Predictions (Week 3)

I'll get these in early as I'm off to the rainy south-west to visit one of the kids this weekend and he hasn't got internet :(
Hopefully a better try than last weeks pathetic 4/10 with no correct scores .. rubbish.

Blackburn v Arsenal 1-2
Blackpool v Fulham 0-1
Chelsea v Stoke 6-0 (of course)
Tottenham v Wigan 2-0
Wolverhampton v Newcastle 1-1
Man Utd v West Ham 3-0 :(
Bolton v Birmingham 1-1
Liverpool v West Brom 2-1
Sunderland v Man City 0-2
Aston Villa v Everton 1-1

No games next week due to internationals which take place on a Friday night for some reason, annoying as I'll be at work and the radio reception is crap.
Hopefully West Ham can do the decent thing on Saturday and crock Berbatov as we're playing Bulgaria :)

Week 2

The big 3 are already in position after just 2 games which doesn't look good for the rest, worryingly for me West Ham with Wigan are already looking like relegation candidates :(
Can't believe some of the scores recently, results over 5-0 have been rare in the premier league throughout the years but since Chelsea and Spurs went mad at the end of last year we've had a mass of crazy results, this weekend alone Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle!! have all hit six, the Newcastle result can't have been expected by anyone even die hard bar-codes.
Andy Carroll has pushed his England claims a bit further and maybe he is the answer to our problems?

Impressive

Chelsea have made a dream start with two 6-0 wins and they play Stoke next who they smashed 7-0 last season followed by West Ham and Blackpool, looks like they're going for a 100 goals before Christmas.
At least they have 3 tough games after that where we should find out if they really are as good as they seem at the moment.

West Ham's season is already looking bad with 2 defeats and games against Man Utd and Chelsea next up! At least Wigan managed to drop below the Hammers on goal difference for a week at least.
Next week the Hammers go to Old Trafford and Wigan face Tottenham who beat them 9-1 last season.

Holloway's On Form

4.25pm Blackpool are currently 5-0 down which brings them back to reality after last weeks amazing result, but I was just watching Ian Holloway's latest press conference :)
He mostly made a lot of sense but loses the plot brilliantly near the end when comparing running the team to the film "Men in Black"? Bosh!! Zap!!
BBC Video Link - Some young players are Monsters

Oh s**t, the Hammers are now 2 down with a missed penalty and an Upson own goal :(

Ray Winstone Says ..

Ray Winstone tells us to back the 2018 World Cup bid by wearing our England shirts on Tuesday, so who's gonna argue with Ray? we'd better do it but it just seems strange that there he is wearing a black jumper with an ordinary shirt underneath? is he also saying we mustn't wear an England shirt on any other day?
Ray has been known to wear football shirts before (see below) so it just seems an odd choice of picture to front a campaign?

Are They Serious?

William Gallas to Tottenham, Craig Bellamy to Cardiff, Edgar Davids to Crystal Palace?
It's not April 1st is it?

Predictions (Week 2)

Last weeks effort produced 5/10 correct results with 2 correct scores, not great but good for me :)
This weeks attempt (with added bookies odds for correct score)

Arsenal v Blackpool 3-0 (6/1)
Birmingham v Blackburn 1-0 (6/1)
Everton v Wolves 2-1 (15/2)
Stoke v Tottenham 1-0 (7/1)
WBA v Sunderland 2-1 (17/2)
West Ham v Bolton 1-1 (6/1)
Wigan v Chelsea 1-4 (10/1)
Newcastle v Aston Villa 1-2 (17/2)
Fulham v Man Utd 0-2 (13/2)
Man City v Liverpool 1-1 (11/2)

Betting info:
So 2 correct scores again would make a profit if you covered all 10 games, although with my hit and miss gambling record I wouldn't recommend anyone putting their life savings on these :)
My biggest successes on football gambling have come on foreign games that I've known little about! Won £370 predicting correctly 7 results from the Swedish league for a £2 bet and a couple of years back won £240 on a Seville win due to my ignorance! I looked up the latest scores and saw Seville were 1-0 up with only 5 minutes left so I checked the in-play odds and Seville were 3-1 to win? so chucked an £80 bet on thinking this was easy money not realising that the other team had equalised before I put the bet on! the odds were up to date my scores weren't ... but luckily Seville scored a last minute winner ... phew!! :)

Wigan v Chelsea is one of those games that shows it's virtually impossible to predict correct scores, last seasons results were -
Wigan 3 Chelsea 1 and Chelsea 8 Wigan 0 !!

