Derby 0-2 West Ham Pride Park is a great stadium to visit, when we first went there after Derby moved from The Baseball Ground, we thrashed the shysters 0-4.
Anyhoo...this was crap. Derby have won their last five matches (could be more) at League One (old 3rd Div) level, but had no chance against The Hammers who are frankly average. Nowt much more to say really, oh yes Derby tried their luck with a substitute, Jake Rooney. He be Wayne's cousin or nephew or Dad, I dunno but Wayne bought him into the squad when he was manager. Obviously he saw sense and bailed out when Colleen won the Rebekah lawsuit and earned them both some real dosh. Jake meanwhile was left behind and was of no use tonight.
Leicester vs Blackburn Rovers or Birmingham Bristol City vs Man City Man Utd vs West Ham
Not many of us left in this. Happy with the Leicester draw, I'd prefer Birmingham, AKA The Bluenose Shysters* over Blackburn though. Man City have a reasonably easy one, West Ham could be in trouble.
*The Technician, as a Villa fan, loathed Birmingham City, and the word "shysters" there was actually slightly stronger.
Back to the Carabao Cup tonight, Semi Final 2nd leg.
Newcastle v Southampton 20:00 KO
The Geordies are in a good position here but mustn't be complacent. As long as they don't lose they're through, but if The Saints get an early goal it's back to square one. Newcastle have not won a trophy since 1969, this is their best chance since then. Some Arabs were in the crowd last week, so we could see Mohammad bin Salmon, the Amanda woman or Mahatma Coat in attendance.
A difficult game, The Geordies had it sewn up in 5 minutes when local lad Sean Longstaff scored and sealed it with another 20 minutes later. But The Saints had other ideas and pulled one back by HT. Second half was tricky, The Magpies panicked as Southampton attacked and things went horribly wrong when Bruno Guimarães went piling in to a Saint who had gone marching in, as if he was Fabhino for Liverpool. Sadly Guimarães buggered that particular tactic right up and got red carded for his trouble, after VAR had interfered. This left Eddie and the boys hanging on to a two goal lead, but it was new wives all round when the 27 minutes of extra time was up and Newcastle were headed into the Carabao Cup Final.
This is a heartwarming tale. Lifelong Everton* fan Paul Stratton jumped into his wagon to help the Ukrainians by taking much needed supplies to some war-torn areas. In a pre-season friendly last Summer, he was honoured for his trouble at the end of a match against Dynamo Kyiv. Everton were 3-0 up with a minute remaining and won a penalty. Deli Alli who expected to take it was taken off and Stratton, completely surprised, was bought on to take the spot-kick. Obviously it was a lousy kick but the Ukraine keeper made no effort to save it. Fans and team members from both sides applauded. The only down side is that he made it 4-0 but the result stood as 3-0 because the bloke wasn't technically in the squad.
*Yes I appreciate Mr Yorko will probably be shouting "Poo!" and "Bluenose Shyster!" or somesuch, but fair play to the bloke and at least Everton have been useless ever since.
Well that wasn't exactly the prediction makers dream! Everton recently sacked Frank Lampard because he was hopeless and today saw the return of ex-Burnley boss Sean Dyche. I like Dyche, he always looks like if his players don't put in a shift, he'll give them all a good hiding. Today the Gunners ran scared as the Toffos went about the job. I think they had downed tools for Lampard much in the way Leicester players did when they fell out with the dismal Claude Puel. To ice the cake today, it was an ex-Burnley Dyche protege who's name is very foreign and I forget who scored the one goal. Within minutes there were cries from Arsenal fans that their season is now over and Man City will take the title. Get Arteta, out etc etc...
Wolves 3-0 Liverpool Yes you read that right. To put it bluntly, although Klopp says they were better in the second half, the fact is Wolves were tremendous while The Scousers were atrocious. God knows what's going on with Liverpool at the moment, but surely soon there will be calls for Klopp's scalp? Or is it a dressing room issue, again like Leicester players have inflicted on their boss on more than one occasion? Whatever, they are in a mess and that's putting it mildly. Take care tonight if out and about in Warrington later.
Villa 2-4 Leicester And I got to watch it! And it was magnificent. And it was scary. But a superb game all round, end to end stuff from start to finish. Leicester introduced some new faces - Harry Souttar and Tete making their debuts. Villa took the lead quite early but Leicester replied with Iheanacho replying minutes later. Why Iheanacho isn't used in the starting line up more often I do not know, but today the woeful Daka was dumped in favour of our pitch kissing FA Cup hero. But things took a sour note next when Harry Souttar who had just been compared with a young Harry Maguire proved this point by turning a Villa shot into his own net. He looked embarrassed for the rest of the game. But no worries because t'other new lad, simply named Tete (he's from Brazil) made a superb second equaliser assisted by Iheanacho and a bloody good shot it was too. Leicester's third came seconds before the break, Iheanacho yet again assisting a hapless Villa lad with a very strange name get a nice own goal of his own, HT Villa 2-3 Leicester. Second half carried on in the same vein, end to end but increasingly Villa seemed to dominate and things got pretty worrying because we are good at throwing away one goal leads. And so Brenda removed two top players, the brilliant MOTM POTM Iheanacho and Maddie. City fans gasped as Vardy hobbled on along with Praet (pron. Pratt). And the run of play continued in Villa's favour. And then we scored a 4th, the excellent Pratt doing the business. Ten minutes of bus parking then, enter Turkish Twonk Caglar Soyuncu who has barely touched a ball all season because he's an ar$ehole. His remit would have been "defend". And so the idiot hacked down a Villa player viciously (no bad thing obviously but not at this point) and was lucky to get away with a yellow. But we'd done enough, I'm very impressed with the new signings even though one had a howler today and maybe our season can begin again now? Please?