Barcelona V Chelsea

With my neutral's hat on I would like to see Chelsea go through tonight :)
I know from a football point of view Barcelona would be most people's choice, but I did like last week's defensive display and on the whole I will always go for the English team over any foreign opponents.
It would be great if Chelsea could go there and win with a great counter attacking display but more likely it will be backs to the wall trying to hang on and possibly taking a beatiing when they have to come out and try for goals.
We shall see?

Premier Predictions (Week 36)

A bumper week of Premier league fixtures with 4 bonus games next week as well as the possible title decider on Monday.

Saturday
Everton v Fulham
Stoke v Arsenal
Sunderland v Bolton
Swansea v Wolves
West Brom v Aston Villa
Wigan v Newcastle
Norwich v Liverpool

Sunday
Chelsea v QPR
Tottenham v Blackburn

Monday
Man City v Man Utd

Tuesday
Liverpool v Fulham
Stoke v Everton

Wednesday
Chelsea v Newcastle
Bolton v Tottenham

D Day Again

A trip to Leicester tonight will possibly confirm we are bound for the play off's, but I still hang on to that slim chance that miracles can happen :)
We haven't won at Leicester since 2000 but we have only played there 3 times since then so it's not impossible.
It does seem last week's slightly negative tactics and poor finishing at Bristol has been the result that cost us automatic promotion, But hopefully a good win tonight might just add that little bit of pressure to Southampton when they play relegated Coventry on Saturday?

Nostalgia - Yilmaz Orhan

I've decided to start putting some regular nostalgia on here mainly West Ham related but also other stuff :)
I'm going to start with a player probably better known in America than the UK.
Yilmaz Orhan was a Cypriot immigrant who I actually saw playing for one of my local sides Aveley before he signed for West Ham in 1976 so I was interested to see how he would do, he did reasonably well in the combination (reserves) side and made the subs bench for the first team on a couple of ocassions.
I first saw him play in a Hammers shirt in a home match against Liverpool who were the top team of the day, he played OK but they ran rings round us and we lost 4-0 and Orhan hardly played again, in all he only made 6 full and 2 sub appearances.
The following year he went off to try his luck in America joining Team Hawaii before going on to play for 14 different teams over the next 10 years in the States mainly in their Indoor soccer league which used to be shown late at night on British TV, while playing for Kansas City Comets he scored 63 goals with 40 assists in only 76 games followed by 49 goals in only 47 games for the Memphis Americans.
It wasn't all roses for Orhan though as he was traded by Kansas after a fight with the trainer and being busted for Cocaine posession.

Up's And Down's

A couple of games still going on but this is the way things stand .. clear as mud :)

Premier League
Champions - Man Utd or Man City
Champions League - Man Utd or Man City + any 2 from Arsenal, Newcastle, Tottenham, Chelsea or Everton (as far as I know IF Chelsea win the Champions league they qualify wherever they finish)
Relegated - any 3 from Wolves, Bolton, Blackburn, QPR, Wigan, Aston Villa, Stoke, West Brom, Norwich, Swansea

Championship
Champions - Reading or Southampton
Promoted - Reading + Southampton or West Ham
Play Offs - Southampton or West Ham + Blackpool + any 2 from Birmingham, Cardiff or Middlesbrough
Relegated - Portsmouth, Coventry and Doncaster

League One
Champions - Charlton
Promoted - Sheff Utd or Sheff Wed
Play Offs - Sheff Utd or Sheff Wed + MK Dons and Huddersfield + 1 from Stevenage, Notts County, Carlisle or Brentford
Relegated - Rochdale + any 3 from Exeter, Chesterfield, Wycombe, Walsall or Leyton Orient

League Two
Champions - Swindon or Shrewsbury
Promoted - Swindon + any 2 from Shrewsbury, Crawley, Torquay or Southend
Play Offs - any 2 from Shrewsbury, Crawley, Torquay or Southend + any 2 from Cheltenham, Crewe, Oxford Utd, Gillingham, Rotherham or Aldershot
Relegated - any 2 from Macclesfield, Hereford and Barnet

Conference
Champions - Fleetwood
Play Offs - Wrexham, Mansfield, York + Luton or Kidderminster
Relegated - Kettering, Bath City, Darlington and Hayes

Thump

A few more stories from my favourite spoof news site http://newsthump.com :)

Premier Predictions (Week 35)

Four more weeks to go and there is still a lot to sort out in the Premiership, the top 2 both play Sunday and cannot be caught but wins for Chelsea and Newcastle would make the battle for "Champions?" league places interesting.
At the bottom Aston Villa have joined the scramble for safety and Tuesday's extra game could be vital for them.

