, but Champions League success for Inter – following the lesser European titles of the Europa League and Conference League for Atalanta and AS Roma, respectively – would perhaps offer a glimpse of an Italian Renaissance. 'Italian football was really feeling a bit down on itself up until recent years, about its record in European competition,' Adam Summerton, a TNT Sports commentator who closely follows Italy's Serie A, told CNN Sports. 'I think it had almost become an embarrassment, really, for a league the size of Italy and the standing of Italy. … Some of that pride now has been restored with the performances of teams in recent years, but in order to truly restore that – and I guess for Italian football to gain that bit of pride back – I think to win the Champions League, to win the ultimate prize, to have a club that has to be called the best team in Europe, that's massive.' Inter has been on the cusp of silverware on three, arguably four, occasions this season. Just last weekend, it came achingly close to winning the Serie A title, only to finish a single point behind champion Napoli on the final matchday. That prompted manager Simone Inzaghi to acknowledge that there had been 'a lot of suffering in me and in the players' at the start of this week, though Saturday's final offers a chance to ease that pain. And one positive for Inter is that Inzaghi and many of his players have been in this position before, the current squad not radically different to the one which narrowly lost to Manchester City in the 2023 final. This Inter team is full of experienced campaigners – the likes of defenders Francesco Acerbi and Matteo Darmian, plus midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan. It has the highest average age of any squad in Italy this past season – 29.1, according to Transfermarkt – and will be hungry for silverware after a series of near-misses. As well as failing to clinch the league title, Inter lost to bitter rival AC Milan in January's Italian Super Cup and again to Milan in April's Italian Cup semifinals. But the bigger picture for the Nerazzurri is one of success under Inzaghi. The 49-year-old, who arrived at the club in 2021, has already won a Scudetto, two Italian Cups and three Italian Super Cups during his time in charge. Just to reach two Champions League finals is also an impressive feat, especially given the financial firepower of some of Europe's top clubs – the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester City, and, indeed, PSG. 'This isn't just a coach who's a flash in the pan or somebody who's up and coming,' says Summerton. 'People might disagree, but in my view, he's an established, elite-level coach now, and I think that to win the Champions League would give that validation, recognition, and underline that this is a guy whose work really needs to be taken seriously.' Inzaghi, a former striker who spent most of his playing career with Lazio, is under contract with Inter until 2026. He has reportedly been offered more than $23 million per season (€20 million) to take charge of Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal, but was reluctant to talk about his future when asked this week. 'It's the same thing every year, when I was at Lazio and at Inter,' said Inzaghi. 'Luckily, there are requests from Italy, from abroad and from Saudi Arabia. 'But I think it would be crazy right now to think about that. As the (club) president said, with whom I have a great relationship, the day after the game we'll sit down and talk, as we've always done over the years, with only one objective, which is the good of Inter.' Understandably, a Champions League trophy would provide a huge boost to Inzaghi's managerial resumé – because of the funds at his disposal and the teams he would have beaten along the way. Having conceded just one goal in this season's group stages, Inter then saw off Feyenoord, Bayern Munich, and – in sensational fashion – Barcelona in the knockout stages. The breathless, mad-cap win in the semifinals against Barça – finally ending 7-6 on aggregate after Acerbi's stoppage-time equalizer and Davide Frattesi's extra-time winner – will be remembered as one of the great nights in the club's history. Crucially, it showed that Inter under Inzaghi has the tools and tactics to compete with – and beat – the best teams in Europe. 'They have this incredible ability to adapt, to be flexible,' says Summerton. 'They play within a formation that Inzaghi is pretty wedded to – the 3-5-2 – but there is so much flexibility within that formation, in the way that they play. 'I think that Inter are a really tricky side for PSG to play in the final because of that versatility that they have, the rotations that they play with. They're a very, very difficult team to play against.' Ahead of the final, Inter has been boosted by the return of captain Lautaro Martínez, whose nine goals in 13 games represents one of the best returns in the Champions League this season – only four players have scored more. Martínez is looking to add a Champions League medal to an already impressive haul of trophies in his career: the World Cup and two Copa América titles with Argentina, as well as two league titles with Inter. 'To experience another final of this scale, in this competition, is going to be incredible,' he told UEFA this week, adding: 'I really want to enjoy the moment, this final, this game. Then if it comes to fruition, it will be a dream come true.' It will be a dream, too, for those Inter fans who have waited 15 years to taste Champions League glory once again. Now, only one team stands in the way of the trophy's long-awaited return to Italy.
CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Inter Milan carries Italian soccer on its back as club seeks first Champions League title in 15 years
It's been 15 years since an Italian club last lifted the Champions League trophy – a long and barren stretch for the calcio-mad country. To see a team from Italy win the most coveted prize in European club soccer feels overdue, particularly given the nation's history and pedigree in the sport. That could all change this weekend when Inter Milan faces Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in Munich on Saturday – a second Champions League final in three years for the Nerazzurri. A fourth European title for Inter might be a flickering reminder of the golden era of Italian club soccer in the 1990s, back when Serie A was home to the greatest players of the time. Today's teams hardly boast the same number of global superstars, but Champions League success for Inter – following the lesser European titles of the Europa League and Conference League for Atalanta and AS Roma, respectively – would perhaps offer a glimpse of an Italian Renaissance. 'Italian football was really feeling a bit down on itself up until recent years, about its record in European competition,' Adam Summerton, a TNT Sports commentator who closely follows Italy's Serie A, told CNN Sports. 'I think it had almost become an embarrassment, really, for a league the size of Italy and the standing of Italy. … Some of that pride now has been restored with the performances of teams in recent years, but in order to truly restore that – and I guess for Italian football to gain that bit of pride back – I think to win the Champions League, to win the ultimate prize, to have a club that has to be called the best team in Europe, that's massive.' Inter has been on the cusp of silverware on three, arguably four, occasions this season. Just last weekend, it came achingly close to winning the Serie A title, only to finish a single point behind champion Napoli on the final matchday. That prompted manager Simone Inzaghi to acknowledge that there had been 'a lot of suffering in me and in the players' at the start of this week, though Saturday's final offers a chance to ease that pain. And one positive for Inter is that Inzaghi and many of his players have been in this position before, the current squad not radically different to the one which narrowly lost to Manchester City in the 2023 final. This Inter team is full of experienced campaigners – the likes of defenders Francesco Acerbi and Matteo Darmian, plus midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan. It has the highest average age of any squad in Italy this past season – 29.1, according to Transfermarkt – and will be hungry for silverware after a series of near-misses. As well as failing to clinch the league title, Inter lost to bitter rival AC Milan in January's Italian Super Cup and again to Milan in April's Italian Cup semifinals. But the bigger picture for the Nerazzurri is one of success under Inzaghi. The 49-year-old, who arrived at the club in 2021, has already won a Scudetto, two Italian Cups and three Italian Super Cups during his time in charge. Just to reach two Champions League finals is also an impressive feat, especially given the financial firepower of some of Europe's top clubs – the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester City, and, indeed, PSG. 'This isn't just a coach who's a flash in the pan or somebody who's up and coming,' says Summerton. 'People might disagree, but in my view, he's an established, elite-level coach now, and I think that to win the Champions League would give that validation, recognition, and underline that this is a guy whose work really needs to be taken seriously.' Inzaghi, a former striker who spent most of his playing career with Lazio, is under contract with Inter until 2026. He has reportedly been offered more than $23 million per season (€20 million) to take charge of Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal, but was reluctant to talk about his future when asked this week. 'It's the same thing every year, when I was at Lazio and at Inter,' said Inzaghi. 'Luckily, there are requests from Italy, from abroad and from Saudi Arabia. 'But I think it would be crazy right now to think about that. As the (club) president said, with whom I have a great relationship, the day after the game we'll sit down and talk, as we've always done over the years, with only one objective, which is the good of Inter.' Understandably, a Champions League trophy would provide a huge boost to Inzaghi's managerial resumé – because of the funds at his disposal and the teams he would have beaten along the way. Having conceded just one goal in this season's group stages, Inter then saw off Feyenoord, Bayern Munich, and – in sensational fashion – Barcelona in the knockout stages. The breathless, mad-cap win in the semifinals against Barça – finally ending 7-6 on aggregate after Acerbi's stoppage-time equalizer and Davide Frattesi's extra-time winner – will be remembered as one of the great nights in the club's history. Crucially, it showed that Inter under Inzaghi has the tools and tactics to compete with – and beat – the best teams in Europe. 'They have this incredible ability to adapt, to be flexible,' says Summerton. 'They play within a formation that Inzaghi is pretty wedded to – the 3-5-2 – but there is so much flexibility within that formation, in the way that they play. 'I think that Inter are a really tricky side for PSG to play in the final because of that versatility that they have, the rotations that they play with. They're a very, very difficult team to play against.' Ahead of the final, Inter has been boosted by the return of captain Lautaro Martínez, whose nine goals in 13 games represents one of the best returns in the Champions League this season – only four players have scored more. Martínez is looking to add a Champions League medal to an already impressive haul of trophies in his career: the World Cup and two Copa América titles with Argentina, as well as two league titles with Inter. 'To experience another final of this scale, in this competition, is going to be incredible,' he told UEFA this week, adding: 'I really want to enjoy the moment, this final, this game. Then if it comes to fruition, it will be a dream come true.' It will be a dream, too, for those Inter fans who have waited 15 years to taste Champions League glory once again. Now, only one team stands in the way of the trophy's long-awaited return to Italy.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Qatar bid to complete football with PSG project's crowd-pleasing third act