I only predict a draw for West Ham as they always seem to lose if I tip them to win and vice versa, I was in a well known footie forums prediction league a few seasons ago and the Hammers end of season impressive run coincided with my decision to predict them to lose every week, I know most people think Carlos Tevez saved them that season but I think my reverse logic helped out no end :)

Jokes

Best one I heard today -
Police officers arrive at the Steven Gerrard mansion after a recent robbery "I swear officer, there were 6 Premiership medals in the cabinet", says Stevie,
"Come on Mr Gerrard, you're a good player, but you're no Phil Neville".

Having A Bad Week

Joe Cole must be wondering who he's upset after having a pretty bad time recently, obviously his Liverpool wages will be some comfort to him but it's been a downhill slope since signing for them.
Dropped by England, sent off (unluckily) on his premier league debut, in court over a possible driving ban for speeding last November, and now missing a penalty in the Europa league qualifier while also being blamed for a foul he didn't commit causing another goal to be disallowed.
Not sure why he took the penalty as I've never seen him take one before (or again?) and Torres was on the field who has taken pens before.

Comedy Gold

I heard so many jokes yesterday about the Spuds game against the Young Boys at the Wankdoff stadium, most of them in serious bad taste so I won't repeat them here (.. just Google the keywords), but the biggest laugh of the night was hearing the kids were 3 up after just half an hour :)
Sadly Arry's mob came from behind .. to grab 2 away goals which probably means they've got a good chance of going through but it was great while it lasted :)

Calamity Keepers

Going on the Robert Green experiences I'm guessing these two with be total laughing stocks and never play for their clubs again?
Oh yeah? I'm sure they will both be playing next week and most supporters will have forgiven them already because they're not English and don't play for West Ham

First Day

First day done and trust Chelsea to spoil it, the big story of the day was Blackpool's 4-0 drubbing of Wigan, I expected Wigan to struggle this year but didn't expect that :)
I'll gloss over Villa's win till I've seen it (sure it was lucky), fancied by some? teams Spurs and City had a bore draw, Everton started badly again.

To be continued when I've seen the highlights

Predictions (Week 1)

Depending on my success rate this might be a one off :)
Here are my score predictions for this weekends premier league games.

Saturday
Tottenham v Man City 1-1
Aston Villa v West Ham 1-2
Blackburn v Everton 0-1
Bolton v Fulham 1-1
Sunderland v Birmingham 0-1
Wigan v Blackpool 2-2
Wolves v Stoke 2-1
Chelsea v WBA 3-1
Sunday
Liverpool v Arsenal 2-3
Monday
Man Utd v Newcastle 3-0

Predictions

I'm not the best at predictions and rarely get it right but here's my tips for the coming season :)

Premier League
Top - 1 Man Utd 2 Chelsea 3 Arsenal 4 Everton
Bottom - 18 Sunderland 19 Blackpool 20 Wigan

You have to expect Chelsea and Man Utd to be fighting it out at the top by Christmas and it's unlikely either will have a bad season.
Arsenal will always play good football but the lack of a top striker will probably cost them again as Van Persie will no doubt get his usual injury and miss half the season.
Much as I like Hodgson I don't think he'll be able to turn it round in one season with Torres's dubious fitness the key.
Man city obviously have the players but will Mancini be able to turn them into a team with so many to choose from and so many "stars" getting upset due to lack of games.
My outside tip of a "champions?" league place would be Everton, injuries permitting they have a team that can challenge anyone on their day.

At the bottom it's going to be a dogfight with any one of about 12 teams struggling to stay away from the bottom 3.
Wigan surprise me most seasons by staying up and although usually in the bottom half of the table rarely get dragged into the bottom 3, I think this year could be different.
Blackpool just lack the money and players and will struggle.
Sunderland's season could depend on Darren Bent, they have a reasonable squad but I'm surprised they let Kenwyne Jones go, mainly tipping them for relegation due to my dislike of Steve Bruce.
Hopefully my team West ham won't get sucked into another season of struggle, if they can keep their players fit they should be mid table this season.
I expect teams like Bolton, West Brom, Blackburn and Stoke to be down there most of the year.
Not sure about Fulham I think Mark Hughes is a good replacement for Hodgson but will they be able to live up to the last couple of seasons?

