Hi and hello football fans, it's your old pal Roko The Football Guy, what's going down? I hope all is well wherever you are! There is a bout of sore throats going about Football Guy towers this morning and it seems that even the penthouse suite here is not immune to contamination as I am finding it quite hard to swallow (insert joke here). Hopefully it's just one of those morning things and it will go away come the afternoon!

I was originally going to post something yesterday but since it was the last day of the transfer window that has been put off until Thursday and instead today you get to read my opinions on who went where yesterday and since there were no deals done by the "BIG FOUR" hopefully this will quash some of those rumors that I only write stuff concerning them...... EAT!!!

Aston Villa

IN

John Collins

My old pal Stew The Footy Doc once told me that every top team needs a Ginger player, well Villa now have two in Steve Sidwell and John Collins............

Collins is an unassuming centerback who will act I'm guessing as cover for Richard Dunne (still not official at time of writing) and........ actually he might well be first choice as Villa hardly have many Booby Moore wannabes in their squad.

Not a particularly glamorous singing but at least it addresses some of the concerns people have about Villa's lack of squad depth.

OUT

With a squad this small selling anybody would be like an Ethiopian child saying I don't like Broccoli.

Birmingham

IN

Teemu Tainio

On loan from Sunderland, are resident Norwich Fan Martin might remember seeing Teemu score against his beloved Canaries the other day in the Carling Cup.

I've always thought Teemu was a decent player for a mid to lower Premier League club as he has a bit of skill and works quite hard, both things a crap team needs. Plus he has one of the best first names in football, say it with me - Teemu......... once more..... TEEEEEEEEEEEMU. I swear there was a character in The Lion King called Teemu and I think he hung around with some wild pig called Pumba, maybe Birmingham could ask Lee Bowyer if he could go all Brazilian on us and call himself Pumba and have it on the back of his shirt as that would mean City instantly have the Football Guy's backing for the best Midfield names in the league!!!

OUT

Do they have anyone worth selling?

Bolton

IN

Ivan Klasnic

I've always thought of Klasnic as the Croatian Kevin Davis, so I was quite amused yesterday to see that Kevin Davis will now be playing with the Croat version of himself. I would love to believe that Gary Megson called Klasnic by video phone and asked to see his Kevin Davis impression, kind of like Will Ferrell did in the Startsky and Hutch movie when asking Owen Wilson to do a Dragon impression. Well now they have two dragons!

One slightly interesting fact about Dragon number two is that he almost had to retire a couple of years ago due to Kidney failure and I believe it was his father who donated him one of his kidney's to save his life........ Just the kind of player I want taking a medical for my club.....

OUT

Need all of their dragons.

Burnley

IN

Dave Nugent

If you have ever wondered why people think Harry Redknapp might be involved in dodgy transfer deals then look no further than Exhibit A - Dave Nugent.

Harry bought him for £5m a couple of years back for Pompey and then less than a month later he was trying to flog him back from whence he came....... Hmmm...... I used to do that with video games a couple of year ago, I'd buy them, copy them then use the receipt to get a full refund....... Me and Harry, partners in crime.....

I guess Nugent can't be worse than the bunch of no marks Burnley have at their disposal right now and who knows, he might actually be have decent when given a run of games?

OUT

Running out of joke's to put in the out section........

Everton

IN

Johnny Heitinga

Everton needed some extra cover at the back and I guess Heitinga is a decent signing, hell he's Dutch and they never have overrated players (looking at RvP....... but mainly Huntelaar).

They also bought Distan but since that deal went through a few days ago I'm not going to talk about it as this is just about yesterday......... Heitinga is quite versital according to Football Manager and his stats are good enough to play for a "BIG FOUR" team, can't understand why Wenger didn't buy him as he could easily covered CB and DCM and even at LB and RB, MAN if I can do this on Football Manager why can't Wenger do this in real life?!?!?! I'd make such a better manager, did you know I once won the Champions League with Newcastle........ That's right, Newcastle!!! If I did that in real life every bird in Geordie town would suck me off until the end off time and Big Al might even shake my hand, they should really add that feature into the next Football Manager!

OUT

...........................

Fulham

IN

ELM

Anytime you have the chance to buy a player who sounds like he is a disease that kills trees I think you have to make that deal!