Saturday
Arsenal v Chelsea
Aston Villa v Sunderland
Blackburn v Norwich
Bolton v Swansea
Fulham v Wigan
Newcastle v Stoke
QPR v Tottenham

Sunday
Man Utd v Everton
Liverpool v West Brom
Wolves v Man City

Tuesday
Aston Villa v Bolton

Blinding

Just realised ref Martin Atkinson was in charge of both of these games, the first one was Clint Hill's "non goal" for QPR against Bolton and of course Sunday's "goal" that never was? if you add missing the Balotelli horror challenge on Alex Song a few weeks back maybe it's time for him to have a long rest.

Wigan

Amazing win for Wigan at Arsenal tonight which very few people expected, the current run is pretty impressive for any team let alone Wigan with wins at Liverpool and Arsenal and home wins against Man Utd and Stoke with the only blot the controversial defeat at Chelsea where both Chelsea goals were clearly offside to anyone who wasn't counting their Roubles.
I tipped Wigan for relegation and it may still happen but they are certainly the form team of the bottom six.
The problem I have with Wigan is that I can't stand their chairman Dave Whelan, and a team that only average about 18,000 fans doesn't seem to fit the bill as a Premiership club.
The one thing I like about them is their manager Roberto Martinez who has always come across as a really nice guy and I'm glad he is getting the praise for moulding his collection of foreign nationals into a team.

Dive Dive Dive

Ashley Young seems to be after Luis Suarez's current title of King of the divers, although I think he needs to work on it as neither of the last two have looked very impressive even though the ref's have both fell for it.
Maybe he should watch videos of some of the all time kings of the dive such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Sergio Busquets, Jens Lehmann, Arjen Robben, Robert Pires, Rivaldo, Robbie Savage, Kenny Dalglish, Francis Lee and the undisputed king Jurgen Klinsmann.

Chelsea 5 Spuds 1

Well for a brief second I almost felt sorry for the Spuds, but then I got over it :)
It was obvious from the start that Chelsea would win when they announced that well known Chelsea fanatic Martin Atkinson would be the referee, I expected Chelsea to get at least one dodgy penalty and Tottenham having about 4 turned down, as it turned out he outdid himself giving a goal when the ball was nowhere near over the line and the Lino had not seen anything? Luckily for him Gareth Bale wasn't bright enough to bang the ball in the crowd after Petr Cech hauled down Adebeyor which should have seen Cech sent off and a Tottenham penalty against dodgy keeper Turnbull after they had taken off one of their better players.
As it turned out it all didn't really matter as Tottenham fell apart and let in 3 more goals.

Congratulations And Commiserations

Congratulations go to - West Ham after the 6-0 win and for finally remembering they can play at home, Ricardo Vaz Te for his superb hat-trick, former Southend and Hammers man Chris Powell for leading Charlton back to the Championship, Paolo DiCanio for taking Swindon back up probably as Champions, Liverpool misfit Andy Carroll on his second winner of the week, Carlos Tevez for his comeback hat-trick proving he is probably still Man City's best player, Fleetwood Town who blasted their way into the league for the first time, Brian McDermott and Reading for almost guaranteeing promotion with an impressive win at the cheating Saints,

Commiserations to the family of Italian footballer Piermario Morosini who sadly died after a heart attack on the pitch in Italy today, Paolo DiCanio after his mother's sad death, Doncaster who were not only relegated but also on the end of four really bad refereeing decisions against Pompey, Rotherham fans who now have the obnoxious Steve Evans as their manager, Sylvain Distin for being the fall guy in the cup semi and David Moyes who despite being one of the best managers in football looks destined never to win anything.

Premier Predictions (Week 34)

Just 6 games this week due to the cup semi's spread over 3 days.
** We can pad it out with the semi finals if you're both in agreement?

