Poll Results: Who’s going down?

The results are in, and the people who have stumbled across this blog have spoken. The results are:

Leicester – 47%.

Norwich – 13%.

Sheff Wed – 10%.

Blackpool – 9%.

Coventry – 8%.

Southampton – 8%.

Barnsley – 5%.

Looks like the Foxes are favourites to claim the third relegation place, but own up – who voted for Norwich? I wasn’t expecting us to come second!

I think we’ll do this again at some point, it was interesting!

Happy Birthday to The Football League

The Football League is 120 years old today. From The Football League website:

The lack of structure to the football landscape in 1888 meant that many matches were being cancelled due to bad weather, injuries or lack of transport. With fixture cards being rendered virtually meaningless William McGregor, a Midlands based draper and a Director of Aston Villa, set about making changes.

Little did he know the impact he would have on English and Welsh football.

If you’re interested in the history of The Football League, you can read the rest of that article here.

This weekend in the Championship

City could very well be safe after this weekend’s games – or we could just as easily find ourselves back within a couple of points of the drop zone with only two games left.

The Happy Days Scenario

The dream scenario for us would results something along the lines of Barnsley to beat Leicester, Blackpool to beat Sheffield Wednesday, Colchester to beat Coventry, us to beat West Brom, Plymouth to beat Preston and Burnley to beat Southampton.

That would leave the bottom of the Championship looking like this:

• 15 – Norwich (55pts)
• 16 – Barnsley (55pts)
• 17 – Preston (54pts)
• 18 – Blackpool (53pts)
• 19 – Southampton (50pts)
• 20 – Sheff Wed (49pts)
• 21 – Coventry (49pts)
• 22 – Leicester (48pts)

In the ideal scenario us and Barnsley would now be safe, and realistically the final relegation place would be between Leicester, Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton.

The Nightmare Scenario

The worse-case scenario for City would results something along the lines of Leicester to beat Barnsley, Sheffield Wednesday to beat Blackpool, Coventry to beat Colchester, us to lose to West Brom, Preston to beat Plymouth and Southampton to beat Burnley.

That would leave the bottom of the Championship looking like this:

• 15 – QPR (55pts)
• 16 – Southampton (53pts)
• 17 – Sheff Wed (52pts)
• 18 – Norwich (52pts)
• 19 – Coventry (52pts)
• 20 – Barnsley (52pts)
• 21 – Leicester (51pts)
• 22 – Blackpool (50pts)

In this scenario QPR would be safe, but it would be anyone’s guess for the final relegation place.

The Most Likely Scenario

The most likely outcome will probably be somewhere between the two, and I would go for Barnsley to beat Leicester, Blackpool and Sheffield Wednesday to draw, Coventry to beat Colchester, West Brom to beat us, Plymouth to beat Preston and Southampton to draw with Burnley.

That would leave the bottom of the Championship looking like this:

• 15 – Barnsley (55pts)
• 16 – Preston (54pts)
• 17 – Norwich (52pts)
• 18 – Coventry (52pts)
• 19 – Blackpool (51pts)
• 20 – Southampton (51pts)
• 21 – Sheff Wed (50pts)
• 22 – Leicester (48pts)

In this scenario Barnsley are now safe, and it’s all eyes on the Walkers Stadium next week for Leicester against Sheffield Wednesday where a win for the Owls would make us safe no matter what else happened.

I can’t think that far ahead at the moment though so I’m off to rest my weary head before it explodes trying to comprehend all of the different combination of results…

Isn’t it interesting to know what constitutes a “disaster” these days?

Liverpool’s co-owner Tom Hicks has said that Rick Parry’s time at Anfield has been a “disaster”.

From Sky Sports:

We have fallen so far behind the other top clubs. The new stadium should have been built three or four years ago.

We have two sponsors, maybe three. We should have 12 or 15. We are not doing anything in Asia the way Manchester United and Barcelona are.

We have a tremendous number of fans in Asia. So we have got the top brand in the world of football, but we just don’t know how to commercialise and get the money for it to use to buy great players.

Rick needs to resign from Liverpool football club. He’s put his heart into it, but it is time for a change.

You can add a Champions League trophy, FA Cups, a place in this year’s Champions League semi-finals, qualification for the Champions League for the last goodness only knows how many years to that list as well and oh – how about being the eighth richest club in the world?

The terrible events that happened at Hillsborough 19 years ago were a disaster. This however is just pathetic internal politics, and in the week of the anniversary of the disaster you would expect an ounce more tact and decency to come out of the Anfield boardroom.