The Premier League

It's back, another 9 months of up's and downs of the "best" league in the world (so they tell us) :)
Could be an interesting season with the new squad rules which will probably confuse us all? from September 1st all premier teams have to name a squad of 25 players including 8 "home grown" players, this doesn't mean English players just those who have been in England for 3 years before they were 21.
For example you would think Arsenal would be struggling with the lack of English players but they aren't too badly affected as players like Fabregas, Clichy and Bendtner qualify as Home grown due to being associated with Arsenal from a young age.
Chelsea and Liverpool seem to the worst hit, Chelsea have only Terry, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Sturridge, the frequently loaned Mancienne and dodgy keeper Turnbull plus a collection of untried kids.
Liverpool have just 4 Gerrard, Joe Cole, Johnson and Carragher with foreigners like N'gog and Insua also qualifying.
Blackpool have no problems with home grown players but will be struggling to name 25 players where teams like Man City have a large squad and will have to leave out some senior players which could cause problems?

Classic Holloway

Blackpool

You can probably get good odds on Blackpool actually staying up this season, and I like most people think they haven't got a hope but miracles do happen once in a while and for Ian Holloway's sake I hope they have a reasonable season.
Listening to Holloway and Blackpool chairman Karl Oyston they seem to have their heads screwed on and aren't going to pay fortunes to over the hill foreign stars for their one season in the spotlight and will try to stick with their current team and a few new faces with something to prove.
They have signed Marlon Harewood who might be classed as over the hill, but I think he has something to prove after limited chances at Villa following his move from West Ham where he had several really good seasons.
One great thing about this season is the chance to listen to the always entertaining Holloway after the games, I'm really looking forward to it.

England 2 Hungary 1

Due to work I only saw the highlights, but from what I saw England managed to outplay the 62nd best team in the world for most of the game, but it took two moments of magic from Gerrard to give us the deserved win.
The first half looked reasonable with Theo Walcott showing what a mistake it was to leave him at home for the World cup, Adam Johnson should have given us the lead from an excellent Walcott cross but put it over, Phil Jagielka showed that he's not a bad player and a run in the side should see him settle down and play as well as he does for Everton, Rooney still doesn't look fit.
The second half was more interesting with Ashley Young showing he's our best left winger it's a shame he only does it against mediocre opposition, for Villa he can be a star against most teams but is usually anonymous when playing top four sides.
Bobby Zamora is a player I like and he showed that he can be the new Heskey!! except that Bobby doesn't mind actually going for goal once in a while, I hope he gets more chances to shine.
Michael Dawson showed what we all know, that he isn't international class and shouldn't be anywhere near the England team.
Kieran Gibbs looks to have a future as Ashley Cole's understudy, not sure about Wilshere as the highlights only showed him coming on, Joe Hart looked safe but didn't have much to do, Gareth Barry still isn't the player who left Villa last year, the rest did OK.
Gerrard claimed man of the match mainly for his goals, the second one was brilliant although a better goalie than mad monk might have smothered it earlier, and the other talking point would be Hungary's goal which was given despite not crossing the line England are really suffering from linesman that have left their guide dogs at home?

The Season So Far

Some unexpected results have made this an interesting start to the season.
I heard that Bristol City were being tipped as possible promotion candidates with Championship expert Steve Coppell in charge and David James and Nicky Hunt joining them, as it goes they have taken part in the two outstanding results of the first few days of the season, Saturday's 3-0 home defeat to Millwall and tonight's 3-2 defeat by the complete strangers of the Southend team in the Carling cup :)
Southend who registered 17 new players on Friday including a couple of last minute loan signings and had only 3 players who had played for Southend before.

I was going to make some predictions for the league winners but lucky I didn't as a lot of pre season favourites started badly, in the championship Middlesbrough and Leeds lost at home and Forest and Leicester were also beaten.
In the first Southampton and Notts County lost at home, Charlton scraped a win but were beaten in the cup by Shrewsbury tonight after being 3-0 up!! and in League 2 my tip for last year Bradford were beaten.

