Premier Predictions (Week 35)

Four Weeks left and the Prediction league is still wide open, although the 4 of us on only 2 wins need to win 3 of the last 4 :(

Big game this week is probably Villa v Everton, Villa have suddenly dropped into the mix and Everton showed last week that they haven't given up yet.
Leicester, QPR and Burnley all have games against teams that are thinking about their summer holidays so it could be an interesting last few weeks at the bottom.
Chelsea should wrap up the league on Sunday before Arsenal play on Monday, so Hull might get an easier game?
7 Games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday, 1 on Monday.

Leicester v Newcastle
Aston Villa v Everton
Liverpool v QPR
Sunderland v Southampton
Swansea v Stoke
West Ham v Burnley
Man Utd v West Brom
Chelsea v C Palace
Tottenham v Man City
Hull v Arsenal

Good luck all :)

Football League

Championship
Watford are promoted and Bournemouth need to avoid a 19 goal turnaround to go up to the top division for the first time.
Middlesbrough and Norwich are guaranteed a play off place and Ipswich might need a point to join them. Derby, Brentford and Wolves will be fighting for the last spot.
Blackpool, Millwall and Wigan have been relegated.

Division 1
Bristol City are Champions, and it's between Preston and the MK Dons for the other automatic spot. Swindon, Sheff Utd and Chesterfield are guaranteed play off spots.
At the bottom Yeovil are down, plus 3 from Coventry, Crewe, Notts County, Crawley, Leyton Orient or Colchester.

Division 2
Burton and Shrewsbury are promoted, Southend, Bury or Wycombe are fighting for the last automatic spot. Stevenage are guaranteed a play off place plus one from Plymouth, Luton or Newport. Relegated to the Conference are Cheltenham and Tranmere.

Conference
Barnet are promoted, Bristol Rovers, Grimsby, Eastleigh, Forest Green are in the play offs.

So congrats to Watford and (probably) Bournemouth for reaching the big money league.

I will be praying for Southend against bogey team Morecambe, in 9 league meetings Morecambe have won 8 and drawn one, Southend's only win was in the Cup 2 years ago. So not the ideal place to go when you need a win :(

The Good Old Days

Just found this on You Tube, a compilation of full episodes of ITV's the Big Match and BBC's Match of the Day from nearly 30 years ago.
Back in the days when I was a regular on the terraces, so good memories :)

The Big Match features Chelsea v West Ham from Stamford Bridge back in the days when Chelsea couldn't afford grass and had to supplement their income from the half empty ground by using the ends as a car park and storage area for building supplies.
A good game with West Ham having Paul Hilton in defence (a defender we signed from a team we put 10 goals past in the cup?), Chelsea had left Hazard on the bench.
The other game is Everton v Newcastle with Sky's Martin Tyler commentating.

Match of the Day from the next week features 2 Manc v Scouse games first Man Utd v Everton again, followed by Liverpool v Man City.
Also the 2nd Division game Brighton v Portsmouth.
They also have Cricket with England getting hammered by the West Indies.

Premier Predictions (Week 34)

Bumper week this time with 12 games played over 5 days.
8 Games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday plus a couple of re-arranged games on Tuesday and Wednesday to prolong the agony :)
Big game of the week is Arsenal v Chelsea although after Chelsea's win last week it doesn't matter quite as much.  A chelsea win would leave them only needing 3 points in the last 5 games :(
Next best is the bottom of the table clash between Leicester and Burnley where both teams really need the points which might be really bad news for Hull especially as QPR face the misfiring Hammers, now that Harry boy is gone I'm sort of hoping Rangers stay up and send Sunderland and Hull down instead.

Southampton V Tottenham
Burnley V Leicester
C Palace V Hull
Newcastle V Swansea
QPR V West Ham
Stoke V Sunderland
West Brom V Liverpool
Man City V Aston Villa

Everton V Man Utd
Arsenal V Chelsea

Hull V Liverpool

Leicester V Chelsea

Good Luck All :)

Fantasy Football Update

Here's all the tables of blog interest in Fantasy Footie (as of 20/04/15).
FPL - NBTF League (5 teams), TFF - NBTF League (41 players), TFF - Ex Works league (22 players), TFF - Champions league (5 players)

FPL - Son Gary still leading from Paul, although not sure he will be able to pick his team now he's living abroad?
TFF - Getting tight between myself and Ryan, the league itself has dropped a bit to 50th.
TFF Work league - Still looking good for a 9th win in 11 attempts, although Shane is hanging on.
TFF Europe - Rick and myself have made reasonable starts but the results have been hard to predict?

