Paullow

They'll know more on Monday night, but if Spurs could somehow get a result against Man City then they could have a decent chance of 4th place. Now, Villa away to a Liverpool side with nothing to play for is a far easier fixture on paper than at home to a rampant Man City side chasing the title, and they are clear favourites, but a big incentive for Spurs if Villa did lose (even if they would probably be handing the title to their arch rivals).

We wouldn't be. It would be very likely, but there would be a nervous wait until the FA Cup final on the 25th.

Yep, either get a draw at Old Trafford, or match their result on the final day, and we will finish above Man Utd for the first time in the PL eara.

Conference max, but potentially nothing if Man Utd finish lower, and win the FA Cup. In that scenario they would get Europa and Chelsea would get Conference by finishing 6th,

Worst thing is if Man Utd do equalise, then Arsenal will clearly be pushing for the winner as a point is no good to them, so they could bring Raya up for a late corner and end up losing, which would be awful for us.

And it's going to be a 7th season in a row in the 2nd tier for their city rivals. Crazy.

I can't remember specifics but I can just remember being in the far sitting room with a tiny portable telly and watching with my dad. I can also remember the Sun doing a big spread of the two George's.

It was looking like Vill would have taken the lead in the early stages, and if they got one back quickly then they might have been favourites to go through, but a long way back for them now.

I remember watching that match. Must have just been 8, but Ajax vs Panathinaikos in 1996. George Finidi (or Finidi George) vs George Donis.

I was kind of expecting 4 decent quality signings to push 4 regular starters to the bench, and then 4 or 5 squad players to naturally leave the club, and for the club to look to have a Blackburn / Sheff Utd season next year whereby they stay up comfortably, never in any relegation trouble, nor threaten the top 3 or 4 clubs, and then look for a promotion push the year after, and maybe achieving it that year, or the following year if they just missed out. That way, the majority of the starters of today could have had another 2 or 3 years at the club, most of those as a regular, but if they are looking for CL football as quickly as possibly then who in the regular 15/16 match day squad will think they have a future here beyond 2 years max - it surely can't be more than 2 or 3? I guess they'd always know there was a chance this would happen, but it must be pretty grim for the players seeing all the away fans at Burnley and Wolves, the big home crowds, especially vs Liverpool Feds and the bumper crowd vs Huddersfield, and of course the matches at SJP, and then a few weeks later seeing half the squad leave, and the majority of them knowing that they will likely be away themselves sooner rather than later.

It will be interesting to see the retained list, sounds like there'll be as many released as staying on. Olivia Watt was the Fans player of the year, Emma Kelly was the Players player, Hannah Greenwood was the Manager's Player, so while not guaranteed, you'd assume those would be kept on. Boddy has a good reputation and has generally impressed whenever she has played, and is still really young, so it would be a huge shock if she left (from a being deemed 'good enough' POV anyway), Cataldo and PBG were just signed in January, from the league above, almost certainly with the 2nd tier in mind, so it would be a surprise if they were to go. Potts always looked like she could play at a higher level, and just dropped so low because it was Newcastle. Stobbs was the captain, probably has another good 2-3 years in her, and has played at a higher level, so you'd assume she would be kept on, but if there's '9-10 released' including 'many first team regulars', then I'm not sure after that. You'd like to think some of the local players would still be there, especially Katie Barker with her still being young and improving, but if there are wholesale changes, I can see most of those who were in the 4th tier being released, especially if they are over 25. I might be missing someone obvious, but without wanting to name specific names and say 'so and so could be in trouble', I think anyone that I haven't named could be disappointed - there will be 5 or so others kept on as there's only 9 players I've named, so another 5, and then up to 9 new signings would make a 23 women squad. It is a shame, and the team has definitely become much more integrated with the wider club, more involved in promotional material, and of course every home game was streamed, so you feel you know more about them, but I guess if you want to push on and get to be where you eventually want to be, then it's not massively unexpected.

