Premier League

Lady J 20
B.B.B. 16
Zinman 12
Dingle 8
Minizin 7
Derby 7
Blue B 3
Stairs -2

Interesting set of results this week in the PL which will shake up the table a bit.  Lady Jane is in first place this week and had her best points haul of the season with 20 points. She got CRs on the Gamball and Bonus and backed that up with two CSs, scoring on 6 games in total.  BBB is 2nd with 16 points, he managed 3 CSs including the Bonus but missed on the Gamball.  The only other person in double figures was Zinman who ended with 12 points.  He too missed on the Gamball but picked up points on the Bonus and added 2 CSs for good measure.

Middle of the pack this week is Dingle with 8 points and Minizin and Derby with 7 points.  They each got there in differing ways, Dingle got a CR on the Gamball but missed on his Bonus, Minizin got a CR on the Bonus but little else and Derby missed his main balls but had 2 CSs.

Blue Baggie continues to enjoy the rollercoaster he is on, near the top one week, near the bottom the next!!  The week saw him pick up only 3 points!!  Stairs awful form continues for the 4th week in a row and this time he reached new depths even for him by registering -2 points!!!  This is a low record not only for him but for the whole division so far this season!!  He missed on his main balls and managed only one CR in the rest of the games, another new low for the division this season!!  He has now only totalled 7 points during the last 4 weeks!!


118 Minizin
117 Derby
116 Zinman
108 Stairs
104 Lady Jane
102 BBB
97 Blue Baggie
69 Dingle

So after these scores we see Minizin stay in 1st place but boy its close at the top!!  He is just a point ahead of Derby in 2nd and Zinman in 3rd is just a further point back, 2 points separating the top 3!!  Stairs has dropped 2 more places this week but is still only 8 points hbehind the top 3 and certainly not out of it if he can find some form.  Good weeks from LJ and BBB sees them both go past the century mark and both close in on the top 4 with LJ movng up 2 places and out of the relegations pots altogether.  Prior to this week the gap between the top players was 25 points, now it is down to just 16.

Blue Baggie drops 2 places as he nears the century points total but Dingle is dropping further behind each week and like Stairs needs to find some form.

Cheers
SCO


Championship

SCO          19pts
Snooty      17
Themaclad  17
AAA            14
Twerton      13
Sanjay        5
BaggieOne    1

After 3 poor weeks, the Championship finally got its act together (well, some of them) to provide some decent scores. This week saw the highest number of correct scores so far and the 2nd highest total number of points. The gamball continued to do its job with just 1 player predicting a Leeds win as that game produced a negative return though it was marginally better than the total from the West Brom game where everyone predicted an Albion win - so you all cursed us!

SCO was the gamball master and heads the table with 19 points. He got 6 results correct (as did all of the top 4), turning 2 of them into correct scores. Snooty and Themaclad share 2nd place just 2 points behind SCO with the same number of correct scores and results. They did differ on their balls where Themaclad hit a maximum bonus but, unlike Snooty, missed out on the scoreball. AAA and Twerton both had decent weeks reaching double figures, Twerton getting 3 correct scores amongst his predictions but losing out on his bonus.

Not such a good week for our final 2. Sanjay did at least produce his best score from the last 4 weeks to avoid the foot of the table where we find BaggieOne living up to his name!

AAA        108
Twerton    105
SCO          99
Snooty      90
BaggieOne  83
Themaclad  81
Sanjay        47

BaggieOne's poor week sees him drop 2 places with SCO and Snooty both leapfrogging him as the only changes this week. AAA and Twerton pass the 100 point mark with Sanjay falling even further behind and deperately in need of a return to the form that saw him as the Premier League runner up just a couple of years ago.

Zin

Tuesday sees Town looking for back to back victories as they welcome the Bluebirds of Wales to the John Smiths Arena. Despite looking good for the first 15 minutes, Town contrived to look bang average against one of the poorer teams in the league for the remainder of the game, and were probably lucky to get anything, let alone 3 points, with a heap of credit going to Michal Helik for some great last gasp defending to deny QPR a leveller when it looked for all money as if they would score. I have to give credit to Helik as last season I wasn't overly enamoured by him, purely down to him not being technically the greatest of defenders, and neither is Matty Pearson for that matter, but what they lack there, they make up with sheer determination to keep the ball out of the goal, proper old fashioned defenders. I suppose we have been blessed before with the likes of Christopher Schindler and Levi Colwill in the last few seasons. That being said, when Tom Lees is maybe your most technical of centre halves, you know that you ain't going to be much for playing pretty patterns out of defence. I know some would claim Yuta is our most technical centre half, and whilst I agree he is probably our most technical defender, I'm not 100% sure on him being a centre half. I think his role against Ipswich the other week as a left wing back is probably his most suited position, and that stops Koroma having to feature there and instead focus more on attacking and doing what he is good at. I don't think even a blind man and his dog would miss that we have a very unbalanced squad from top to bottom, something that really needs addressing in January.