TFF Personal - Still hanging on in 10th in the Golden boot competition but down to 37th in the One league, so probably not going to get any winnings this season. But overall a good season.

Premier Predictions (Week 33)

Nearly squeaky bum time, 6 weeks left and Paulo's win last week keeps everyone interested :)
Due to the FA Cup semi's this week there are only 7 Premier league games, so I've padded it out with both of those games bringing it up to 9, 6 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday.
Apart from the Semi's there is one real big game with in-form Man U going to Chelsea, if Chelsea avoid defeat in their next 2 games it's probably the title, if they lose both it could be a great end to the season :)

C Palace v West Brom
Everton v Burnley
Leicester v Swansea
Stoke v Southampton
Arsenal v Reading (FAC)
Chelsea v Man Utd

Man City v West Ham
A Villa v Liverpool (FAC)
Newcastle v Tottenham

Good Luck All :)

Edit: Cup games - What the final score is at 90/120 (if needed).
No points if it goes to penalties unless you went for a draw. 

Sick Of It

Why oh why is it every West Ham related article, blog and conversation always have to keep going on about getting rid of Fat Sam?

I've been a Hammers fan enough years to know he is actually doing a really good job, probably better than any manager we have employed since joining the managerial hire 'em and fire 'em curse after getting rid of John Lyall.
Since then we've had Macari, Bonds, Redknapp, Roeder, Pardew, Curbishley, Zola and Grant plus caretakers Brooking, Keen and Boyce. Of these only Sir Trevor really comes out with any credit, but he only stood in for Roeder and rode the wave of hope.
Bonzo did OK until being screwed over by dodgy 'arry.
Pardew after a bad start turned things around until himself getting screwed over by the Icelandics unfunded dreams of glory.
The Chelsea rejects Zola and Grant were both disasters.
Curbishley's only success (saving us from relegation) came about by luck after injuries meant he had to recall Green, Tevez, Noble and Collins who he had dumped in the reserves after Pardew went.
Rednapp was doing a pretty good job until we sold Rio Ferdinand, after buying Hartson and Kitson he made the statement that you could only rely on British players, then as soon as he gets the £18m from Rio's sale he goes out and buys a huge bundle of dodgy foreigners who weren't worthy to wear the shirt and probably only topped up his dogs Monaco bank account?

So as for Allardyce it's been promotion, 10th place, 13th place and currently 9th.
Considering 6 of the teams above us pay monthly wages bigger than our entire transfer budget I don't think that is too bad.
Yes Sam's style of football isn't always the greatest to watch and his loyalty to Kevin Nolan even though he is way past his his best has gone a bit too far, but this seasons transfers (apart from Zarate) have all been good investments, although players like Cresswell, Sakho and Kouyate will probably be shipped out by the owners for a large profit :(
The early season form (when Nolan was injured) spoilt a lot of people who were dreaming of a top 4 place, even though us experienced long suffering real fans knew it wouldn't last.
The inevitable slump after Christmas when injuries to key players took their toll on a limited squad then starts the "sack Allardyce" campaign?
Who do these people really want in charge? no really good manager is going to come here and work with limited funds and interfering chairman, which leaves all the has-beens and never was's that get brought up time and time again :(
Bilic, Moyes, McClaren, DiMatteo, Poyet, Howe, Benitez, Jol, Mackay, Laudrup and even fucking Redknapp?? are all being tipped to take over.
Out of those only Benitez is on a par with Allardyce but he would need money to fill us up with unknown Spaniards and the two David's aren't keen on over spending.
Eddie Howe is promising but I think he's not ready for the big time yet, we will hopefully see next year if Bournemouth make it up to the big time.
Last year we went through the same thing with all those names getting mentioned and I said in my annual "give Sam a break" post that the only one I would prefer to Sam was Koeman, now he has done a really good job so far at the Saints although it probably helps having a £100m sitting in the bank from transfer fees received and everyone having low expectations due to them losing a few of their star names.
I suppose this will rumble on until the start of next season, which is a crucial year for the Hammers with the move into the Olympic stadium the year after. Premier league football is absolutely vital and are they going to leave it in the hands of someone who has never been relegated (and all the clubs who have sacked him have been relegated within a couple of years) or risk everything in the misguided opinion that things will get better under someone new?