Saturday
Norwich v Man City
Sunderland v Wolves
Swansea v Blackburn
West Brom v QPR

Sunday
Man Utd v Aston Villa

Monday
Arsenal v Wigan

** FA Cup S/F
Everton v Liverpool
Chelsea v Tottenham

Glum

What a depressing evening's football that was :(
I was working but also listening to the radio with a cocky Scouse and Geordie, as the reds go 2 up but should have had Flanagan sent off before sub keeper Doni was sent off. But Blackburn managed to miss the penalty, at half time and they report that Reading have scored and Brighton have had 3 good penalty appeals turned down before finally getting one which they miss :(
The second half is the same as Liverpool's 3rd choice keeper brings down Yakubu but only gets a yellow and although Blackburn score Carroll of all people scores the winner!! meanwhile Brighton have played Reading off the park but could not score.
In the other 2 games of the night Millwall and Sheff Utd have won turning it into really bad night.

The BFF

Frank Lampard has apologised for trying to eat the Chelsea badge on his shirt after he scored yesterday against Fulham, "it was a genuine mistake, I thought it was a Lion bar" Lampard told reporters :)

Wally Meets The Rejects

Jeff and Mick Geggus of the Cockney Rejects were invited to announce the game v Reading last week.
It turns out our coach Wally Downes is a big fan :)
Shame we can't have a bit of Wally's "crazy gang" mentality and the passion that existed at Upton Park during the Rejects heyday.

West Ham 3 Birmingham 3

What a great game (at least in the second half).
The pressure was on us after Ricky Lambert Utd won 2-0 at Palace meaning we had to win at home for the first time in 7 games.
The first half started well with us dominating play but resorting to the up and under football at times we had played against Reading and not the good on the floor stuff we had played away at Barnsley.
As had happened against Reading the visitors hit us on the break and then followed up with a second sucker punch a couple of minutes later, we kept plugging away and eventually got a reward in the 3rd minute of injury time with a great header by Vaz Te, but with only a minute left Birmingham went straight up the other end and got a corner from which they scored a scrappy third goal, so 1-3 at half time.
The start of the second half and thankfully Fat Sam brought Lansbury on which made a huge difference and within ten minutes he was flattened in the box but the dodgy ref totally missed it? soon after Carlton Cole stayed on his feet after being pulled by Caldwell which meant the ref again failed to give a blatant penalty (Cole needs to watch the Suarez DVD).
Finally Cole scored and we were back in the game, and with a couple of minutes to go Burke charged down Lansbury's shot with his arm and we actually got a deserved penalty which Vaz Te banged home to level the scores.
All in all it was a good game and apart from some poor defending and a rare bad game for Green it showed we can play at home, but sadly it's another 2 points dropped at home which will probably cost us automatic promotion.

Dodgy Refs

Wow what a bad few days for the refs and lino's, nearly every game had crap decisions costing goals, penalties, Bookings and red cards.
Obviously Chelsea benefited from 2 blatantly offside goals which cost Wigan at least a point.
Today another blind lino missed Ashley Young being offside before he dived after a light touch from Shaun Derry which then led to a sending off and a penalty.
Would any Arsenal player who ended up injured by lunatic Ballotelli have the right to sue Atkinson after he totally missed one of the worst fouls of the season early in today's game, indeed Mad Mario could have been sent off 3 times.
Suarez was booked eventually for persistent diving although one of the many probably was a penalty, and just to make it worse Liverpool gave away a penalty late on which the ref booked the Villa player for diving? which proves the facts that you don't get penalties at Anfield (only one penalty for the visiting team every 17 games, compared to one in 12 at Old Trafford despite the likes of Skrotum and Carragher pulling shirts in every single game) although I've no doubt my Liverpool supporting "friend" at work will trot out the Man U decision as he always does :)
The other Prem games were littered with more crap decisions including both free kicks against Wolves which both led to goals.
Even in the Championship it was nearly as bad, no sympathy for Leeds who decided to try and kick Reading off the pitch although the one sending off was slightly unlucky but 2 later fouls were worth red cards and didn't get them, of course Wanker Warnock saw it all differently.
Southampton's Adam Lalalala must have watched a Suarez DVD but needs to work on his diving as it was pretty pathetic and well worth at least one booking, on the other hand Pompey's Ricardo Rocha should have had an early bath.

