Paullow

It was doable on CM97, as you could put everyone on the wings and stuff, but I think later editions like 01/02, 03/04, CM4 etc. it was much harder to do. I haven't tried on later editions.

Yeah, Ashington are at Sheffield on the same day, so they will be thinking the same. Consett away at Ossett which is a big match as well. I was looking at that Northumberland match, but was then thinking of doing Consett vs Bishops, you could technically do both as Ashington-Heaton is 12pm. I think I'll go to one of them, and see how GW40 goes first before deciding. Unbelievably tight - Heaton were 15th at the start of the day, but 4 teams have passed them.

Redcar Ath all but champions now, and I assume they can/will get promoted - I'm not even sure you could cheat on Football/Championship Manager to get Shildon to overturn that final day goal difference. Blue Star and Boro both won (as did Kendal), so the 4 playoff spots are now sorted as well, but still placements and home advantage to decide on the final day. Blue Star are away to Blyth so all 3 of them could finish 3rd (with play off home advantage) and that match could be a semi final / final rehearsal.

NPL East relegation fight is crazy. Just as Heaton and Ashington were looking OK the other day, they both lose today, and while Consett looked like they were sleepwalking to relegation, they beat 2nd placed Dunston. The bottom 3 are officially down after today, so it is 1 from 7 or 8. At least only 1 at most of the aforementioned 3 can go down, but hopefully they all stay up. Bridlington and Brighouse were both winning in injury time, but both were pegged back to 2-2, so that's good, although Ossett won away at a playoff chasing side.

Sheff U only lost 6 matches in 39 then suddenly lose 3 in a row, all against unremarkable sides. It's probably more likely 5th or 6th will be more of a threat to Sunderland at this stage.

Get in, VAR permitting.

Yeah, Man Utd would play Rangers/Bilbao in the semi

Probably already been mentioned, but hopefully the Europa tie with Lyon is fairly poises after tonight, like 2-1 Lyon, or a draw, so that their focus might be more on that. Not saying it's needed, but it would help a bit. If it's 3 or 4-0 either way then the league match will probably become more of a priority for them.

At least Porto are in the tournament pretty much every season and often win their league, that's obviously helped by the standard of the rest of the division, but still. A non 'top' club, literally never been in the European Cup / Champions League for 43 years, likely to finish 7th in their domestic league this year, but then win it. Of course we as fans would love it if we won next year, but it wouldn't be great for the vast majority of football fans having such a random winner who barely ever compete in it.

Great for Villa, obviously, and they were former European Champions (although you'd have to be at least 50 to remember it), and obviously still a long way to go in terms of the tie and the competition, but it would kind of make a mockery of European football if Villa did go on to win the tournament this year - it would be the same had we won last year (from a neutral perspective, not ours), and Forest next year. The idea would be to keep improving, keep qualifying for it, keep building, keep growing your brand etc. and in time challenge for it, but if a team wins it after not even being in the tournament for 40 years would be a massive damp squib, particularly for similar sized clubs like ourselves. Hard to explain in writing, but I know what I mean Anyway, they've equalised in the time that took to write out.

It's weird how over the past few years, when we were finishing 4th, last year when we were 7th and they were 8th, and particularly the FA Cup final, and also the reverse fixture earlier in the season we would have been wanting Man City to win, but here we are where Man Utd winning is definitely the best outcome for us.

Some nice results there. It can obviously change quick, but it does kind of feel like we should finish 7th at worst. Thinking pessimistically, if we did finish 7th and the most likely teams were to pass / stay ahead of us, then if Forest, City, or Villa won the FA Cup (basically anyone but Palace), we would get Europa.

Draw-Forest-Villa

90+5 min equaliser for them as well (6 mins were added on), seems it went straight to pens.

90+5 min equaliser for them as well (6 mins were added on), seems it went straight to pens. Wrong thread, ha, I had two pages open.

2-0 Heaton at half time. They've gone from 18th to 12th in the live table, which is crazy when you consider they are in gameweek 38 of 42, you'd maybe expect that after 6 or 7 games, but not at this stage. Would be a massive win if they get it, and seems like it's been deserved from the live text.

I see the Northumberland Senior Cup final between Heaton and Morpeth has been confirmed as Wed 14th May at 7.30pm @ SJP.

Heaton vs Bishop Auckland tonight at 7.45pm. Bishops should be safe now on 47 points, but a massive match for Heaton. That's the good thing with having so many local sides in the league, as long as both sides agree, you can have Friday night matches and then have the weekend off, fans can go to multiple matches if they wish. It won't work this way, and they probably feel they need another 2 or 3 points just to be sure, plus a degree of bragging rights, Northumberland vs Durham, competitive nature etc. but if I was a Bishops player, I'd much rather make the 36 mile and 53 minute trip to Heaton next season, possibly on a Friday evening again, than say the 130 mile and 2 hours 30 min trip to Sherwood Colliery next season.

The worst thing is, while they are shite, this could still be the best Spurs season in recent memory.

Phew. Probably won't make much difference though.

Has Son touched the ball yet?

Darlow has at least played 5 games for Wales this season, so I guess in terms of game time it's not too dissimilar to a standard non designated cup playing keeper for most teams. He would have been playing with the likes of Rodon, James and Ampadu in those games as well, which won't hurt. I think it makes sense, you're kind of expecting an error from Meslier every other game these days.

I'm assuming they were referring to this TikTok video and got the 25 thousand confused with 25 million, ha.

On the other hand, if Forest did lose then we would be 7 behind with 2 games in hand, so a chance to go within one game of them with 4 or 6 points from those games in hand, and would keep them more in reach, but with that said, since 5th is as good as 3rd in our situation and Chelsea the main threat at this stage, it probably is better to let Forest go and concentrate on the others, especially with them beating both of the Manchesters recently. Obviously the likes of Fulham and Bournemouth could become 'easier' on paper as the season progresses and they have less to play for and it fizzles out, but they are still fairly tough matches for Villa and we only took 1 point from those 4 fixtures.