v



LAST SEASON
BIRMINGHAM CITY 3 PRESTON NORTH END 0

LAST TIME OUT
CHARLTON ATHLETIC 0 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1

PRESTON NORTH END 2 BRENTFORD 0


Off down the motorway to St Andrews hopefully not the horror show that happened last season with Deccers having a goalkeeping howler of immense proportions, sure City fans will have forgotten about that NOT.
City started pretty well under Pep Clotet which considering the struggles he had at Oxford is quite surprising. Good news for City no points deduction as yet which should give them a chance of making the play offs.
They were fairly busy during the transfer window, Sunjic, Gimenez and Crowley all brought in for decent fees, tough task for us but we have good form and unlike last season will have a full squad to pick from interesting game.

Match Officials: Birmingham City Away
For the first time this season the Lilywhites see a referee for the second time, with Steve Martin the man in the middle for our trip to St Andrew's on Saturday.
The match official was the referee for our opening day game down at Millwall, where he also had the whistle for the same fixture last season, when Alex Neil’s men came out 3-1 winners, back in February at The Den.

That was one of the match official’s three games officiating both North End in 2018/19, the others being PNE’s wins at Nottingham Forest and at home to Ipswich Town.
Since coming onto the EFL lists back in 2012/13, the Staffordshire referee has officiated 13 North End games, at least one a season for all the years he has been on the league groupings.
His first game was a goalless draw against Leyton Orient back in March 2013, whilst other memorable games include our 3-0 win at Havant & Waterlooville in the FA Cup in 2014, a 3-0 home win over Cardiff City in 2016 and a 3-1 win at Oldham’s Boundary Park in 2014.

He has taken charge of six games so far this season, including our game with the Lions, issuing just 14 cautions in those game, five of which came in that game between North End and Neil Harris’ men back at the beginning of August.

The other members of the third team involved in Saturday’s game are assistants Sam Lewis and Mark Jones and fourth official Daniel Leach.

This will be an interesting test for the Hoops tonight v a French side that has beaten PSG in the past. I think a solid back line will be uppermost in Lenny's plans for tonight.

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER 3:00PM KICK OFF

v

[b]LAST MATCH



Our first game under Monk was a successful one as we took all 3 points. We started 442 with Reach up top with Fletcher, and it didn't take long for us to get in front as Harris got down the left and crossed for Fletch to bury his header from close range. Huddersfield had more of the ball but we defended well with Westwood not really troubled. Huddersfield started brightly but again Westwood only had 1 half decent save to make. We than got a second as Winnall flicked in Bannan's cross and from then on could have had 1 or 2 more as Huddersfield waned and we created several more chances to score.

THE MATCH



Fulham make the journey north for Monks first home game. They have made an ok start and lie in 11th place and will be looking to bounce straight back to the Premier League after last seasons relegation. They do have one of the best strikers in the league in Mitrovic so we will have to keep him quiet. It should be a much stiffer test than Huddersfield as Monk looks to get back to back wins and keep us in the right half of the table.

CURRENT FORM

OWLS               -                          

FULHAM             -                     

THE BASTARD IN THE BLACK

GEOFF ELTRINGHAM
James Mainwaring and Matthew McGrath
Fourth Official : Nick Greenhalgh

THE TEAM

Will he keep a winning side or will he swap things round a bit. Think Murphy could make way for Lee, Luongo or Winnall depending on how we line-up, either 442 or 4231

My line-up (4231)
Westwood
Odubajo Iorfa Borner Palmer
Bannan Hutch
Reach Lee Harris
Fletcher

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Fletcher

ATTENDANCE

23512

BML STANDINGS

Washington 4
Stateside 4
Owlkev 4
Southey 2
Pei 1
SCO 1

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Bristol C v Swansea C
Cardiff v Middlesboro
Forest v Barnsley
Reading v Blackburn
Wigan v Charlton

HHHDA

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE



KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC





One for Washington



The thread awaits the Meggo of Statesides choice.[/b]

Good to see the PNE membership growing.

I am still looking without luck for a sponsor for the board (it will come I am sure if membership keeps growing) but in the meantime have no choice but to put the begging bowl out and ask for contributions to the hosting and management costs.