Thoughts

Just writing what I'm thinking .... Chelsea win thanks to dodgy ref, Suarez booked for persistent diving ... nothing new there then :)
The football league show have just told me West Ham are away to Birmingham on Monday yay!! I thought we were at home so no chance of a win ... sadly I was right and they got it wrong :(
But if ??? we win, and Southampton lose to Palace and then Reading lose to Brighton on Tuesday it would be 79 points to Reading and Southampton and 78 to us going in to Friday's meeting of the top 2, before we play Brighton on Saturday meaning a win puts us back in the automatic promotion positions :) I can dream can't I.

Premier Predictions (Week 33)

Week 32 is far from over but here are the next set which start on Monday.
Newcastle now putting pressure on the 3 London clubs, which was inevitable after at the start of the season I bet a Geordies fan they would get relegated this year :(

Monday
Everton v Sunderland
Newcastle v Bolton
Tottenham v Norwich
Aston Villa v Stoke
Fulham v Chelsea

Tuesday
Blackburn v Liverpool

Wednesday
Man City v West Brom
Wigan v Man Utd
Wolves v Arsenal
QPR v Swansea

4-0 Jingle Bells

... oh what fun it is to see West Ham win away :)
Really impressive performance from the Hammers this afternoon, yes Barnsley were poor but they were chasing the game from early and we never let them have any time on the ball.
Hammer fans might have been labelled "deluded" by Fat Sam because we wanted to play the ball on the floor and have more than one player up front, but sure enough we played the ball on the floor and had 3 up front and look what happened!!
The defence looked solid with the return of Winston Reid (who doesn't look like the same player as last season) and Guy Demel (who we have hardly seen).
Maynard and Vaz Te were excellent up front and even Nolan had a great game.
This was our 12th away win which is a new record :)

Sadly Reading scored a couple of late goals to stay 4 points in front of us, so we'll now hope that Reading can now go on and beat Southampton.

Stick To Snooker

Barry Hearn wants the Hammers bid for the Olympic stadium thrown out for being "flawed" due to us only asking the Premier league for permission and not the Football league.
The main reason for his continued objection is that he fears all those Orient fans will turn their backs on his lot and start supporting us?
I was speaking to one of those loyal band of 4,300 fans today and he just laughed and said even if the O's went bust he would never become a Hammer "even if they paid me".
Sadly the problem with non football chairman who don't understand the rivalries that exist.

Premier Predictions (Week 32)

Seven more prediction comps to go this season, and this is one of two for the next ten days. This set covers games on Friday to Sunday and I'll post next weeks games later in the week.
Biopunk is on a roll so here we go again :)

Friday
Swansea v Newcastle

Saturday
Sunderland v Tottenham
Bolton v Fulham
Chelsea v Wigan
Liverpool v Aston Villa
Norwich v Everton
West Brom v Blackburn
Stoke v Wolves

Sunday
Man Utd v QPR
Arsenal v Man City

April Fool

I guess these flags are selling well ..... in Manchester.
I say leave him alone, like AVB at Chelsea earlier in the season he is doing a great job and should be given a lifetime job :)
Although I think Avram Grant is still looking for a job and could possibly improve the current Liverpool form.

Anyway here are the best of today's Liverpool jokes - will probably upset Liverpool fans who always claim to have "the legendary scouse sense of humour" unless you tell them a joke about their team and they just want to kill you?

Following the straight red card issued to Pepe Reina today, Liverpool football club have issued the following statement "In Spain head butting someone in the face is considered to be an act of friendship, and the players will be wearing Pepe Reina T shirts against Aston Villa next week"

Andy Carroll will forever be weighed down by his price tag ..... and his lack of talent, and his shit hair

Kenny Dalglish has promised to take Liverpool back to the "Glory Days", Just as soon as he can get the Delorean up to 88 mph

Liverpool paid £35 million for Andy Carroll last year!! ... April Fool
... Oh hang on a minute

Why are Liverpool fans like Snow White's dwarfs?
Because six times out of seven they are not Happy

It was ironic that Andy Carroll should return to Newcastle on April Fool's Day, The only day of the year where anyone would believe he was actually worth £35 million

I saw a Liverpool season ticket nailed to a tree earlier today, so I took it and ran off ... you never know when you will need a nail