I'll be honest, I don't know much about Elm other than the fact he's a striker from Sweden and for Fulham's sake I hope he is more Euro 92 Tomas Brolin than late in his career fat Crystal Palace Brolin. I wonder if Brolin was related to Goonies star Josh Brolin because if he is that might clear up where chunks "Truffle-Shuffle" came from........

OUT

LINK

Hull

IN

Ibrahima Sonko

Poor mans Christopher Samba? Well since Hull are above Blackburn in the league table maybe that's not the case. Will he be able to replace the man who left though?

OUT

Michael Turner

Hull's answer to a certain Mr Lescott, the goal scoring defender, don't think he's hit the back of the net this term but I know quite a few people who loved him in their Fantasy teams last year and in all fairness he was the only Hull defender worth having. I personally don't rate him very highly but now that he does not have a complete prick for a manager maybe my opinion will change.

Portsmouth

IN

Ben-Haim, Williamson and Yebda

What does it matter, they are still going down.

OUT

Dave Nugent

See Burnley

Nico Kranjcar

Their best player....... Good luck in the Championship.

Stoke

IN

Danny Collins

Collins is the latest Ex-Sunderland player to join Stoke, or Sunderland South as they might be called soon. Quite surprised about this move as Collins was Sunderland's Captain for their first two league matches this season!

I'm sure he will fit in to the system there quite well and even though I don't think Stoke will be particularly better because of him, they sure as hell won't be any worse.

OUT

Ibrahima Sonko

See Hull.

Tottenham

IN

Nick Kranjcar

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was ready to disown Croatia as my footballing country due to too many of their players playing for teams that I hate, well now with Klasnic at Bolton and Nico at Spurs I have officially renounced my love of Croatia in football........ They are dead to me. They only thing I could think off that would be worse is that if I had a son and he supported Spurs, but lets face it that won't happen as I would love my son too much and would rather chain him up in the basement of Football Guy towers than let him be a Spurs fan..... Maybe that's what Josef Fritzl was doing to his kids all these years?

OUT

LINK

The End

See you all tomorrow with more fun and games

Take care

Football Guy

Hi and hello football fans, it's your old pal Roko The Football Guy, what's going down? I hope all is well wherever you are! There is a somber mood here in Football Guy towers today, not only do I have to go to work today despite it being a bank holiday but my football team lost a game they really should not have lost this weekend (DAMN YOU DIABY!!!!) I'm not sure what should be banned first - Working on a Bank Holiday or Abou Diaby playing football? - Either way both unfortunately will be here for the foreseeable future and like all things that can't be changed they must be endured.

On a brighter note I have a date tonight so hopefully I'll have something to wash away the bad taste in my mouth from the weekend!

United mug Arsenal

Losing to your rivals is one thing, but losing to them when the least you deserved from the match is a draw is a whole new world of hurt.

It's not often you see United play a whole 90 minutes at home and not create a single noteworthy chance (slight lie as they had one late on when Arsenal were pushing forward but that don't really count) and when you do you certainly don't expect them to walk away with three points, but that's football for you I guess.

Arsenal took the lead late in the first half from an Andrey Arshavin thunderbolt, good strike but Ben Foster really should have saved it....... It's funny how people think this makes up for the fact that Arsenal should have had a clear penalty about a minute before when Arshavin was taken out by Darren Fletcher (who did quite a bit of taking out over the course of the match). The only contact Fletcher made with the ball was with his arm so in all fairness if the ref thought that the tackle was not bad enough surly he has to give a pen for handball? Mike Dean....... Gollum in disguise.

Early in the second half RvP should have doubled Arsenal's lead but was foiled from close range by Ben Foster's leg....... A lot of people have tried to make out that this was a great save but for me it was more a case of Van Persie missing than Foster saving, but anyway it probably made up for his rubber hands in the first goal.

United didn't look like they had much to offer and Arsenal were sitting pretty.......... That was until the clown prince of goalkeepers Manuel Almunia decided he was not happy with Wayne Rooney running on to a through ball that was taking him away from goal........ Maybe Alumunia was bored since he had had very little to do? May he's just an idiot? Who knows? Anyway, I'm not going to argue against the decision but for me Rooney was already on his way down before The Clown Prince made contact......... Dive anyone? Surly not, Englishmen don't dive! That's something scabby foreigners do and an Englishmen would never lower himself to such standereds.......

