Season 24 Week 17 processing ...

Well, some of us awaken this morning to the hardened reality that our beloved England probably are not as good as we wish they were, but hope springs eternal. So down to the important stuff now.

I was watching football most of yesterday afternoon and evening so I'm only now getting to opening the envelopes.

Only six envelopes today, Plymouth, Charlton, Barcelona, Schalke, Inter Milan & Watford.

I've just emailed my orders over Paul. Only one dealing and just a few team changes. Hope that's OK, I just didn't have time last week to get it done, owing to being in London on business for most of Wednesday and Thursday

Nothing from me im afraid

Orders also received from Leicester and Man City.

Orders entered ( monday post arrived ) so I'm running the pre-league games.

Kickoff will be 1000 hours Tuesday morning.

Sorry guys, no preview this week I'm afraid.  I was away last week and still catching up with jobs!



Fixtures this week are :


Plymouth v Newcastle
Chelsea v Fulham
Birmingham v Leicester
Charlton v Liverpool
Man City v Arsenal
Watford v Spurs

Another big week this time around for Barcelona after last weeks 'Carlsberg' week with fantastic results against both Real Madrid and Inter (and also getting married!).  This week sees Betis visit the Nou Camp on a rich vain of form, a must win for Barca to keep ahead of Real in the title race.  Line up versus Betis is:

Valdes, Dani Alves, Alba, Miranda, Albiol, Javi Martinez, Navas, Xabi Alonso, Yaya Toure, Llorente, Mata.
subs: Puyol, Pedro, Monreal, Pato, Villa, Isco, Asenjo.

The cup sees Villareal visiting, only 2 players stay in as the squad gets a good work out with Barcelona still fighting on 3 fronts. Team against Villareal:

Asenjo, Dani Alves, Monreal, Puyol, Kjaer, Javi Martinez, Isco, Santi Cazorla, Pato, Villa, Pedro

Good luck everyone!

Okay the players are out and warming up ... kickoff in 15 minutes ...

The teams line up and the whistle is blown, we're off, week 17 of the season, just six games left including this one, good luck to everybody...

Gremio 1 Palmeiras 0 Moura on 2 minutes.
Sao Paulo 0 Santos 1 Possebon.
Sevilla 0 Bilbao 1 Beerens freekick.

Chelsea 0 Fulham 1 Suarez freekick.

an early goal there for managerless Fulham whom I have put under protected status for this week until I decide what their future will hold. They are not a team that traditionally has a queue of waiting managers so I expect they will be released from protected status at the end of the week and their players will be free to swapped out, maybe.

Real 1 Deportivo 0 Iniesta on 3 minutes.

Newells 0 Boca 1 Dede header on 4 minutes.

Newells 0 Boca 2 Danilo on 6 minutes as Boca continue to dominate things in south america.
Flamengo 1 Corinthians 0 Kleber header.
Lyon 1 Auxerre 0 Ibrahimovic header.

Newells 0 Boca 3 Martinez header on 8 minutes, could be another big score at this rate.
Cherry 0 UCD 1 Corr header.

and Jeff Stelling is watching the action unfold at Home Park where there has been an early goal, so lets go to Jeff for an update...

Welcome to a wet south coast where Fernandinho has struck to give the home side an early lead here against a very disorganised by defensive Newcastle team, making the early score

Plymouth 1 Newcastle 0

so Plymouth are keeping the pressure on the league leaders

good start to the game there for Ben's Plymouth side.

Sao Paulo 0 Santos 2 Casemiro header on 9 minutes.

and an early at Watford as well so lets cross to Jake Humphrey to get the details of that one...

plenty of headers hitting the back of the nets at the moment and it is no different here as Jose Enrique does the same thing on 9 minutes to make the score

Watford 1 Spurs 0

as Watford too keep up the pressure on the league leaders.

Good start also for Jamie's Watford side.

Ancona 0 Juventus 1 Adriano on 9 minutes.

and straight back to Watford and Jake Humphrey, come in Jake...

An Aaron Lennon freekick has made it

Watford 1 Spurs 1

here as we move into having played just ten minutes.

We now have goals in the games at Schalke and Inter Milan, but lets go to Germany first and Sam Rosen who is watching Schalke for us today...