Burton Albion have sacked manager Dino Maamria after the Brewers lost for the fifth time in a six-game winless run in League One.

Saturday's 2-1 loss against high-flying Stevenage was their fourth straight league defeat.

It leaves them just two places and four points above the relegation zone after 20 matches.

The defeat ended a week in which Burton beat Wrexham to advance to the last 16 of the EFL Trophy.

Maamria's dismissal "with immediate effect" was announced in a 13-word club statement attributed to chairman Ben Robinson.

After the loss against Stevenage, 49-year-old Maamria told BBC Radio Derby that he would be meeting with Robinson and spoke openly about how vulnerable his position was.

"If it's my last game today, I want to tell everybody thank you very much - I loved my time here," he said.

"The fans were obviously not happy at the end and I totally understand their frustration. It's a winning business and I haven't won enough games.

"What I have to say is that I work relentlessly hard with very limited resources and I've done my absolute best."

Maamria was in charge for 15 months at the Pirelli Stadium, having stepped up from assistant to replace Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink when Burton were bottom of the third tier last season.

It was on his insistence during a meeting with Robinson that the ex-Stevenage and Oldham boss was handed the job on a permanent basis when taking over from Dutchman Hasselbaink.

He repaid the faith by overseeing a huge turnaround and despite spending just three days outside the drop zone before February, he managed to keep Burton up with three games to spare.

That strong finish to their last campaign, however, was followed by a disastrous start to the season, as they collected just two points from the first 21 that were on offer.

A seven-game unbeaten league run, that included five wins, saw the east Staffordshire side comfortably move themselves up to mid-table before their latest dip in form cost Maamria his job.

Hibs start their 3 pre-Christmas game schedule with a trip to Livingston. Each one is definitely winnable and could get us inching up the table. As it's just along the road, there should be a big turn-out of Hibs fans.

They'll be there to celebrate 3 points gained and a chance to keep Livi down at the bottom of the table. Livi have lost their 6 previous games and haven't scored in the last 5. We must be alert and composed and let our speed merchants strut their stuff.

Monty on the game
“We know it will be a tough game away at Livingston. They are a well-organised, physical side that will be difficult to beat. We expect them to fight for everything. They are on their own pitch at home, which they are used to playing on. For us, there are no excuses - we have trained on the synthetic this week due to the snow earlier in the week. It is a tough game for us, but we know we have a good crowd coming down to support us which we are all really grateful for.”

And within minutes we're on to the Qualifying Competition, being held in Lohja, Finland from Friday 8 December to Tuesday 19 December, with the main event also taking place in Lohja in February.

WOMEN
The women’s championship is held from Friday 8 December until Tuesday 12 December. The teams are divided into four groups: one group of seven teams and three groups of six teams. The round-robin stage runs from 8 until 11 December and is followed by the quarter-finals at 19.00 on 11 December. The semi-finals and medal games will be held on 12 December, at 10.00 and 19.00, respectively.

MEN
The men’s round robin will take place from 14 to 17 December. The teams are divided into three groups: one group of eight teams and two groups of seven teams. The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played on 18 December, at 10.00 and 17.00, respectively. The medal games will take place on 19 December at 10.00.

Concentrating on the Women first of all, the teams are from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye, Ukraine and United States. The Group we will be interested in is Group B where the English Juniors will be playing against Hungary, Latvia, New Zealand, Slovakia and Ukraine.

England start their campaign against Ukraine tomorrow at 10.00 (UK time), then New Zealand at 18.00. On Saturday at 12.00 they will play Latvia and that will be 3 of their 5 games gone already. No hanging around here for the girls!

Straight from the World Mixed Doubles, will be the English 4th player, Lina Opel. Long Christmas Holidays from school for her! The team is Lina Opel (4th and Vice-Skip), Anna MacDougall (3rd and Skip), Marianna Ward (2nd), Helena Kiggell (Lead) and Phoenix Davies (Alternate).