OK, so even at 1-1 Arsenal were hardly up against the wall...... But never fear, Diaby is here!!! Fresh from his two goals last week against Pompey Diaby probably thought he needed to keep his goal scoring form up and gifted United the lead with what has to go down as one of the worst own goals in Premier League history....... I wonder how tempted Billy G and the Belgium Vidic were to beat the crap out of Abou there and then? I know had I been in their boots I would have promptly taken one of the boots off and proceeded to crack open his skull....... No jury in the land would convict me of murder, not when I shown them that own goal as evidence and if that was not enough to keep me out of jail I'd show them the footage of Diaby breaking Nasri's leg in pre season training........ Hell I might even get a medal for purging the world of this Alice the Goon lookalike!

Anyway, all you Arsenal fans out there should take heart, you played well and if you play like that every week you will be there of there abouts come May!

United fans, well done, good result but the performances need to improve.

Liverpool fight back

Did you know that Liverpool only suffered two defeats last season yet already this season have lost twice........  Annoying huh?

Liverpool did well to keep it at just two defeats on Saturday having to come back from behind twice against Bolton.

Glen Johnson keeps on trying to provoke me into hiring a hitman to break his legs so that my mate Amer won't pick him as Captain of his fantasy football team. If Johnson keeps this up I might have to start referring to him as G-John and proclaim him the new C-Ron of Fantasy.

Liverpool, for anyone who has watched them so far this season obviously need to up their game and maybe this international break will do them good....... Unless Torres and Gerrard both get injured, or worse G-John!!!!!

Blue machine keeps on rolling

Chelsea might not have yet played anyone whose that good, but like all good teams they have dispatched all before them with relative ease......... You could almost call them a...... Machine????

Despite their Terminator like qualities they could have been one down and probably would have been had someone better than Paterson had the chance, what a waste of space that guy is......

Speaking of space, I've not seen a goalkeeper who takes up more of it for a long while than Burnley's own pie-eater Brain Jensen...... He's like the second coming of Kevin Pressman, or possibly John Candy, I can't say for sure until I've heard him tell a joke or two. But even if he's not blessed with a comical side he sure can get in the way of the ball. If only the Empire in Star Wars had known about him they could have used him to block up that hole which the Rebels used to destroy the first Death Star or maybe if a meteor is ever on a collision course with earth we can fire him at it to save humanity, but until such time comes he will have to contend himself with keeping goal for Burnley..... an all together worse fate.

Spurs 4 for 4

I feel like the world is destined for a major disaster....... Spurs winning their first four games of the season can only spell trouble for planet Earth and I don't know about you guys but I'm already starting to stockpile supplies for the upcoming global tragedy that is about to befall us all!!!

Spurs really had enough chances to have this game over by halftime yet they needed a stoppage time winner from Little Lennon to seal the deal....... Lennon also happens to be part of fantasy super player Amer's team, for those of you that don't know he is currently leading our fantasy league and if you still don't believe that Spurs being 4 for 4 is a bad omen, Amer turning into the Jesus Christ of fantasy football must be!!

I have to say I'm really looking forward to Tottenhams next match which is against United. Should Spurs win and make it five out of five Football Guy Towers will be investing in a bomb shelter........

The Football Guy Prediction League

I had a good Saturday...... Not quite as good a Sunday which meant I did not fulfill my promise to move up to 2nd in the league, although I did more to 3rd!

The scoring system is simple -

Perfect Result = 30pts

Correct Result = 10pts

Wrong Result = -10pts

Here's a look at how everyone did this midweek -

                          PR       CR      WR      PTS

Jamrock             2          5         3         80

Football Guy      2          4         4         60

SportBoys          1          4         5         20

Lawro                0          6         4         20

Footy Doc          1          3         6          0

Heres the complete table -

                        PR       CR      WR      PTS

SportsBoys       7        13       16       180    

Jamrock            5        15       16       140

Football Guy     3        17       16       100

Lawro               3        16        17       80 

Footy Doc         3        11        22     -20

Footy Doc....... Sort it out, you can't have Lawro beating you!!!!

