Surprised at this

Championship side Sunderland have sacked head coach Tony Mowbray after 15 months in charge.

The Black Cats have won just two of their past nine league games and have slipped to ninth, having made the play-offs last season.

Mowbray, 60, took over at Sunderland in August last year after Alex Neil left the club to join Stoke City.

"This was a difficult decision to make," sporting director Kristjaan Speakman told the club website.

"But we remain loyal to our ambition and our strategy, and felt that now was the right moment to take this step.

"We are now focused on identifying the right candidate and we will continue to support our coaching team and players throughout the interim period."


He added: "As custodians of our great club, we believe in our long-term strategy that we hope will ensure sustainability and success for SAFC.

"Central to that approach is a relentless demand for a high performance culture to be implemented throughout the club and the development of a strong playing identity that you, our loyal supporters, can all be proud of."

Mowbray's long-time assistant, Mark Venus, has also left the club, with first-team coach Mike Dodds placed in temporary charge.

Sunderland, who play one of Mowbray's former clubs West Bromwich Albion on Saturday, were fourth in the table after beating Watford on 4 October.

But last weekend's 1-1 draw at Millwall made it five games without a win on their travels, with Jack Clarke's late penalty their first away goal in four matches.

Despite slipping to ninth, Sunderland remain only three points off a play-off spot.

After replacing Neil early last season, Mowbray guided the Black Cats to a sixth-placed finish in their first season back in the Championship.

Although they beat Luton 2-1 at the Stadium of Light in the home leg of the play-off semi-final, they lost 2-0 at Kenilworth Road to the Hatters, who went on to win promotion to the Premier League by beating Coventry City on penalties at Wembley.

From East Edinburgh to East Glasgow for Hibs on Wednesday. Not a great distance but surely a great gulf between the teams.

Hibs seem to have found a wee bit of resilience recently but still drift out of some games, which could be fatal against Celtic, a team that keeps on going until the bitter end. Hope for the best but expect the worst would be my brief summary of the game. We are certainly good enough to get a decent result, but do we have the composure and determination to do it?

Marshall, Boyle and Fish were big performers in the win against Aberdeen and we need them (and more) to do it all again.

Some juicy fixtures this week.

Gamball:
Aston Villa - Arsenal

Others:
Wolves - Forest
Blackburn - Leeds
Sunderland - WBA
Huddersfield - Bristol City
Middlesbrough - Ipswich
QPR - Hull
Watford - Southampton
Everton - Chelsea
Spurs - Newcastle

2 points for correct result
4 points for correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score   (correct score on a joker would give you 8 points)
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Random Badger gives you 2 points

The random badger is used for any random prediction used once in each matchday sequence. For instance, a scorer at a particular match, the number of red cards in the matches or yellow cards or own goals or owt you want really within reason, I do need to be able to check whether it's correct or not. Please don't put stuff like....."Commentator says...."  
The joker   is played for one match in each sequence and if correct you get double points. So if you've predicted 1-0 and it finishes 2-0, you get 4 pts, but if you've predicted 2-0, that's 8 pts. But if you get it wrong, it's minus 2.
Jokers and badgers are optional. You don't have to play one if you don't want.

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. Similarly with the badger, if your random prediction is affected by this, it'll be half the points.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  

End of season Play Offs: The one who finishes top of the league will still be champion, but after the season finishes there will be Play Offs between the top 4, with 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd. This will take in stuff like the EFL Play Offs, FA Cup Final, final day of Prima Donna League, European Finals etc. It will be one matchday for the semis and one for the Final. It will be the individual scores for each matchday against the allotted opponent, with some kind of tie breaker for a drawn match.

The prize for winning will be enormous. Another rep point.

1. St Charles Owl = 348 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 336 pts
   
3. jjamez = 313 pts
   
4. themaclad = 295 pts
   
5. theo_luddite = 290 pts
   
6. neonfoxinthebox = 289 pts
   

Friday 8th December:
Coventry City v Birmingham City

Saturday 9th December:
Town v Bristol City
Town scorers:
City scorers:

Blackburn Rovers v Leeds United (12:30)
Sunderland v West Bromwich Albion (12:30)
Cardiff City v Millwall
Leicester City v Plymouth Argyle
Middlesbrough v Ipswich Town
Norwich City v Preston North End
Queens Park Rangers v Hull City
Rotherham United v Swansea City
Stoke City v Sheffield Wednesday
Watford v Southampton