Looking at the squad, I would suggest that in goal we are comfortable, Pearson as a right sided centre half frees who ever is a right wing back, probably Thomas to focus on attacking more, Helik is the rock in the heart of the defence, whilst left side is somewhere i think we are lacking, as Lees is probably the one to play there but is primarily right footed, hence the need for a more defensive left wing back to help cover, be it Ruffles or Yuta, there was a reason Warnock used Headley further up the field last season! You could say that we are potentially light in midfield with Hogg walking a tightrope with yellow cards and also being more susceptible to injuries, Wiles is still off the pace, Kasumu is injury prone and Rudoni can't play everywhere. Up top we are heavily reliant on the same people each week as we all know that Danny Ward won't be fit again, what a waste of a wage he was, seems as if once he knew Warnocks time was up, his time on the physio table started. The lack of balance in the squad has meant that we have had to rely on youngsters that are probably not quite ready for an extended run in the first team, in fact you could say that for pretty much all the youngsters.

Anyway slight rant over, moving on to Tuesday. Cardiff have seen a bit of an upheaval, firstly a new manager came to the helm, with Turk Erol Bulut replacing Sabri Lamouchi in the summer. Bulut was actually born in Germany but represented Turkey at youth international level, never making it to the top international level. Club wise he had 4 years at Turkish giants Fenerbahce, making over 100 appearances for them, before returning to Germany for a short spell at Frankfurt. He then hoped back to Turkey for another spell, before eventually finishing his career in Greece. As a manager he has had short spells at the likes of Yeni Malatyaspor and Fenerbahce. His last job was at Gaziantep, where he left in January. His appointment at Cardiff was a rather left field choice by the Bluebirds, not quite as left field as Mark Fotheringham as Bulut actually has some sort of managerial pedigree behind him, but still.



Transfers wise, they have seen the prodigal son return in Aaron Ramsey, but like normal, he's injured, whilst the loan market has been their friend with Karlan Grant joining from West Brom, Ike Ugbo from Troyes, Jonathon Panzo and Josh Bowler both from Forest and Alex Runarson from Arsenal. Elsewhere, Yakou Meite signed from Reading, whilst Greek players Manolis Siopis and Dimi Goutas both joined from Turkish clubs Trabzonspor and Sivasspor respectively.

In terms of leaving the club, Isaak Davies joined KV Kortijk on loan along with Seyi Ojo. Also joining them in Belgium was Joe Bagan as he joined Zulte Waregem. Goalkeepers Ryan Allsop and Dillon Phillips both departed on free transfers joining Hull and Rotherham respectively, whilst Mark Harris and Gavin Whyte were both allowed to join league one clubs in the form of Oxford and Portsmouth. The Blubirds also allowed Max Watters to depart as they recouped £300k from Barnsley for his services. Otherwise, nothing spectacular.

This season so far the Bluebirds have been relatively solid, winning 5, losing 5 and drawing 2. It was a bit of a slow start to the season with a 2-2 draw away at Leeds being followed by two defeats, one of those being QPR at home. They hit a patch of form in September, winning 4 of the 5 games, but October has seen them score just the once in a 1-1 draw with Watford, the other two games have seen them 2-0 and 1-0 on the road to Middlesborough and Blackburn.

In terms of head to heads, the record reads as follows, Games won:32 Games drawn:23 Games lost:28, with the first game coming on Snoots' date of birth back on the 17th December 1921... the two sides played out a 0-0 draw. Town would register an 8-2 in 1927, like we are ever going to see anything like that again and would later go a whole decade without defeat against the Bluebirds as Town dominated the Welsh side during the 60's and into the early 70's. Cardiff would get their own back with a spell from 2011 to 2021 where Town could barely muster a point let alone a win against them, a 2-1 win in February 2022 would break that streak, with two late goals from Josh Koroma and Jon Russell giving Carlos Corberans side the 3 points.



For team news, i'm not sure, since they have started making Darren Moores press conferences youtube only i've not seen any, infact i dont think i've even seen his introductory interview. The one thing that can be certain is Danny Ward is out. For them Ramsay is out but i cant see there being many changes in either side.

Sorry it is short and sweet, i'm not feeling great and have also been a bit consumed by work, both reasons for my non attendance tomorrow unfortunately.

Played for both...

i'll give a clue of a player, whoever guesses it can give a clue for the next one, and we repeat until we give up.

I've scored for both teams, won promotion with both teams and have managed both teams during my time in football. Who am i?

Gamball:
Sheff Wed - Rotherham

Others:
Bournemouth - Burnley
Wolves - Newcastle
Blackburn - Swansea
Cardiff - Bristol City
Hull - Preston
Sunderland - Norwich
Watford - Millwall
Notts County - Wrexham
Man Utd - Man City

Colchester have appointed ex-Crawley boss Matthew Etherington as interim head coach after Ben Garner was sacked.

Etherington, who steps up from his role as under-21 lead coach at Colchester, lasted just 32 days as Crawley boss after being appointed in November 2022.

The 42-year-old now takes over as Garner's replacement "while the club considers its long-term options".