Footy Quiz

Footy Quiz - Name these players?
Clue - They're 2 of the top 3 Goalkeepers in England at the moment (according to Fabio).
Give up? it's Frankie Fielding and Scott Loach of course.
I suppose Watford fans will know Loach who also plays for the under 21's, Blackburn fans might know Fielding who also played for the under 21's in tonights match, but I'm guessing a lot won't have known either of them.
Ben Foster became the latest player to pull out of England's friendly and after Robinson's decision to retire it only left Hart so someone had to be called up.
James had been dropped tonight by Bristol City or maybe had a bad back after picking the ball out of his net 3 times on Saturday, Rob Green appears to have been blamed for all England's problems after his one mistake in eleven games and seems unlikely to figure again, I guess Chris Kirkland is injured (he usually is), Scott Carson cost us the 2008 European championship so like Green will not be considered, Almunia as well as not being English is crap, Joe Lewis came and went and now he's in League one has probably been forgotten about so that only left Ray Clemence or the under 21 keepers and someone remembered that Clemence wasn't much good 30 years ago and was unlikely to have improved with age.

Decisions

One of these two quit today, can't help feeling it was the wrong one.

Man Utd V Chelsea

Man Utd beat Chelsea 3-1 to win their first trophy of the season in the Charity Community Cup Shield thingy.
Haven't seen the game yet as I don't have Sky anymore so I really can't comment.

New England 2

Obviously the prospect of playing for England doesn't hold the same honour as it used to, as both Paul Robinson and Wes Brown have decided to "retire" after getting call up's yesterday.
Robinson obviously realising he was going to be a bench warmer, and Brown knowing that whatever he does for England he'll probably miss the next game through injury so there doesn't seem much point in continuing his stop start stop start stop start international career.

New England

"When the ball hits your head, and you're sat in row Z, it's Zamoraaaaaa..." Bobby could be the new saviour of English football!! yay I like Bobby Z always a trier but not a huge lot of skill, but on the back of an excellent season for Fulham he deserves his chance and can hardly do worse than that lot in the summer :)
Other new names in the first England squad since the WC disaster are Arsenal youngsters Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere, Gibbs looked good before his injury last year but Wilshere didn't impress me in his loan stint at Bolton but obviously someone rates him.
Also in are some of those players not deemed good enough a few months back - Ben Foster, Paul Robinson, Wes Brown, Gary Cahill, Phil Jagielka, Adam Johnson, Ashley Young, Theo Walcott, Darren Bent and Carlton Cole.
In goal James and Green are gone, James obviously but Green pays the price for one mistake while mistake prone keepers Foster and Robinson come back in?
In defence Upson, King and Carragher have gone, in midfield it's goodbye to Lennon, Wright-Phillips and surprisingly Joe Cole? and upfront Crouch, Defoe and Heskey bite the dust.
Barry, Gerrard, Rooney and Milner keep their places despite being pants during the World cup, Rooney might have the excuse of actually being fit now but the others I think are lucky.
It's only a friendly against Hungary and the season hasn't started yet but a few can consider themselves unlucky to miss out on this squad which is supposed to be a new start for England, Parker and Agbonlahor the most obvious.
Also you have to laugh that Arsenal seem to be the future of England? haha

Premier League

One more week then it's back to real football for another season of highs and lows :)

European Draws

Champions league qualifier - Young Boys (SUI) v Tottenham Hotspur (ENG)
If the Spuds can't beat a bunch of kids they might as well give up, probably means they will at least get another 6 games in this comp.

Europa Mickey Mouse League -

Liverpool v Trabzonspor (Turkey)
Rapid Vienna (Austria) v Aston Villa
Timisoara (Rumania) v Man City
Celtic v Utrecht (Holland)
Dundee Utd v AEK Athens (Greece)
Odense (Denmark) v Motherwell
CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria) v TNS (Wales)

Nice comment on the Beeb site - "When Celtic lose to Utrecht do they get an entry into the Johnstones Paint Trophy?"