Neil Harris has been appointed Cambridge United's new head coach on an 18-month contract.

Harris was sacked by League Two Gillingham in October as the club wanted "to go in different direction".

The 46-year-old's first game in charge will be the League One match against Charlton Athletic on Saturday.

The former Millwall and Cardiff boss succeeds Mark Bonner, who was sacked last month after almost four years in charge.

The U's have lost their last three league games, but bounced back following Bonner's departure with an FA Cup second-round win over Fleetwood Town.

"I am super excited and really pleased to be here. It's a brilliant project in motion here," Harris said. "I just want to come and add some value to that."

Paul Barry, the club's majority owner, has reassured fans about the short time it has taken to appoint Harris.

"This has been a quick but also a thorough process," Barry said. "Over the last week we have spoken to several different candidates, and we are appointing Neil after three separate interviews held over many hours."

The new coach will conduct his first news conference on Thursday.

Harris has also previously managed Cardiff City and Millwall, pursuing management after an illustrious playing career which included becoming Millwall's all-time leading goalscorer.

Harris scored 138 goals in 431 appearances for the Lions.

Premier League

Zinman 20
Blue B 15
Stairs 13
Dingle 8
B.B.B. 7
Derby 5
Minizin 4
Lady J 3

Yet another middling week for the PL but as with most weeks some players excel and other struggle. This week its Zinman who comes out on top with 20 points, his second best week of the season. He was one of two to get a spot on Gamball and added a CR on the Bonus and one other CS. BlueBaggie kept up his good form with 15 points, like Zin he managed a max on the Gamball and like we have seen before this season he appears to be either boom or bust scoring 3 CSs this week but not much else!! Stairs continues his resurgence with 13 points, despite missing on the Gamball he managed to score on 6 other games.

Bit of a drop to the middle of the pack where Dingle with 8 points, BBB with 7, Derby with 5 and Minizin with 4 certainly didn't pull up any trees!! Dingle was the only one who got any points on the Bonus and BBB was the only one to get a CS.

Bottom of the pack again for the second week in a row is Lady Jane, she seems to have lost some of her mojo and she is starting to fall back with each poor week.

170 Zinman
155 Derby
153 Blue Baggie
152 Minizin
142 BBB
140 Stairs
118 Lady Jane
113 Dingle

Just one positional change but some gaps appearing and other closing. Zinman's solid form now sees him alone at the top with a 15 point gap down to Derby. Blue is now third and is on the heels of Derby and now ahead of Minizin, whose poor form has seen him drop from 1st to 4th over the past few weeks. BBB has been stuck in 5th for ages and just can't string any real form together to close the gap on the top 4. LJ is now 22 points behind BBB after being close to him no so long ago and Dingle is now closing in on her.

On the stats front the PL now has over 1100 points awarded in total with every player over the century and 4 over 150. The contrast between the points gained on the balls is stark though. So far 150 points have been won on the Gamball with Zinman leading the way with 37 points and Blue in 2nd with 28, at the other end two players are still in single points, Stairs with only 5 points and LJ with just 9.

Conversely the collective PL have now scored a paltry ZERO points on the Bonus ball so far this season, Stairs actually leads the way on this one with 15 points gained but there are 3 players that are negative - Blue on -24, Minzin on -15 and BBB on -9, with LJ and Dingle on zero!!

Overall Zinman is way ahead on the balls with a total of 53 points, followed by Derby on 35. At the other end Minizin has only 10 and Blue has 12, if either of them were any good playing their balls they would be way ahead of the rest in the table!!!


Championship

Twerton 18
SCO 16
Snooty 14
Themaclad 9
AAA 3
Sanjay 1
BaggieOne -1

An avarage week for the Championship but with a wide spread of scores so we might see some movement in the table. Just 2 matches proved difficult to predict - nobody scored on the Hull Watford game though Watford's win did blow a couple of bonuses, and Wednesday's rare victory would also have yielded negative points had it not been for SCO's very brave bonus ball!