A few people on the RTG big 'Non League Football' thread (on the first page) reckon that Blue Star might get promoted regardless, but don't know how true that is? https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/non-league-football.1331316/page-531

Current top 6 are: Newcastle 2/5 Chelsea 9/4 Man Utd 8/1 Chelsea definitely look the biggest threat now and probably have the best fixtures on paper, but we do have the points advantage and GD (which shouldn't be overturned). I'd be fine with 7th, but while it would be nice to finally finish above Man Utd, it will make that FA Cup final a lot more important as it would either be Conference or nothing defending on the outcome of the final (this is assuming Man Utd came 8th).

Normally if a side went 3-0 up I'd be tempted to switch over as the game would effectively be over as a contest, but I'm enjoying this.

It will be weird for him if he did go to Man Utd next season. Them potentially not being in the Conference/Europa could mean he only starts like 20 matches instead of 30+ (if he went).

Olise!

Horrific end to the season for them. On Feb 10th they beat Plymouth 3-1 to go 6th, and their next 3 matches all looked very winnable: But since then, P15 W2 D3 L10 F8 A20 GD-12 PTS 9 Wiki have it the wrong way round for the Sheff Wed game, but still the pinky lose colour.

Probably good news for Hebburn, Stockton and Morpeth, but not so much Blyth, as Macclesfield will be spending another year at least in the 7th tier next season after losing their playoff final today. 5,329 there.

There'll be a lot more people who like football than rugby in the region. Tynedale RFC averaged 300 last season, and 450 so far this year, so fairly reasonable relative to the league they are in, but not exactly pulling in the thousands, especially when the old district borders had a population of 60,000 20 years ago, so probably a fair bit more now. They were in the 3rd tier of English rugby for a few years about 10 years ago, so amazingly among the top 40 or so teams in the country, but if there was half as much thought and effort put into a local football team then it might actually get somewhere.

That seemingly took me around 15 mins to write as it's now 3-0 coming up to full time

Still 2-0 with 15 to go. I was fairly neutral, but as long as they don't do a Marske, it will be good to see another Northumberland member team progressing. Just looking at the Northumberland Senior Cup this year and Blyth and Morpeth both had byes to the QF and there were only 14 teams involved, so a crazy lack of teams at Northern league level or above. I know Durham has a lot of pit towns and villages of circa 20,000, but their equivalent Challenge Cup has so many more rounds. Hexham have never had a good team in my life time. There was Hexham Swinton and Border Counties in the Alliance when I was growing up, and now there's a 'Hexham FC', but there's never been a team in the Northern League, whereas Prudhoe, whether Town or Youth Club, have had a team for long spells in the league. Hexham is (or was) the administrative centre and biggest town of Tynedale, and if it had a reasonable team they could draw people from Haltwhistle to the West, towards Prudhoe in the East, Bellingham in the North and down to the Allendale/Allenheads in the South, get a few temporary stands at Wentworth Leisure Centre (like what they used to do for the athletics in the Dean Macey days) and get around 1,000 turning up, but even Haltwhistle Jubilee have a much better team, and Wallington. I see no reason why it couldn't have a decent team at NPL Premier level, like Morpeth, but they're a million miles away from that and currently have 8 points from their 27 games in the Alliance 2nd tier.

Having just watched the video, I guess both would be prime candidates. Unless being kept on for character reasons a bit like Dummett, Gillespie etc. in the men's, if you're a bit part player in a league with the Fylde's and Stourbridge's, it's only natural that opportunities will be even fewer when mixing with former recent WSL sides like Bristol C, Birmingham and Reading. Just looking at the league below (tier 4) and Hull finished first ahead of Middlesbrough and Durham Cestria (who Newcastle just pipped last season) to reach tier 3. It's a bit of a shame that one of those 2 local sides couldn't have come up as although it would be a drop from full time to part time, the local fringe lasses could have had an opportunity to potentially stay in the same league, and get a bit more game time, but there's not many viable options.

2,107 there, and Heaton are 2-0 up after 60 mins.

Heaton-West Auckland 0-0 at half time.