If you have already contributed then a super big thanks as I will have to pay this without you.

If you are yet to do so, please do. As that supermarket says ‘every little helps’

Well this 1st Embro Derby of the season is one of the oddest in the fact that both teams are "mince" and the managers are under intense pressure to "save their jobs" because they have not done enough to justify remaining at either Embro footie club. It is relegation form, pure n simple.
It is a home game for Hibs but that means nothing unless Hecky finally sets up his team to 1. Shut the back door firmly with his most trusted defence 2. Score the requisite goals with an appropriate blend of forwards and a balanced midfield formation to "make it happen". They will have a huge Hibs support backing them on Sunday. So there is no excuse for not being motivated to win a game v a team that is bottom of the Scottish Premiership and in crisis with lotsa unhappy fans wanting Levein ousted asap. IMO the ball is in Hecky's court and I'm curious to see what starting line up is chosen and also what tactics he employs this time. My prediction re this game is a boring draw but I hope I'm wrong and Hibs "jump out the traps" to play good, expansive footie but not "holding my breath" with Heckingbottom in charge.

GGTTH

SMILIES/BALLS

 Bonus Ball
 Score Ball, Free to use Ball , play it on a game that you think both teams will score in !
 Gamball,

New Scoring System

Incorrect Result =  0 point
Incorrect Result (Bonus Ball) = -3 * Changed from -2
Incorrect Result (Gamball) = -3
[/color]
Score Ball = 1 added Point if both teams score.  !

Correct Result = +2 points
Correct Result (Bonus Ball) = +3
Correct Result (Gamball) = +5  * Changed from +4
Correct Score = + 4 points
Correct Score (Bonus Ball) = +6  
Correct Score (Gamball) = +10   * Changed from +8

As you can see the incorrect scoring has not really changed apart from a wrong Bonus this will be now scored at -3 instead of -2 the reason for this are the gains on the new Gamball scoring you will make (see below) in the hope this encourages you to use it most if not all of the time.

So to the Gamball, the use of the Gamball was tactically not used in some cases last season as the gains we not considered to great compared to the losses, it's for this reason we have decided to change the scoring, The loss will stay the same at -3 but the reward will be a correct result will go up by one from 4 to 5 points and the correct score will go up by 2 from 8 to 10 points !!!
Just a reminder you DO NOT have to play the Gamball if you dont want too, the score will then be marked normal.  


Again the third from bottom of the premiership will play off against the third in the table from the Championship to keep even more excitement going, they will have to predict through all the Playoffs and the winner obviously takes their place in the Premier League the following season  

Beefy, Bomber, Zinman & SCO  


If you do not predict,...........
If in your league everyone scores above zero you will receive Zero points,
However if in your league the person with the lowest score is below Zero (eg -4) you will score -5 and receive your first strike, Remember 3 strikes and you're out.

All scores must be in before MIDDAY SATURDAY,(For The Early Kick Off If Applicable) If the early kick off is missed the rest of your predictions must reach us by 2.45pm or none will be counted.



* NEW & UPDATED 2018/19 PARTICIPANTS,

Premiership
                             
1/ Zinman
2/ ST Charles Owl
3/ Derby                            
4/ Bomber
5/ Sanjay
6/ Beefy                                                      
7/ AAA
8/ BBB 
9/ MattWBA
10/ MacLad                  
                           
Championship

1/ Joker
2/ Stairs
3/ MightyBrom
4/ Baggieone
5/ 4eva
6/ Amelia                          
7/ Twerton
8/ Snoots
9/ Lady Jane

                        
                             
I'm almost 100% sure Myself & the Scorers get the scores added up correctly, From time to time over the season we may get now and again get this wrong, SO IN THE EVENT OF ANY POINTS DISCREPANCIES can i ask all you guys to check your predictions and if you feel they are incorrect in anyway contact me Via PM within a week of the TABLES & SCORES being presented and they will be corrected the following week.
Anything later unless it is a Major error will NOT be corrected. It is as much your responsibility to check your scores as much as it is ours to try and score them correctly.
Beefy  