The Cristiano Ronaldo award for fantasy excellence

1. Ashley Cole - 14pts

Last week it was Abou Diaby, this week we have the poor mans Glen Johnson Mr Cheryl Cole. Well done to Ashley, I was quite happy as I have him in my fantasy team!! Just wish I had made him captain, oh well Fat Frank was not to bad I guess.

Winners and Losers

Winners

Sir Alex Ferguson

You got to be a winner when you should have been a loser but yet still won....... Does that make sense?

Martin O'Neil

Won back to back games for the first time in the league since January..... That's a winner in my book!

Emanuel Adebayor

Goal machine, infact he seems like he's the only guy who can score for City. £25m well spent.

Losers

Manuel Almunia

For making contact with Rooney, had you not we could have been moaning about him diving as he probably would have got the penalty anyway even had Manuel been in the City on Manchester stadium.

Arsene Wenger

For only managing to kick that water bottle 40 yards...... Whats wrong with you???

Abou Diaby

I don't think I need to explain this one anymore.

The End

I've got a lot planned this week so stay tuned,

take care

Football Guy

Just before I get to the  prediction for this weekends Premiership games I wanted to quickly address something that Sepp Blatter.

He takes a pop at the Premier League about a few things =

1. Lack of different winners
2. Too Powerful
3. Too many foreign players

Well in regards to how many teams have won the Premier League since it's start in 1992, it's not any different to that other two big league (Serie A and La Liga.

The Premier League has had four different winners as opposed to the other two league which have had five..... So why does the Premiership have a problem there and the other two leagues don;t Mr Blatter?

As fot it being too powerful, well tough shit...... Remember when all the money was in Serie A in the 90's? I didn't hear Mr Blatter saying squat then...

And as for too many foreigners...... Well when you can pay top dollar you are going to attract the best players.... But if you take a look at Inter Milan, the team they fielded against Manchester United for the first leg of their Champions League tie contained just one Italian whereas the United team contained quite a few Englishmen.

Sepp Blatter....... Prick....

Sunderland v Tottenham

So, can Spurs build on that impressive demolition of Middlesbrough midweek? They could do with it, good performances have been to few and far between for Spurs and consistency is the key for any good side.

Sunderland will surely be looking at this home game as the perfect opportunity to open up a 6/7 point gap over the relegation zone.

I think stalemate.

Football Guy's verdict 1-1

Till Monday,

Take care

Football Guy

Football Guy: "Hi everybody"

Everybody: "Hi Football Guy"

So with a big round of Midweek Premiership action in the history books, lets take a look back and the important bits -

Up Top

Well nothing really changed at the top, all three won with Chelsea and Liverpool at least keeping United honest for time being in their cakewalk to title No19.

Liverpool, who travel to Old Trafford for their next league fixtue on March 14th will have realistically the last real chance to derail United, although even if Liverpool were to beat them I doubt it would really change that much other that a loss of a little pride for Sir Alex.

Race for Fourth

What a difference four days can make, On Sunday Villa should have been going eight points clear of Arsenal, but instead they blew a two goal lead in the final minutes of their home match with Stoke and now on Thursday find themselves on three points above the Gunners with the momentum having really swung to other way.

Villa next face Spurs at home before traveling to Anfield and Old Trafford, as for Arsenal, they host Blackburn before heading to Newcastle then hosting Manchester City.

Could Arsenal be back in fourth by the beginning of April? Maybe, but one things for sure, it looks a bigger possibility than it did Saturday night.

Down at the bottom

First of, there were three massive wins for Spurs, Hull and Stoke. All picking up three points and giving themselves a little big more breathing room at the bottom.

Speaking of Hull, remember what I said yesterday about them? 

"6/4 3rd Fav to go down along with Stoke and West Brom (in that order)"

Well after their (rather lucky) win at Craven Cottage last night they are now 5/2 5th Fav to go down with Middlesbrough and Newcastle slipping below them in the bookies estimations.

As for Spurs, I can assure you that our buddy Peter the Spurs fan (off the podcast) was a happy bunny last night, he called be about five time during the game and I must say I was happy for him too (not for Tottenham.... For my buddy Pete!), Peter was extra happy with the Spurs result as he had Robbie Keane in his fantasy team.... Unfortunately for him though, the guy above him in our league is Amer (from the first podcast)who, not only had Robbie Keane, but also had Aaron Lennon.... Pete did well not to lose ground on him.

Football Guy v Mark Lawrenson

Lawro came at me with everything he had midweek and it still was not enough.

This Week

Football Guy - PS 1 CR 6 WR 4

Lawro           - PS 1 CR 6 WR 4

The Cristiano Ronaldo award for fantasy excellence

1. Aaron Lennon - 16pts

It's the highest points total we've had in sometime, in fact with out looking I'm going to say it's the biggest points total since Stephen Ireland's 19pts just after Christmas.

Anyway, well done Mr Lennon, I'm sure Spurs fans out there would like to see those kind of performances on a more regular basis and not once in a blue moon.

The End

Well that's your lot for today, come back tomorrow for the weekend preview and more fun and hi-jinx

Take care

Football Guy

Right, straight in to part two of this midweek preview. Check out Lawro's predictions here.

Manchester City v Aston Villa

A couple of days ago I was more optimistic about City's chances for this one, that was until Bellamy and Robinho both went down.

Now I'm wondering where city's goals come from in this one, Stephen Ireland maybe? I would feel better about Ireland if he was not the 2nd guy on my bench for my fantasy team!

Will be interesting to see how Villa will react after throwing away the chance to bury Arsenal in the race for forth...

I'm thinking a away win.

Football Guy's verdict 0-1

Newcastle United v Manchester United

Normally I would be predicting a whooping here for Newcastle, but since this new look United team seems to like not scoring as much as they used to, so maybe this one would be a big a blow out as I originally thought.

Having said that I still can't see any other result than Man United win.

Football Guy's verdict 0-2

Stoke v Bolton

Thank you Stoke, I did not think anything they could do this season would warm me to them in the slightest..... Well after the last three minutes at Villa park on Sunday I felt a little spark of warmth.... Just a little.... Very little......

Anyway Bolton got another good win on the weekend and are now in my eyes all but safe (they would need to totally fall apart to go down), which leads me to believe that Stoke, being at home and needing this game more will get the win.... Just...

Football Guy's verdict 2-1

Wigan v West Ham

This might just be the first totally meaningless game of the season!

Both teams won't go any higher or drop particularly lower than they are now in the league so they have nothing on the line.

And for any neutrals out there wondering what match they should watch on one of those Football streaming sites, let me say you could do a lot worse than watch this match.

Both teams play good football and hopefully will just go at it in a entertaining way as they don't have much to lose.

Football Guy's verdict 2-1

Blackburn v Everton

Have Everton fans tried talking themselves in to the possibility of overtaking Arsenal in the league?

I overheard two on the bus the other day talking as if it were like an 80/20 chance of happening in their favour...... I really wanted to say something too them both but then realized they were both kind of burly and me being a lover not a fighter would probably get a beat down.

This was by far the toughest game for me to pick this week.

Football Guy's verdict 0-0

Fulham v Hull

Hull.... 13th in the league, spent most of the season in the top half..... Are 6/4 3rd Fav to go down along with Stoke and West Brom (in that order).

So what do you think I'm going to predict for this one? Also factor in the fact Fulham have the 3rd best home record in the Premiership it make's 8/11 home win look like buying money!

The only slight worry for me it that Hull have not lost this season in London....... There's a first time for everything....

Football Guy's verdict 2-0

Tottenham v Middlesbrough

Big game at the bottom, Boro could actually go above Spurs with a  win at White Hart Lane and why not?

I would guess it's harder to beat Liverpool at home than it is to beat Tottenham away right?

To be honest I could really see this game going all three ways.... Unfortunately I can only pick one....

Football Guy's verdict 2-1

Podcast

This week see's the return of fan favourite Peter the Spurs fan  who give's us his thought on the Carling Cup and his trip to Ireland.

DOWNLOAD

 

Greetings and salutations my friends, welcome to another week of Football fun kicked off as always by the Monday Hangover.

It's a busy week ahead with Premiership games on both Tuesday and Wednesday so you lucky folk out there should receive FOUR post from me this week plus a podcast or two (I'm hoping for two but might only be one due to real life stuff... You know...Work..).

But lets not get to far ahead of ourselves, there was a action packed weekend just past and I'll do my best to take you through it.

Carling Cup Final

Well done to United on their first of possibly (hopefully not) four trophy's this season.... Or as some, like the BBC's Phil McNulty will have you believe, it's their second of five. I say to Phil, if were counting the Club World Cup then why not the Community Shield too?

Anyway, quadruple or quintuple or even a sextuple, the fact is United won what for me was quite an enjoyable game that just lacked a goal or two too really make it great. Definitely one of the better 0-0 games I've seen in a long while with both teams trying to win the match.

Aaron Lennon forced the best save of the match from United's Ben Foster (who I've always loved.... In a footballing sense) but Ronaldo could have one it for United with only a few seconds of normal time remaining after his thunderous shot from just inside the box crashed off the inside of Gomes's left hand post. All in all I think the right team won.

Side note - All week long I've heard from Tottenham fans about how this game is really important for them as it gets them back in to Europe next season... OK... That's true, yet only three days earlier Harry played a weekend team in Europe and condemned Spurs to elimination.

Now my question is - What's the point being in Europe if your going to play weekend side in not one, but two legs?

I can understand if Spurs were in Aston Villa's position and were fighting to get in to the Champions League, but Tottenham are resting players in a competitions they are trying to get back in to... Am I the only person struggling to understand the logic behind that?

Race for Fourth

Saturday night I had started writing an article about how it was over for Arsenal and who was to blame and so forth..... Had to scrap that after two late goals from Stoke on Sunday!

What a missed opportunity for Villa to really nail the coffin shut on Arsenal's Champions League hopes this season and now, IF Arsenal can beat West Brom on Tuesday, the Gunners will be only three points behind putting real pressure on Martin O'Neill's side for their trip to Manchester to for City, how quickly things can change in football eh?

Back to Arsenal for a second, I've read a lot of people slagging of the Arsenal players commitment on Saturday against Fulham which I think is unfair. Sure against Sunderland that would have been a fair accusation but in my opinion Arsenal did everthing right except put the ball in the back of the net and that was definitely NOT from lack of trying.

Maybe it was to do with Arsenal's best chances falling to Robin Van Persie who has greater ambition that the club it seems and is showing that by being completely unable to win us games like a certain Mr Henry 14, RVP - Do you think your as good as him? Go out and prove your ambition first by scoring as many goals as a top striker does and then come back with your questioning of the clubs ambition.

One quick question for Fergie

You said the other week that you thought it was a two-horse race between you and Liverpool, now that Liverpool have dropped to 3rd could you please come out and claim to the media that the title race is over?

Would love to see that - 

Reporter - So Sir Alex, is that the title race over?

Sir Alex - Ey, it is (crack's open Champagne bottle)

Reporter - But Sir Alex, there are still 10 games to go, i know your in a strong position but aren't you being a little premature?

Sir Alex - I'll tell you who's premature, you father when he's fucking your mother, or so she tell me after me, C-Ron and Nani have finished spit-roasting her!

(End Scene)

Football Guy v Mark Lawrenson

Another week, another being for Mr Lawrenson. I know there's still 10 games to go but I'm doing a Fantasy Fergie and claiming the title after what happened this weekend.

This Week

Football Guy - PS 2 CR 5 WR 3

Lawro           - PS 2 CR 3 WR 5

The Cristiano Ronaldo award for fantasy excellence

This week is a tie between Stiliyan Petrov and Stephen Warnock both with 13pts. This is also the 3rd time out of the last 4 hangovers that a player/players have won with 13pts, I see a trend!

Also speaking of hangovers, I spent a good half an hour Saturday morning with a splitting headache deciding over Christopher Samba or Stephen Warnock as my fantasy pickup for the week......... Needless to say..... I chose poorly. Kind of like in Indiana Jones and the last crusade when they get to the room with all the fake cup's of Christ in it and Donovan chooses the wrong one and goes from his mid 40's to a corpse in about 10 seconds, saying that Donovan's corpse body looks strangely like Doc Brown from Back to the Future....

This week

I'm going to be doing the predictions for the midweek games tomorrow and I think/hope Lawro will too.

There will be a Thursday Hangover as well as the regular weekend preview on Friday where I hope there will be a podcast.

Speaking of Podcast. as mentioned before, I'm hoping to do two this week but if worst come to worst I will settle for one which should be are old friend Peter the Spurs fan which should be fun.

Anyway until tomorrow....

Take care

Football Guy

So last night I was hoping to get home early and catch some well earned Zzzz, instead me and a mate who's not from Leeds meet up for a couple and just about the time I'm getting ready to go home and put my Sainsburys taste the difference Lasagna in the oven two Croatian guys notice my Hajduk Split scarf, buy me a drink and the rest is as they say history. Ended up getting home at about 2.30am..... Do I need to let you know my head hurts? Anyway, funnily enough one of the Croats who I was drinking with was a genuine Dwarf, not like this, more like that, now anyone that's seen me will the the tale of how tall I am (6'7ft) so to see my pint-sized new buddy walking down the street next to me, the human lamppost drew quite a few stares other pedestrians! We probably looked like the white version of these two guys.

OK, enough about me and my drunken exploits, the big news is my football predicting adversary Mark Lawrenson, has it seems been too busy to grace us with his football knowledge and not predicted anything for this set of midweek games (if anyone who reads this can prove I'm just silly and blind please do let me know). None the less I'm still going to predict just for fun (and in case I've missed Lawro's predictions of the BBC's website). Rather annoyingly it means I can't poach the lovely badge pictures for each fixture of Lawro's page now either...Boo.

Just as a quick recap, since we last checked the scores there was still one game left to be played and it was last Monday's Merseyside Derby, you know, the one that finished 1-1. Anyway me and Lawro were both wrong as we went with 1-0 Liverpool win's, so the league table now looks like this -

Portsmouth v Aston Villa

So it looks as though Big Emile will be making his Villa debut in this one, Ivanhoe (his middle name) will be hooking up again with Martin O'Neill for the first time in nine years and will provide an element to the Villa game that's been sorely missing since John Carew vanished off the face of the earth with whatever injury he has.

Tony Adams said in his pre match press conference -

"Hopefully everybody will show a bit of patience with me because times have changed. But there is no use complaining, I am fighting and I am fighting hard."

True Tony, you are fighting hard, but if I fought Lennox Lewis I'm sure I'd fight hard but I would fail....... Now I know I've given Adams a hard time since he has taken over at Portsmouth and in all fairness it's not an easy time at Pompey at the moment as they have sold most of their best players in the past six months and a lot of the ones who were good last season e.g Sol Campbell have really began to show their age. So I guess I should lay of "Big Tone" until he's had a chance to work his unique brand of whatever it is he does on his team.

Football Guy's verdict 1-2

Sunderland v Fulham

I'm not sure if I've made the right choice here, I've dropped a man who apparently Spurs bid £15m for (which really could be anyone as that seems to be the price they pay for most of their players), a man who seems to be hitting form and a man who has just been rewarded with a new four year contract. That man is Kenwyn Jones and I'll tell you who I brought in for him tomorrow.

Have Fulham's defense finally turned back in to who we thought they were? Eight goals conceded in their past four games in all competitions say's yes. Also, is selling one of your better players (Bullard) to a team you might be going to be fighting it out with to stay in the premiership (Hull) a good idea?

Football Guy's verdict 1-1

Tottenham v Stoke

Massive game this.... Well it's as massive as a game can be in late January. Spurs can't afford to lose this one.

So never fear you Lillywhites, I'm going to cheer you up with a stat - Stoke have never ever won a Premiership away game! - Take comfort form the fact you won't be the first, unless Gareth Bale starts and the pitch at WHL swallows both teams.

I'm also rather baffled at Tottenham's decision to bring back TWO former players this transfer window, I thought that was something you don't do?

Another thing, is 35 year old Carlo Cudicini the answer to your goalkeeper problems?

Should I start Rory Delap in my fantasy team?

Football Guy's verdict 2-1

West Brom v Manchester United

United will set a new top-flight record of 11 successive clean sheets, if they manage a shut-out against the Baggies.

If United keeper Edwin Van Der Sar keeps West Brom at bay for 84 minutes, he will set a new Premier League record for consecutive minutes without conceding a goal. He will pass Peter Cech's mark of 1,025 minutes accomplished between 12 December 2004 and 5 March 2005.

Usually when teams break these kind of records they also go on to win the league...Boohoo for the rest of us.

One X-Factor that I think has been overlooked in the build up to United's chances of setting this new record has been West Brom's Robert Koren's two game goal streak.... After not scoring a goal all season people take notice after 3 in 2 games!

Football guy's verdict 0-2

See you all tomorrow for part DEUX!

Take care

Football Guy

Well people, the good news is I'm feeling much better than I did a few days ago, the bad news is I still don't feel that great and I have to go back to work later today..... I really do hate having the flu and I'm not talking about man-flu where I might have a sore throat and milk it to no end, this was the real deal stuck in bed, throat feels like someone is scraping it with sandpaper, nose want stop running (like  Park Ji-Sung) and you feel like the end of the world is nigh. That's what I hate!

I must say, a very underrated negative about being really ill is losing the ability to taste. I could have eaten pretty much anything over the last couple of days and as long as it was not rough on my throat it would not have mattered, it's a really shame because last night I had one of my favourite lasagna's (Football Mum's special recipe) and it tasted like I was eating sloppy cardboard....

Speaking of food, I'd like to introduce a new friend of the site to you all - It's long time Football Guy friend and soon to be powerful journalist Tracey Fitzgerald and her blog about eating out in London - I ate London. I fully recommend her judgment on all things food in the London area, so if your eating out in London but not sure of where to go, make sure you see what Tracey has to say about the place and if what she say's is good I'm sure you can't go too far wrong.

I would also like to say Happy Birthday to longtime reader and one of the few people who regularly leave comments on the site - I'm not from Leeds a.K.a Neill Parker - Who despite BEING from Leeds is a Manchester United fan for some reason. "I"won't say how old he is, but just for reference, think Micky Rourke.

Speaking of strange looking famous people, Arry Redknapp's Spurs threw away a three goal aggregate lead last night yet still managed to squeeze through the the League Cup final where the will be defending their crown against United. Don't worry Burnley fan's, you probably won't have to wait long for revenge as there's a decent chance you might be playing Spurs next season if you can just go on a bit of a run and make the Championship play-offs and get promoted, but in all fairness it's more realistic to say wait for Spurs to go down and give them a nice welcome when they arrive.

Speaking of welcome guests, Arsene Wenger has been trying his hardest to get Zenit to let Andrei Arshavin come over to play. He seems to be Arsenal's only real target of this transfer window and could become very handy for an Arsenal team who despite playing better still look like they lack creativity in midfield without Cesc. My only real question about AA is - Whats up with his eyes? Can he see out of them? Is there a professional squinting circuit as I think I've found the champ for the next 10 years..... OK, that was more than one question, but I guess when you see a man with paper cuts for eyes one question is never enough.

Speaking of questions, a lot seemed to have been asked about Liverpool this week after blowing two points late on in the Merseyside derby. That is now their sixth draw in their last nine games and certain sections of the media are starting to really question if Liverpool are good enough to win the title? Now my personal opinion about Liverpool's current form is that it's balancing itself out, by that I mean if you look at Liverpool's early season form there were quite a few games the wound up winning that they could have easily drawn and in the last 10 games or so they have drawn a number of games they could have won. I think Liverpool will end up being who we thought they were - A team not quite good enough over 38 games to win the league - But will be a lot closer then in the past few seasons.

Speaking of being close, how many teams are in the race to stay up? Will if you look at the table, only three points separate 20th-12th and will Hull going down quicker than an erection after seeing Amy Winehouse topless on a beach, I'd say we have at least 10 genuine contenders for the drop and were almost in to February! I wrote about how this was a crazy season a few months ago in my November Power Rankings, but I did think it would have sorted itself out by now. Squeaky Bum time stars early this year.

Speaking of starting early, could we just do away with early kick-offs? More often than not they are pretty dull games and as most football fans I know quite like a drink on a Friday/Saturday night it makes them a chore to get up for. I think evening games are the way forward, I loved the fact Spurs v Wigan was on a Friday night a few weeks back in the FA Cup and I seem to remember the Premiership a few year ago having the odd game on a Friday night, why did they get rid of them? Saturday and Sunday nights should be used as well and I'm sure if you asked most fan they would agree. The only time I want to watch Football pre 3pm is if the World Cup in in Asia!

OK, enough of my rambling, I've got to get ready for work and need to eat some tasteless food as I'm hungry.

I'll be back tomorrow for my weekend preview, until then

Take care

Football Guy