Expanding the Football Theme

On Saturday there were good wins for Crystal Palace, Huddersfield Town and Halifax Town. Palace won a relegation six pointer which has ultimately led to the resignation of the West Brom manager. Halifax beat Gravesend & Northfleet in a fixture I saw last season when Bill and I counted 29 away fans. Huddersfield beat the newly named MK Dons but should have won by more.

Sadly Norwich lost in a televised game which was quite entertaining. Norwich must always be watched in the first half of the second half as they always seem to turn on the style in that period. Unfortunately Bradford City won as well so they are now second so i've been getting stick at work. Just six weeks until the big match!

On Sunday Arsenal's unbeaten run came to an end with a controversial defeat to Manchester United. While the match itself was not a classic, it was tense which added to the excitement. The referee was under a lot of pressure and has been given a lot of stick by most people since the game but I thought he did as well as could be expected.

For those who saw the game, i felt Ljungberg had lost control of the ball so Ferdinand should not have been sent off. The penalty decision was right from where he was as it was a very clever dive (if morally wrong) by Rooney. Even Andy Gray shouted penalty and it's very rare he is wrong. As for the Van Nistelrooy foul that was also very difficult to see at the time. Ronaldo should have had a penalty but was denied. However on all of these occasions the referee received no help from his assistants. If they had have been watching properly they should have made the decisions themselves.

Wenger then accuses Man Utd. of cheating. Ok they did but I'm sure Arsenal have in some of the 49 games they went unbeaten. It seems to me he just can't take losing.

In the other televised match Southampton played Birmingham which was a poor fixture on paper and not much better on pitch. Hope Birmingham are better tomorrow and I hope Andy Cole plays as he is certain to miss a few whih is a good laugh!