Saturday 21st September

1/ Leicester V Tottenham 12:30pm
2/ Burnley V Norwich
3/ Leeds V Derby
4/ Brentford V Stoke
5/ Bristol V Swansea
6/ Sheff Wed V Fulham
7/ Doncaster V Peterborough

Sunday 22nd September

8/ ** WBA V Uddersfield
9/ Crystal Palace V Wolves
10/ Arsenal V Aston Villa

"Don Goodman and I are at Ray Hall Lane and these police cars turn up - I thought nothing of it as Hoppy was still with us at the time, so that was usual anyway. The gaffer (Brian Talbot) came over ‘Don… ??? what the F** have you been up?’..." ?

Found this on Twitter it was a fun good read

A rep point for everyone who gets ir right ............

Answer when I feel like it

Don't Buy The Sun!

Cricketing hero Ben Stokes is their latest victim. Their "journalists" have dragged up an old family story from before he was even born, about a tragedy that happened 31 years ago.

Really in the public interest this one. Can't believe they didn't print this one on the eve of the Ashes series or the World Cup final.

Obviously Ben is distraught, angry and has posted his thoughts on social media.

Pts CS CR GB BB SB
Themaclad 17 1 4 5 3 1
Sanjay 15 0 5 5 3 1
St Charles 15 1 5 5 -3 1
Bomber 14 2 3 -3 6 1
BBB 14 2 2 NP 6 0
AAA 13 1 4 NP NP 1
Zinman 11 1 4 -3 3 1
Beefy 7 0 4 -3 3 1
Derby 5 0 5 -3 -3 1

Very consistent scoring this week in the PL from most predictors, with not much between the top 7 scorers!!

Taking top spot for the second week in a row is Themaclad on 17 points. Despite only gaining points on the same number of games as the bottom player this week his haul totally hinged on getting points on all his balls!! Close behind on 15 points are Sanjay and SCO. Sanjay, like Themaclad, owes his total to gaining points on all of his balls and not a lot else, while SCO gained points on 6 games, including the Gamball but missed on the Bonus costing him a top spot!!

Joint 4th place is shared by Bomber and BBB, both on 14 points. Both of these guys recorded a week high 2 correct scores and both scored maximums on their Bonus Ball but the Gamball kept Bomber’s score down and BBB decided he wanted nothing to do with it this week, wisely so as it turned out!! Sixth place is AAA on 13 points. True to prior form he didn’t play the Gamball but got a CR on it, losing a further 3 points by not playing it. He also fell foul of the rules in not making his other ball plays clear enough to be able to score his Bonus ball at all!!!

In 7th spot is our current league leader Zinman on 11 points. For once he actually had the balls to play all his balls!!!! Didn’t do him much good though as he got the Gamball wrong anyway!! Bit of a drop down to Beefy in 8th on just 7 points. No correct scores always hurts and coupled with an incorrect Gamball and only scoring on 4 games will see you in the relegation spots!!! Derby takes bottom spot this week on just 5 points, he did score points on half the games but missed on the Gamball and Bonus so wasn’t able to make much of his week!!!

With not much points difference between most players I cannot see the table changing too much but there could be a few people swapping places!!

Cheers
SCO

   

After being top of the Championship for every week of last season, it's taken themaclad 6 weeks this time but he's taken over at the top of the Premiership and will be aiming to kick on from here as he takes over from last seasons champion, Zinman who chose to play and lose 3 points on the Gamball, will he revert to his non playing tactic next week?

Bomber keeps his spot in 3rd but is forced to share it with our early season pacesetter, Sanjay who climbed a place after an indifferent couple of weeks, the tied pair only sitting 7 points off the top.

BBB kept in touch with the top 4 with a week in the teens, while SCO has a bit of ground to make up to keep in touch, all was looking rosy until Arsenal performed some kamikaze defending. AAA was another in double figures and although in the relegation play-off spot has a 12 point cushion to the bottom 2.

Derby and Beefy fill the bottom 2 places and were the only players to not have double figure scores this week which meant losing significant ground on everyone above them.