Twerton's errratic season continues as he returns to his early season form to sit on top of the week's table. He was one of 2 players to score on all the balls and maxed out the gamball, his only correct score. SCO takes second place - the only player to get 2 correct scores and also benefitting from being a Wednesday fan with faith (a very rare breed!) to score on his bonus. Snooty also reached double figures as the other player to use all his balls wisely.

Themaclad was the second player with a maximum from the gamball, but he failed to back this up with much else to sit in mid table but well ahead of this week's stragglers. AAA chose not to play the gamball so at least had the satisfaction of not losing a point. Sanjay's miserable season continues - just a single point from just 2 correct predictions - but at least he avoided the wooden spoon thanks to BaggieOne going backwards. Just 1 correct prediction which didn't include either the bous or gamball!

[b]148 Snooty
146 Twerton
141 SCO
133 AAA
119 BaggieOne
116 Themaclad
68 Sanjay/b]

It's closing up at the top with the leading 3 separated by just 7 points in the push for promotion. AAA is the week's big mover, dropping from 2nd to 4th.

It's interesting to see the gap between the Premier and Championship. The leading Championship score would only be good enough for 5th place in the Premier - could there actually be some skill in this competition? (Obviously, looking at the Premier overall table, the answer is yes!)

The balls show a similar picture to the Premier League. The gamball has yielded 135 points so far with Twerton leading the way with 36 points - 43 points more than Sanjay! The use of the bonus is even worse than the Premier with a total loss of 54 points from it so far. Only Twerton is above zero with a total of 9 points, Snooty abd AAA are on zero with everyone else in negative territory.

I got talking to a bloke in the Wye Bridge yesterday ( I was wearing my Spireite beanie-hat, which got his attention) and we started chatting about local football - as you do. He`s a regular at Silverlands.

Apparently, Buxton were after Asante when he left us but walked away when he told them that he wanted £2,800 a week, which was far more than they could afford. So presumably that`s what Darlington are paying him, but I`m amazed that they can run to that sort of money either. Ah well; there you go.

The story going round is that when he was with us he was on £5k a week - that`s a quarter of a million a year! I`ve no idea whether that figure is accurate of course - these things can be a bit like Chinese whispers at times - and he may have been on nothing like that, but if these figures are anywhere close to being accurate it shows the staggering amounts of money that can be earned these days, even in non-league football.

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 9TH DECEMBER KO 3:00PM

v

LAST MATCH



We got our 2nd win of the season as we saw off Blackburn. We got off to the perfect start, Cads firing in from a Windass cross for his first professional goal We had several more chances but couldn't add to the lead and Blackburn came more into the game and had several chances themselves but the score remained 1-0 at the the break. Onto the 2nd and Blackburn were rewarded when Szmodics headed in at the far post. That seemed to galvanize us as we went up the other end and Johnson fired in from an angle. We wrapped up the 3 points as Windass ran from midway in his own half and fired in the 3rd.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and a trip to Stoke. Stoke are having a poor season, currently in 19th place in the Championship and are winless in there last five. Luckily for Stoke there are a few poor teams in the relegation zone and might have enough to stay up this season. There top scorer is Andre Vidigal with 5 goals so far this season. They are managed by Alex Neil who took over in Aug 2022 and took them to 16th last season

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 38
STOKE 35
DRAWS 24 

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                                                                                

STOKE             -                                                              

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

DAVID COOTE
Tim Wood and Mark Scholes
Fourth Official: Keith Stroud

THE TEAM

352

Vazquez
Palmer Ihiekwe Bernard
Paterson Bannan Vaulks Byers Johnson
Cadamarteri Wndass

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Cadamarteri

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

30

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Washington 10
Maddix 5
Imre 5
Owlkev 3
SCO 1

BMPL

Wereham 4
Stateside 3
Pei -9

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Wolves v Notts Forest
Middlesbrough v Ipswich
Watford v Southampton
Peterborough v Oxford
Barrow v Gillingham

DAAHH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC