Welcome Back!

Long time no blog eh? I am sad this morning because the Christmas/New Year festive season is finally over, it's probably my favourite time of the year. I told myself everyday to write a little something, I mean it's not as if we don't have any football to comment on over these wonderful couple of weeks, is it?! Without going into every talking point of every game that has taken place, I can safely say that we have a wonderful Premier League. What a title race we are having this season! Chelsea have gone through a tough period, Utd likewise, and despite Arsenal's good form of late, we have had bad spells aswell. It's a cliche I know, but right now anyone really can beat anyone in this division, there 'aint no gimmies anymore. On the Arsenal, the Villa result was massive and we owe it in no small measure to our captain Fabregas, who half injured already came off the bench, scored 2 wonderful goals and 27 minutes later left the pitch fully injured. It's apparently not too serious and he should be back for Everton on the weekend, where he'll probably be placed on the bench and have to perform the same rescue mission all over again! We need a striker, no doubt about that right now, despite our excellent goals tally and good form of late, Arshavin isn't a centre forward, Eduardo is struggling with form, and he along with Vela are getting played wide which isn't helping their confidence in front of goal. Walcott seems permanently injured, and Bendtner is some way off too - his last game was on 31st October. I don't like to moan about injuries because every team gets them, and some are worse off than us, but we do seem to get our big players out every season for significant lengths of time. This year Walcott, Clichy, Gibbs and Bendtner have all been out for months at a time, Denilson, Rosicky, Nasri, Cesc and Diaby have all had little 2/3 weekers and of course our main man up front RvP who was in ridiculous form will miss something like 6 months of football. We're told that Chamakh won't be moving in January but we should sign a pre-contract with him now, Dzeko and Balotelli will be too pricey, and there's no way Wenger would take a punt on a Van Nistelrooy. The window should be interesting.

Elsewhere in the division Birmingham continue to be this year's surprise package, unbeaten in 10 I think and having won most of those. Fulham are doing very well again and it speaks volumes of the club and of Roy Hodgson to say that that is not a surprise to anyone. Mancini has had a decent start at City but in 2 easy fixtures, we won't know if the decision to dump Hughes was the correct one, for some time yet. They are fighting with Liverpool, Villa and Spurs for that elusive 4th spot for Champions League football, right now I'd put them in the following order; City, Spurs, Liverpool, Villa. West Ham have sneaked themselves out of the relegation zone, the current bottom 3 of Pompey, Hull and Bolton would be an excellent trio to wave off to the darkness of the Championship. Speaking of Bolton, Gary Megson was turfed out last week, he managed to put together a team as ugly as Sam Allardyce's, but without winning any games. And the rolling joke that is Pompey, for a third month this season they haven't paid their players and staff, and have been issued with a 'wind up petition' for HMRC, which I understand means that they need to 'strengthen' their financial situation by February, or face administration. At the moment every penny that comes into the club (and there aren't many of those) goes straight back out the door to creditors, other clubs they owe money to, and outstanding loans. It doesn't look good.

FA Cup 3rd round weekend is always a highly anticipated one, but with one glaring exception it really failed to catch fire. That exception happened at Old Trafford where Leeds rocked up, played some great stuff and thoroughly deserved to win the game. There's always this horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when watching Utd chase a game, they almost always get at least the equaliser, and as Leeds led the game I was fearing the worst. But the League One side continued to press on the break, hit the bar from a free kick and Beckford would have expected to add to his earlier goal. It didn't matter in the end though, a poor Utd team (not just yesterday but a wider picture of their whole season) couldn't make the breakthrough and Leeds are rewarded with another tough trip in round 4, this time to Spurs. Arsenal didn't really deserve the win at Upton Park, a familiar story for the Hammers this season of play well, get nothing. They deserved a replay last night, but some persistence and quality from the Gunners was enough to edge it. Liverpool toiled to a replay after a 1-1 draw with Reading, probably the only other result to raise half an eyebrow over the weekend. Reading deserved it too, and might well have nicked a late goal, but now face a tough trip to Anfield for a replay. Only 1 non-league side remains, and Forest Green have only the weather to thank for that after their game at Notts County was called off, and there wasn't a single win for a team in a lower division than their opponents. More tomorrow, I promise. Take her easy.