Saturday Football

An interesting set of Saturday's games in the Premiership. Obviously the most important one was the West Brom v ManScum; a win for Robson's side would have meant Liverpool would still be within 2 points of Scum and a chance to go second on Sunday (even if having played two games more).

As it turned out they did what was more likely and promptly succumbed to the Scum. Arsenal continued their mini revival by beating Charlton 3-0, moving into 4th spot (at least until Spurs play later - currently in the 60th minute). Other games of no importance were played including the 4-1 beating Aston Villa by the Toffees.

However, there were two other games that would typically have no importance but were affected dramatically by another cock-up by the FA and/or Sky-TV. Both Man City and West Ham fielded much weakened sides in today's Prem games against Wigan and Pompy, respectively. On paper it was a bigger risk for City than the Hammers, but ultimately the results were the same for both as both teams lost points.

What pisses me off about this is that a proper game was avoided, because both teams were more concerned with the FA Cup which they have to play each other in just two days! Why such a short gap? Well because they want to televise all of the quarter-finals! The FA want to blame the man exiting (Sven) for the problem saying that the England team wanted an earlier finish to the season.

In truth that's simply bollocks, it's all about TV/Sky and the money that comes from it! A more sensible option would be to double up on the Wednesday night and play two of the games them leaving one each on Tuesday and Thursday. The FA's typical greed/incompetence has brought this about and shame on them.

Interestingly this situation has had knock-on effects as Pompy beat the weakened Hammers 4-2 alleviating their worries at the bottom, together with West Brom's loss to Scum and a likely defeat to Brum by Spurs, Harry could find his team just one win (and a sizable goal difference) from escaping the bottom three. Perhaps the answer to this all is that someone at the FA or Sky is really a Pompy fan!?

UPDATE: Spurs are currently 1-0, leaving Brum in the bottom three and helping Spurs leapfrog Arsenal into fourth or more importantly 6 points away from the 'pool.

Full-Time Spurs wins 2-0: so Tottenham moves back into fourth and Pompy are now only 3 points (+GD) from safety.