Uncyclopedia

If you don't mind having the piss taken out of your team visit Uncyclopedia, Some great sarcasm and some of it is even topical.
Best of the club sites can be found below -
Arsenal
Chelsea
Liverpool
West Ham

Nearly There

The "championship" kicks off tonight with Norwich vs Watford, the main talking point being Norwich's top striker Grant "fat boy" Holt who is due in court today 200 miles away from the game and looks likely to miss the game, if he drives like me he should make it :)

West Ham have signed Winston Reid the New Zealand defender who's claim to fame is the last minute equaliser against Slovakia in the World cup, I've no idea if he's any good but they've given him a 3 year deal, the Hammers have also signed Tal Ben Haim on loan from Portsmouth? he looked good when he played for Bolton but seemed distinctly average for Chelsea, Man City and Pompey. The fact he's israeli and ex Portsmouth must have appealed to Avram Grant as I can't think of any other reason to sign him.

Talking of Portsmouth they have at least won one battle beating the taxman in court who were trying to get them closed down, they can at least start the season although the debts are serious enough to make Pompey fans think they might be on borrowed time.

Liverpool won 2-0 again against the Macedonians and stay in Europe's second rate competition, only surprise being that Ngog scored again making it 3 in the tie! seeing him last season you wouldn't have backed him to score 3 all season.

Next week could be interesting will David James be lining up at Wembley for England against Hungary or at Roots Hall for Bristol City in a Carling cup tie against Southend? hopefully it the Carling cup tie as Southend need all the help they can get :)

Friendlies

The season is approaching and the friendlies are getting more competitive.

West Ham's fine run of victories ended at Southend with a 1-1 draw although the Hammers XI were mostly youth and reserve players, credit to Southend's collection of journeymen for giving them a good game though and things are looking up assuming the transfer embargo gets lifted before Saturday, they now have 14 players on "pre-contracts" which means if the embargo isn't lifted they probably won't be able to field a team against Stockport?

Manchester United thrashed an Irish league XI by 7-1 with Rooney and Owen amongst the scorers and new signing Hernandez scoring with his first touch.

Chelsea lost yet again, this time to Hamburg despite fielding an almost full strength team.
No sign yet of new £18m signing Ramires (who?) but good news for Chelsea fans that Essien is back, although that is balanced by the news that Cech is out for a month leaving them with Ross Turnbull or Hilarious in goal ... oh f*** as a certain blues fan might say :)

Everton beat Everton 2-0 ... that's the scouse Everton versus the Chilean Everton, evidently in 1909 our Everton visited South America and a couple of third generation scousers in Chile were so impressed they named their club after them, this friendly has been talked about for years and it finally happened.


I wonder if this will start a trend I seem to remember that Chelsea and Newcastle play in Australia and Arsenal were in the Argentine league.

Man City warmed up for the season with a 3-1 defeat in Dortmund, only bright spot appeared to be a penalty save by Joe Hart before he was replaced by Shay Given?
This follows Sunday's 3-0 defeat by Inter Milan. Title contenders? no chance.

All in all there have been some really bad results for the English teams in their pre season meetings with European opposition, so hopefully they will get their act together before the European competitions start.
Liverpool kick off their Europa league qualifying with a game against Rabotnicki Skopje who they should beat? although they also lost to Germans on Sunday.

In the proper matches Gary Hooper got on the score sheet for Celtic but despite a 2-1 win they fall out of the Champions league and drop into the Europa cup.

Southend

They can breathe again :)
Quote: "Southend United have avoided administration by reaching “a deal” with the Inland Revenue. The Blues appeared in the High Court earlier today (Mon 2 Aug) following a series of legal clashes over unpaid tax bills. The club has convinced the taxman that existing debts have been settled – and future payments will be on time. Chairman Ron Martin confirmed finances have been underwritten by Sainsburys for the next twelve months, meaning any further debts will be paid, regardless of the club’s financial situation."
At least they won't start the season with a 10 point penalty although the transfer embargo hasn't been lifted yet and the 12 players signed on provisional contracts can't play in league games yet meaning it's far from rosy.
It could be an interesting season with a team of lower league rejects, non league players, want-away players and the managers son trying to form a winning team.

Paolo

One for Longy :)
The legend DiCanio scoring a blinder against Chelsea, maybe not as good as the volley against Wimbledon but more satisfying at the time due to it being part of a great away victory.



And just for good measure here's the other one :)

Worst Dive Ever

That ref deserved a red card.

Blog Upgrade

Getting there, what do you think?
Probably overdone the claret and blue theme ... but what the hell, I like it :)