Another belated post

I can only apologise for the fact that this is once again belated. I've been awfully busy and so I'm sure you can appreciate the fact that I haven't been able to find the time to do it again. As usual, we'll have my 2 featured games in each division followed by a round-up of the scores from each league. I also will give my usual tell of Newport County's score.

So we start as usual at the top. The Premier League entered it's 3rd week last weekend and the first match of the weekend I witnessed was Blackburn-Arsenal at Ewood Park, a fixture renowned for being feisty and controversial in previous seasons and afer Arsenal's brilliance the previous weekend there was surely no way that this match could disappoint. Theo Walcott answered his critics in the finest fashion with his hat-trick in the 6-0 demolition of Blackpool continued his fine performance as he slammed Arsenal into a 1-0 lead from an acute angle, once again showing his critics what he is made of. It was a brilliant finish from the England and Arsenal winger and a finish that has too seldom been seen from the player when he has been on international duty, but can he now impress on that stage after his early performances this season. Soon after, El Hadji Diouf was set down the left wing after a brilliant pass from Christopher Samba and he squared across goal for new Blackburn loanee Mame Biram Diouf to slot into the net which meant that the home side went in at half time level with their London rivals. As usual then, this game was turning out to be a brilliantly pulsating game in which both teams looked like they could win. Arsenal were the team who came out on top after Andrey Arshavin struck into the Blackburn net to give his side a 2-1 lead. That was fairly early in the second half but it was effectively the end of the game as both teams cancelled each other out in the later stages. Overall, it was a brilliant game, and the win meant that Arsenal went top, for a few hours at least.

The second game that I saw live in the the Premier League last weekend was from the Reebok Stadium as Bolton Wanderers took on Birmingham City. Most avid followers of the Premier League would've been looking at this match as an almost guaranteed Birmingham win, though some will have been bright enough to notice the stat that Alex McCleish had never beaten his former employee Owen Coyle and so on paper, it could've gone either way. It was perhaps a surprise then when Birmingham took an early lead, after just 5 minutes of play, as Cameron Jerome's touch across goal was tapped in by Roger Johnson, the defender who had been bought from Cardiff just over a year ago scoring his first ever goal for the club and making the task all the more difficult for Mr Coyle. The game the took an even worse turn for Bolton as veteran goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen stood up and slapped Roger Johnson after the Birmingham defender has made a particularly heavy challenge on the Finn, although when both got to their feet, it did look like Johnson was trying to apologise to him and so perhaps the veteran should've used his knowledge of the game a bit more. After half-time, Cameron Jerome then headed across goal for Craig Gardner, the hero the previous weekend against Blackburn to tap into the net and make it 2-0 to McCleish's Birmingham and the Scotsman must've believed he finally had the better of Owen Coyle. Just 20 minutes later, Kevin Davies backed into Johnson who allegedly fouled the Bolton striker allowing him to score from the spot and bring Coyle's Bolton back into the match with 19 minutes left to play. What was Coyle's next move then? Well, he immediately bought on Robbie Blake to give Bolton more of an attacking threat up front and try to salvage something from the seemingly impossible task. It took moments for the former Burnley man to make his mark as he stepped up in the 81st minute and take a free-kick, which he promptly smashed into the top corner to level things up in the later stages of the match at the Reebok. Not only did this mean that Bolton took a point that they hadn't looked like getting, but it also meant that the unwanted statistic still hangs over Alex McCleish. He has STILL never beaten Owen Coyle. Full Premier League results then:
Blackburn Rovers 1-2 Arsenal
Blackpool 2-2 Fulham
Chelsea 2-0 Stoke City
Manchester United 3-0 West Ham United
Tottenham 0-1 Wigan Athletic
Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-1 Newcastle United
Aston Villa 1-0 Everton
Bolton Wanderers 2-2 Birmingham City
Liverpool 1-0 West Bromwich Albion
Sunderland 1-0 Manchester City

Last weekend in the Championship, the two Welsh sides came up against two former Premier League clubs as Cardiff City visited relegated Portsmouth and Swansea City hosted relegated Burnley. Let's look at the game at the Liberty first then. As early as 8 minutes, Swansea had taken the lead as summer signing Scott Sinclair scored his first league goal for the club and diminished hopes of a Burnley walkover. That was pretty much the main and only incident of this game as Burnley failed to score to bring themselves into the game, and Swansea failed to extend their lead further. Both teams did however have a man sent off and it was in pretty quick succession as first Darren Pratley picked up his 2nd booking, and then Tyrone Mears earned his for a disgraceful challenge on Nathan Dyer. And Cardiff managed to complete what was a brilliant day for the Welsh clubs as they earned a 2-0 away victory at Fratton Park against a team who had beaten them in an FA Cup Final jus 2 years earlier. So in what was a great weekend for the Welsh clubs, lets take a look at the classified results for the Championship:
Barnsley 2-0 Middlesborough
Derby County 2-2 Queens Park Rangers
Doncaster Rovers 3-1 Hull City
Ipswich Town 2-0 Bristol City
Leicester City 1-2 Reading
Milwall 3-1 Coventry City
Nottingham Forest 1-1 Norwich City
Portsmouth 0-2 Cardiff City
Scunthorpe United 3-0 Crystal Palace
Sheffield United 1-0 Preston North End
Swansea City 1-0 Burnley
Watford 0-1 Leeds United

I'll be honest, I am severely neglecting League's One and Two so far this season. I will be better with these as we go on, but for now, I've already missed half an hour of Wales' vital European Championships Qualifying game against Montenegro in Podgorica and I'd quite like to watch a bit of it. So League One scores last weekend were:
Bournemouth 3-3 Notts County
Brentford 1-3 Rochdale Town
Brighton and Hove Albion 2-1 Walsall
Bristol Rovers 0-4 Southampton
Dagenham and Redbridge 2-2 Tranmere Rovers
Hartlepool 0-5 Sheffield Wednesday
Huddersfield Town 3-1 Charlton Athletic
Leyton Orient 3-0 Exeter City
Milton Keynes Dons 2-1 Swindon Town
Oldham Athletic 0-0 Yeovil Town
Plymouth Argyle 0-3 Peterborough United

And the scores for League 2 last weekend were as follows:
Bradford 0-2 Southend United
Aldershot Town 1-1 Stevenage
Barnet 1-1 Bury
Cheltenham Town 2-1 Burton Albion
Hereford United 0-1 Rotherham United
Lincoln City 0-1 Crewe Alexandra
Macclesfield 1-1 Chesterfield
Morecambe 0-0 Gillingham
Northampton Town 1-1 Wycombe Wanderers
Oxford United 0-0 Accrington Stanley
Port Vale 1-2 Torquay United
Stockport County 0-0 Shrewsbury

And finally, there have been 2 Newport County games since my last post so I'll give both scores. On Saturday the 28th August, County romped home 3-0 against Kidderminster Harriers and on Monday the 30th August, they acheived a 2-2 draw away to early leaders AFC Wimbledon. That means there were 2 very positive results for County over the course of last weekend and so well done to them as they attempt to make it back into the league.

Just my final little bit to say thank you to you guys for reading. I know they haven't been of the highest quality of late, and I can only apologise profusely for that and hope that you will carry on reading what I put out because I can promise you, these posts will get only get better as we go further into the season. Thank you everyone, I hope you're still enjoying this blog, and I hope to write again soon. I'll probably leave it until after the internationals as I only really want to do the major international tournaments, not qualifying. See you probably Monday the 13th September. Until then...