That's it ... my opinion :)

Local News

Congratulations to my local team Southend United on at least making the play-offs in League Two, there is still an outside chance of automatic promotion but they are 5 points behind third placed Wycombe with 3 of their 4 remaining games away from home at teams still involved trying to reach the play-offs.

Also congratulations to 21 year old goalie Daniel Bentley who has just broken the club record after keeping 11 straight clean sheets in home games, I hope Southend can hang on to him but a few big name teams have been seen having a look :(

It would be great if they can start climbing back up the leagues but Southend have had another of those seasons where great runs have been followed equally bad runs, at the moment they are on a good one with 4 straight wins and only one defeat in ten, so here's hoping this one can carry on for another month :)


Might even get another trip to Wembley with my Blues supporting family :)

Premier Predictions (Week 32)

7 Weeks to go and it's all still an open competition :)
This weeks fixtures over 3 days, 7 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and the Liverpool v Newcastle game on Monday ... 4 days without Liverpool being live on telly must be a record :)
Star game should be the Manc derby with United now in front of City, it could be the final straw for Pelegrini? Arsenal will have to be up for it going to Turf Moor which could be tricky and of course John Terry goes back to Loftus Road and should get a hostile reception, although in my experience Rangers fans seem far too polite to hassle anyone? 

Swansea v Everton
Southampton v Hull
Sunderland v C Palace
Tottenham v Aston Villa
West Brom v Leicester
West Ham v Stoke
Burnley v Arsenal
QPR v Chelsea
Man Utd v Man City
Liverpool v Newcastle

Good Luck All :)

Here's the full complete table as it stands

I'm going to have to make a rapid improvement to get my usual runners-up spot as Dave and Paul look like fighting it out for the title.

The Championship

What a great finish to this season's Division 2 (or Championship), 40 games played and only 7 points between the top 8.
Nobody even guaranteed a play off space yet let alone automatic promotion.

1 Middlesbrough 75    
2 Bournemouth 74    
3 Norwich 73    
4 Watford 73    
5 Brentford 69    
6 Derby 68    
7 Ipswich 68    
8 Wolves 68

Personally I would like to see Bournemouth and Brentford go up, just because neither have been there before :)
Both only have a 12,000 capacity so don't really fit the bill of having big teams in the Premier league but it would be great if they could both have at least one season mixing it with the "big" boys.
Realistically Middlesbrough, Norwich and Watford probably have the better resources to cope with promotion, but all have been there before without really impressing.
Not going to shed any tears for the Brolly Wally if Derby fail after hearing from someone who claims to have "insider knowledge" that West Ham are going to go for McLaren in the summer?, hopefully they will think twice if he manages a 2nd failure in a row with a team that should be running away with the league.
Hopefully Eddie Howe will stay with Bournemouth whatever happens, as I guess he will be in huge demand but after his Burnley experience he should realise that he is one of those managers who should stay put with a club that loves him.

Premier Predictions (Week 31)

Back to normality after the international break, good results for all the home nations meaning we could have more than just England letting us down in the finals :)
11 Games this week with a bonus re-arranged fixture on Tuesday due to Villa reaching the FA Cup semi's.
7 Games Saturday, 2 on Sunday and 1 each on Monday and Tuesday.

Arsenal v Liverpool
Everton v Southampton
Leicester v West Ham
Man Utd v Aston Villa
Swansea v Hull
West Brom v QPR
Chelsea v Stoke
Burnley v Tottenham
Sunderland v Newcastle
C Palace v Man City
Aston Villa v QPR