Garner was dismissed with the U's second bottom in League Two after four successive defeats.

Etherington's first game as interim boss will be against Grimsby Town on Tuesday.

He will be assisted by Scott Marshall and Dave Huzzey, who both worked under Garner.

THE MATCH

WEDNESDAY 25TH OCTOBER KO 7:45PM

v

LAST MATCH



Our first game under DR and a similar tale, another defeat although a better performance but just toothless up front. We had a few chances, Windass heading over and Hendrick testing the Watford keeper. Onto the 2nd half and Hendrick headed over the bar then we won a penalty, only for the EFL, sorry linesman to intervene and the decision was reversed. Watford made a several subs and the last of these was to get the winner, Asprilla firing past Dawson.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and a nice long trip to Plymouth for a midweek game, thank you EFL Plymouth had made a decent start to the season, but have wobbled of late, winless in 4 and now currently lie in 21st place. Plymouth have basically the same squad as last season and also have the same manager unlike some other team I could mention. There leading scorer is Hardie with 5 goals & 3 assists, which is how many we have as a team, and which is the big difference of the teams, we have both conceded the same 19 but Plymouth have 18 goals to our pathetic 5.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 16
PLYM 16
DRAWS 13

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                                                                           

PLYM               -                                                                                   

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

JAMES LININGTON
Andrew Fox and Adam Crysell
Fourth Official : Sam Purkiss

THE TEAM

Dawson
Palmer Bernard Ihekwe James
Musaba Bannan Byers Johnson
Gregory Windass

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Gregory

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

60

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Washington 6
Maddix 4
Owlkev 1
SCO 1
Imre 0

BMPL

Stateside 2
Wereham 2
Pei -11

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Birmingham City v Hull City
Bristol City v Ipswich Town
Preston North End v Southampton
Rotherham United v Coventry City
Stoke City v Leeds United

DAAAA

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

Tuesday Night games

Fylde 0-2 Oldham
Aldershot 2-1 Maidenhead United
Altrincham 2-0 Kidderminster
Barnet 2-1 Solihull Moors
Bromley 0-1 Dorking
Chesterfield 3-1 York
Dag & Red 2-0 Boreham Wood
Eastleigh 1-0 Woking
Halifax 2-1 Hartlepool
Rochdale 3-1 Gateshead
Southend 2-1 Ebbsfleet
Wealdstone 2-2 Oxford City

League Table After Matchday 16

Spireitematt - 390
SaltergateBorn - 348
Amelia - 343
St Charles - 291
Dancing - 262
Lord Snoots - 258
Devon - 173

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 = 240 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 226 pts
   
3. jjamez = 199 pts
   
4. neonfoxinthebox = 199 pts
   
5. themaclad = 187 pts
   
6. theo_luddite = 182 pts
   

Saturday 28th October:
Leeds v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Leeds scorers:

Hull City v Preston North End
Ipswich Town v Plymouth Argyle
Middlesbrough v Stoke City
Watford v Millwall

Sunday 29th October:
Sheffield Wednesday v Rotherham United (13:00)

Monday October 30th:
Coventry City v West Bromwich Albion

EFL Cup 4th round:
Wednesday 1st November:
West Ham United v Arsenal (19:30)
AFC Bournemouth v Liverpool
Chelsea v Blackburn Rovers
Everton v Burnley

Bonus matches:
Sunday:
Premier League:
Manchester United v Manchester City (15:30)

Wednesday:
League One:
Fleetwood Town v Blackpool


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

1. Lord Snooty = 219 pts
   
2. ritchiebaby = 181 pts
   
3. WakeyTerrier = 179 pts
   
4. Amelia Chaffinch = 178 pts
   
5. Devongone = 168 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 157 pts
   

Saturday 28th October:
Leeds v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Leeds scorers:

Southampton v Birmingham City (12:30)
Blackburn Rovers v Swansea City
Cardiff City v Bristol City
Queens Park Rangers v Leicester City
Sunderland v Norwich City

EFL Cup 4th round:
Tuesday 31st October:
Exeter City v Middlesbrough
Mansfield Town v Port Vale

Wednesday 1st November:
Ipswich Town v Fulham
Manchester United v Newcastle United (20:15)

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v Celtic

National League:
Kidderminster Harriers v Chesterfield
York City v FC Halifax Town (17:30)


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

Fylde 0-2 Ebbsfleet
Aldershot 2-1 Hartlepool
Altrincham 2-0 Dorking
Barnet 3-0 Maidenhead United
Bromley 2-3 Oxford City
Chesterfield 2-0 Gateshead
Dag & Red 1-1 Woking
Eastleigh 0-1 York
Halifax 2-1 Kidderminster
Rochdale 1-0 Oldham
Southend 2-1 Solihull Moors
Wealdstone 1-0 Boreham Wood


League Table After Matchday 15

Spireitematt - 368
Amelia - 323
SaltergateBorn - 301
St Charles - 263
Dancing - 245
Lord Snoots - 235
Devon - 173