Tuesday 12th December:
Town v Preston
Town scorers:
PNE scorers:

Bonus matches:
Premier League:
Saturday:
Aston Villa v Arsenal (17:30)

FA Cup 2nd round replays:
Tuesday:
Barnet v Newport County
Port Vale v Stevenage

Champions League:
Wednesday:
Borussia Dortmund v Paris Saint Germain
Newcastle United v AC Milan


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

1. Lord Snooty = 327 pts
   
2. ritchiebaby = 287 pts
   
3. WakeyTerrier = 287 pts
   
4. Devongone = 270 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 254 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 254 pts
   

Saturday 9th December:
Town v Bristol City
Town scorers:
City scorers:

Tuesday 12th December:
Town v Preston
Town scorers:
PNE scorers:

Blackburn Rovers v Bristol City
Rotherham United v West Bromwich Albion
Stoke City v Swansea City
Watford v Ipswich Town
Sunderland v Leeds United

Wednesday 13th December:
Cardiff City v Birmingham City
Coventry City v Southampton
Leicester City v Millwall
Norwich City v Sheffield Wednesday
Queens Park Rangers v Plymouth Argyle
Middlesbrough v Hull City

Bonus matches:
Scottish Premiership:
Saturday:
Livingston v Hibernian

Premier League:
Sunday:
Tottenham Hotspur v Newcastle United (16:30)

Champions League:
Tuesday:
Manchester United v Bayern Munich

FA Cup 2nd round:
Tuesday:
Crewe Alexandra v Bristol Rovers

FA Cup 2nd round replays:
Wednesday:
Stockport County v Aldershot Town


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

The long and winding road to WEMBLEY begins:-

Drawn at home, weekend of 6th Jan.
Still don't know who we face.

Aldershot Town 2 Stockport County 2.

Have to wait for The replay result.

We're gonna win the cup, coyb.

Put the games up but think they will be off due to frozen pitches.

Fylde 0-2 Hartlepool
Bromley 1-2 Rochdale
Halifax 1-0 Solihull Moors
Kidderminster 0-3 Ebbsfleet
Oldham 1-1 Boreham Wood
Oxford City 3-1 Maidenhead United
Southend 2-1 Wealdstone

League Table After Matchday 22

Spireitematt - 513
SaltergateBorn - 484
Amelia - 411
St Charles - 387
Dancing - 379
Lord Snoots - 359
Devon - 299

To be honest he could have waited a couple of weeks and gone back to Exeter


Bristol Rovers have appointed former Rotherham and Exeter boss Matt Taylor as their new manager on a three-and-half year deal.

Taylor spent 13 months with the Millers before being sacked on 13 November with the club 22nd in the Championship.

The 41-year-old previously led Exeter to promotion to League One in 2021-22.

Taylor replaces Joey Barton who was sacked by Rovers on 26 October after almost three years in charge and with the team 16th in League One.

"We would like to thank our fans for being patient with us throughout this thorough process whilst we identified the correct person to lead us in this new era for Bristol Rovers," chairman Hussain Al-Saeed said.

"Matt shared our visions of growing the club and has bought into our project. I am sure you will all join me in welcoming Matt to the club and wishing him every success."

Interim boss Andy Mangan, who only lost one of his seven league matches in charge to take Rovers up to 11th, will be leaving the club.

"I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Andy Mangan for all of his efforts during his time as interim manager," Al-Saeed added.

"We are confident that he will go on to have a successful career as a football manager and he will always be welcome here."

As a player Taylor spent the majority of his career at St James Park, captaining Exeter to promotion from non-league to League One. He also played for Charlton Athletic and Cheltenham before retiring in 2016 while playing for Bath City.

He returned to Devon to begin his coaching career and took over at the Grecians in 2018.

Taylor left in October 2022 to become Millers boss before departing last month.

'An appointment that makes sense'
Analysis - Richard Hoskin, BBC Radio Bristol sport editor

The time had definitely come for Rovers to name Joey Barton's replacement, 36 days since his departure.

Matt Taylor was still at Rotherham when Barton left the club - but amongst the many, many names linked with the job - this makes sense - and was the probably most realistic appointment.

He did well at Exeter, developing players like Sam Nombe and Jevani Brown - the latter he'll now be reunited with.

Granted Rotherham parted company with him recently, but that was always going to be a challenge with a limited budget.

His immediate mission is to kickstart Rovers season - and justify the faith and patience shown by new co-owner Hussain Al-Saeed.