Put a bisht on it. That's a wrap. At first glance it might be tempting to see the 2025 Champions League final as one of the more obviously high-European occasions in recent football history. Twenty thousand Parisians and Milanese will trace out a thousand mile right-angle this weekend, north from Lombardy, east across Alsace and the Rhineland, there to spend a long weekend wandering the white stone streets of Munich, with its reassuringly terrifying gothic cathedral, its pounded-meat cuisine de terroir, its altstadt boutiques selling wristwatches priced at roughly the same the cost as the average human arm, and finally on to the lighted dome of the Allianz Arena, dumped down in the green fringes to the north like a giant alien doughnut. For the first time in five years there isn't a single English person involved as Paris Saint-Germain and Inter meet in the capital of Bavaria. Premier League, Club World Cup. Look upon our Euro splendour and tremble. This is heartlands stuff, a moment of pure Schengen-ball. Except, of course, it is something else entirely too, an opportunity to complete a brilliantly enacted subversion of that old order from within. PSG have been the best team in Europe this year. In Munich they will kick off as favourites to take the trophy to France for the first time since 1993. But victory would also represent something much more significant, the moment Qatar basically completes football – and in a way that feels far less brittle, far more permanently entrenched than might have seemed possible a few years ago. Every drama needs a ticking clock. This one came bonging into existence in November 2010 with the staging of the most iconic lunch in modern football history. Summoned to the French president's Élysée Palace by Nicolas Sarkozy (the pre ankle-tag version), Uefa's Michel Platini found a surprise guest at the table. This was Tamim al-Thani, crown prince of Qatar and a footballing nobody at this point, but the same Thani who would, as the emir, hand the World Cup to Lionel Messi in Qatar 12 years later. It is important to state that Platini denies this interaction had any bearing on his vote, 11 days later, for the 2022 World Cup hosts. Sarkozy has also denied influencing or even appearing to influence the Uefa president's choice. Qatar did gain the decisive Platini backing all the same. Coincidentally Qatar's state broadcaster almost immediately bought up the unsold TV rights to Ligue 1. In another unrelated act, six months later Qatar Sports Investments bought PSG, who were at that time in financial difficulties. A year later France sold 50 Airbus planes to Qatar Airways, a key step in a process that has led, 15 years on, to Qatar standing elbows-deep in French infrastructure funding. Fast forward to Saturday and the emir may well be present again as the jewel in his sporting outreach arm completes a key stage towards overhauling Real Madrid as the most commercially successful club in the world. Make no mistake, this will be a coronation even in defeat. We all wear the bisht now. It is worth being clear on how that final phase has played out, a wonderful example of football's instant amnesia. Until six months ago PSG were still struggling to free themselves from the idea that this was some kind of debauched celebrity waxwork museum, defined by a mental image of Neymar breakdancing on crutches at his own gala birthday party dressed only in a chinchilla fur thong and solid gold bowler hat, before driving off into the night in a special car made entirely from cheese. Fast forward through one tactical rejig and a key jettisoning of stars and the talk in France is of how this team has 'seduced the French people' with its youth and verve, transformed now into a kind of kitten collective, not just the good guys, but the best guys. This is the new PSG. Soulfulness, graft, sweat, doing woodwork in a shed. It turns out humility might actually be a good way to win after all. So we will buy the greatest humility available to mankind. Kneel before our self-effacing collectivism. There was always a gulf between the keep-ball style of successive PSG coaches and the desire to stack the squad with strolling superstars. So the new sense of grit is present in the tactical patterns too, a team that take to the pitch wound up into a kind of tackle fever, whose superpower is not being more famous than you, but counterpress and rapid team transitions. It is a brilliantly drilled, brilliantly obedient group, like watching a kind of cubism-ball in action, a world of rigorous geometric patterns, nature morte, all squares, angles, order, clean lines. The basic material here is young, high quality and ego-free. So instead of Neymar we have the anti-Neymar Désiré Doué, acme of the orderly modern prodigy, a football obsessive who takes timed daytime naps to improve his energies. The midfield is defined by Vitinha, who loves the ball and nothing else, who looks as though the only time he would cancel training is when he wants to do even more training, triple training (he will also do your training first, and at twice the speed). But it would also be entirely wrong at this point to imagine the current success springs from the rejection of the superstar era. In fact the opposite is true. One hand washes the other. All parts are connected. For all the occasional moments of on-field farce, it was the Neymar-Messi-Mbappé era that gave PSG the current fully realised team. All clubs like to talk about the Brand. Paris really, really like doing this, the current boilerplate boasts running to 'a cultural icon … at the intersection of sport, fashion, and entertainment … a globally recognized lifestyle brand … The Club of the New Generation… shaping the future of sport and society.' The most astonishing part of this encomium is that it's actually true. The Hollywood stuff, the bolt-on fame, the army of likes and follows: this wasn't simply naivety or cash thrown into an empty pit. Qatar worked out early on that money buys you success, but it can also buy you the stuff everyone else's success is based on. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion It has taken 15 years of overspend and playing the celebrity game, but this is now a hard commercial success, and a hyper-successful piece of celebrity piggybacking. Bought for €70m (£59m) in 2011, PSG is valued between €3.5bn and €4.2bn. The real killer is commercial revenues, once a third of Manchester United's annual haul but now leaving them in the dust for the foreseeable future. There have been three phases. The first was the frontier age of blunt state sponsor-led investment. Reeling in Zlatan. Changing the logo (previously: club badge) to Paris, firing up the chain of loss-leading global boutiques. The Nike Jordan deal in 2018 was an act of marketing prescience, positioning PSG as NBA-adjacent, fashion runway-curious. Phase two was 2017-2021 and the basking superstars team: no good at enforcing a high press, but hugely successful in ramping up the cashflow. Commercial deals have flooded in, high-end stuff rather than noodle partners by numbers. Matchday revenues are unexpectedly big, fruits of a one-big-club city that loves glitz and spectacle. That star project worked. The club are closer than ever to becoming an independent mega-brand. Messi may have hated being in Paris. But he gave a lot more than he might have realised. It obviously helps that none of this was ever really a gamble. For a club with bottomless owners of last resort there are no hard consequences to shedding a slew of duff star players. Manchester United may have spent years unable to pay off a bloated and sullen squad, but this is a lesson in the power of a truly nation-state owner. Slash and burn. Swallow the losses. You don't have to be backed by one of the world's largest gas producers to build a champion team without fear of the end cost. But it does help. As will the £300m spent on what is, again without bluster, 'the best training centre in the world', Campus PSG at Poissy, with its pristine acreages, its market garden, its chauffeurs' ping-pong room, its hypoxic oxygen chamber, luxury living quarters and hairdressing salon, the panic room in case of terrorist attack. It helps also that the real genius of Qatar has been building power rather than simply working in its shadow. This month the club president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, was seen meeting Jeff Bezos at the Cannes film festival to work out a possible collaboration, the kind of thing that seems logical now for a man who is also president of BeIn Sports , a minister in the Qatari government, head of the European Club Association (ECA), a Uefa executive committee member and even an unexpected face at the recent Gaza peace talks at the Élysée Palace (not the kind of thing Ken Bates, for example, was ever likely to get an invite to). Some people are said to have a finger or two in the pie. Khelaifi has both fists jammed in there so deep it's hard to know where the pie starts and finishes. He is the pie. It has been a nontypical rise for the son of pearl fisherman, born outside power, but expert in the macro-hustle. Khelaifi used the Super League chaos brilliantly, standing with Aleksander Ceferin just when European football needed someone with no fear of consequences. This led to his current role at the ECA, which has become the real power behind the power, and a key driver of the new Champions League. Yeah, don't do the super league. Do this instead with me in charge. It is worth remembering as PSG present themselves in Munich as a vision of hopeful young talents beaming in sport-couture kit, that this is still nation-state power finding a way. It is also an entity that doesn't need to say please any more. One notable absence from the club's invited guests in Munich is the Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo, whose tenure has been bruised by the refusal to sell the publicly owned Parc des Princes to QSI. It feels like a fitting bookend to that formative lunch at the palace. We don't actually need to sit with you now. We are the entire buffet these days. Win or lose on Saturday, that table is set.
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
'They've taken so many strides in so many areas'
The team at BBC Radio Nottingham's Shut Up And Show More Football podcast looked back on a mixed season for Forest, after missing out on Champions League football by only two points. Host David Jackson asked Colin Fray for his reflection on the Premier League season at the City Ground and he said: "Overall you have to commend them for what's been an incredible season. "A totally unexpected challenge for anywhere near the top half of the table which ended up prolonging into a challenge for European football, and they've ended up getting European football."They doubled their points tally from last season, they've take so many strides in so many areas but at the same time, I'm sure that there is some regret about what's happened over the last few weeks of the season. "I'm sure there are very good reasons for it, I'm sure a lot of the players have just hit a brick wall in terms of fatigue, tiredness, injuries and I think some of them have been playing through injuries and I think that's affected them over the run-in."It's easy to say now if they had added a couple of players [in the January transfer window] then I'm fairly sure it gives them an extra couple of points."Listen to the full podcast on BBC Sounds here