Bomber


Lady Jane 17 pts 3CS 5CR 5GB -3BB 1SB
Joker 13 pts 1CS 5CR 5GB -3BB 1SB
Twerton 11pts 3CS 45CR -3GB -3BB 1SB
Snooty 9 pts 3CS 4CR -3GB -3BB 1SB
MightyBrom 8pts 2CS 3CR dnpGB -3BB 1SB
BaggieOne 2pts 0CS 4CR -3GB -3BB 0SB
Amelia 0pts 0CS 0CR No balls
Stairs -1 pt 0CS 2CR -3GB -3BB 1SB

So after the international break we are back and the Championship managed to serve up an interesting set of results. Has there ever been a week when someone managed to get all 10 predictions wrong but still didn't end up bottom of the table? Has Joker ever managed 4 consecutive weeks of positive scores? Has there ever been a week where the bonus ball failed to produce a single point?

Three fixtures caused problems this week with both Birmingham and Watford ruining several bonus balls and, as usual, the gamball game producing negative total scores.

After scoring this season's lowest weekly score before the break, Lady Jane was back to her early season form to head this week's table with 17 points. A comprehensive lead thanks to the week's equal best number of correct scores and correct results, plus correctly forecasting Huddersfield's continuing demise. Joker sits comfortably second as the only other player to score from the Gamball. Twerton takes the bronze position as the other player to reach double figures. He matched Lady Jane's 5 correct predictions and 3 correct scores but lost points on both the gamball and bonus.

Snooty comes in 4th, 1 ahead of MightyBrom who benefited from not playing the Gamball. Snooty matched Lady Jane's 3 correct scores - but how many points have optimistic Huddersfield predictions cost him this season? BaggieOne suffered from a poor set of balls but did at least manage a positive score for the week.

Amelia stated in her predictions that she was making it up as she went along.....and she amazingly managed to get all 10 predictions wrong. She was saved from achieving a minimum score by her no ball policy and so managed to avoid bottom place which this week goes to Stairs - just 2 correct predictions plus the score ball point but failures on the gamball and bonus puts him in negative territory for the week.

Zin


   


No change at the top though Twerton did extend his lead to 9 points despite being another one to suffer at the hands of Arsenals' defence, as did our climber this week, Lady Jane who jumped 3 places into 2nd spot

BaggieOne dropping to a share of 3rd suffered similarly in what was a dissappointing week as he was joined by Joker who made up the quartet of bonus ball casualties all relying all to heavily on David Luiz and co.

Amelia was the big faller this week dropping 2 places and not troubling the scorer and again saving lost points by not playing any of the feature balls, she slips to 5th where she's now in reach of Mightybrom just 4 points back in 6th.

The bottom 2 consist of Stairs suffering a minus week and losing ground on those above him, and Snooty who has only added 13 points in 5 weeks since his first week total of 16.

Bomber

2 points for a correct result
4 points for a correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score       
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.


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.

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.  

Saturday 21st September:
Leeds United v Derby County (12:30)
Birmingham City v Preston North End
Brentford v Stoke City
Bristol City v Swansea City
Cardiff City v Middlesbrough
Luton Town v Hull City
Millwall v Queens Park Rangers
Nottingham Forest v Barnsley
Reading v Blackburn Rovers
Sheffield Wednesday v Fulham
Wigan Athletic v Charlton Athletic

Sunday 22nd September:
West Brom v Town (12:00)
Town scorers:
Baggie scorers:

Bonus matches:
Sunday:
Scottish Premier:
Hibernian v Heart of Midlothian (15:00)

Premier League:
Chelsea v Liverpool (16:30)

EFL Cup:
Tuesday:
Portsmouth v Southampton
Preston North End v Manchester City
Sheffield Wednesday v Everton

Table after Matchday 7:
jjamez = 148 pts
Baggiebob(BBB) = 143 pts
themaclad = 142 pts
SHEP_HTAFC = 140 pts
theo_luddite = 138 pts
Amelia Chaffinch = 135 pts
St Charles Owl = 132 pts
neonfoxinthebox = 130 pts
Lord Snooty = 125 pts
ritchiebaby = 120 pts
Beefy 1965 = 95 pts