Paullow

Sunderland probably looking the more likely to get a winner at this stage. I don't trust Burnley passing it around the back, although I guess they've done it successfully all season.

Gibraltar doing OK (without watching) to limit Netherlands to just 1 goal after 40 odd minutes. Thought Sven might have recovered to take a place on the bench, but his first cap will have to wait. At least there's no chance of him getting injured, and you'd hope he would be fully fit for Sunday.

Are any of these international matches more accessible? When they were under the Premier Sports banner a year or so ago there was always one match on BoxNation where BT Sport subscribers could watch.

It does feel strange to see England and Italy in the same group, as well as France and Netherlands, yet Denmark being the clear better side in that group. They should probably still be fine, but it does open the group up. Ukraine being the third team in our group feel stronger on paper than anything Denmark will face.

He's committed is wor Adam. He obviously needs to keep getting content out, but going down to Solihull on a weekend to see the reserve side of a team he wouldn't know much about only 18 months ago is some going.

Completely forgot that Wednesday were on Sky again, a bit like us, after going 23 games unbeaten in the league, they have now lost 2 in a row, although today wasn't against a Man City type equivalent, it was against bottom club Forest Green (which I think is big Dunc's first win in charge). https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/sheffield-wednesday/table Very tight now. Just 3 points clear of Ipswich, and a worse GD, and Barnsley will be fancying their chances more now after winning in midweek. 6 behind with a game in hand.

Just having a look at some of the tables from the 6th tier downwards for the first time in months and a few things have changed since they start of 2023. Darlington were in and a round top spot last I saw (although Kings Lynn did have a fair few games in hand), but after only 1 win and 7 points in their last 9 games, they are now 19 points off the top, although should probably still make the play offs, even with a modest return in their final 8 matches. Probably too much for Spennymoor to do to make the playoffs, and while they currently occupy the final spot, Scarborough have only taken 2 points from their last 5 so look to be clinging on in their first season back at this level. South Shields look nearly there in the 7th tier. Not in particularly great form, just 5 points from their last 5 games, and when I last looked it was close, but I see they did win 8 from 9 at the start of 2023 to presumably pull away from the pack. With GD they pretty much just need 6 points from their final 5 games to seal it, although they would probably still win the league if they lost all their remaining games. Crazy that Bamber Bridge in 2nd have won 9 more matches than they have lost, but their GD is only +1

http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Forest_Green_Rovers/Forest_Green_Rovers.html http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/Luton_Town/Luton_Town.htm

Luton went from white to orange, which seemed weird as I was used to white, but apparently they were orange back in the day. Forest Green went from black and white stripes to green (hopefully that's not replicated up here....)

Wow, didn't realise Sheff Wed were 23 league games unbeaten. Barnsley are 11 unbeaten themselves. Draw?

And even the international matches are far less accessible these days. Always find it shocking how England matches are pretty much always on BBC1 / ITV / C4, whereas Scotland's matches aren't, and now they are buried behind a very niche paywall. Barnsley vs Sheff Wed on Sky tomorrow night looks decent for a general football fix. South Yorkshire derby, and a big match for both. Sheff Wed seem to have been winning for ages, but are currently just 3 points clear of 3rd (with a couple of games in hand). Barnsley look good for the playoffs but could really do with 3 points here to keep their outside automatic promotion hopes alive.

'TopFourometer' is probably not the most appropriate place to post this, but after this weekends results in both the league and FA Cup, I think it's extremely likely that we will be playing some form of European football next season for the first time in over 10 years. I'm personally thinking 6th place, but I reckon we will finish anywhere from 3rd to 7th. I could see Liverpool and/or Brighton passing us, but after our win, and Brentford and Chelsea both dropping points (both from winning positions), I can't really see us finishing below either of them. Chelsea have too many points to make up, and I'm not sure Brentford will be able to sustain their charge and overhaul the gap with their remaining fixtures. With Man Utd, Man City, and Brighton all progressing in the FA Cup, if we were to finish 7th in what would be one of the worst case scenarios, and those 3 finished above us, and one of them went on to win the FA Cup then 7th place should be good enough for Europa Conference, but if Sheff U won it then 6th place would get that and 7th would get nothing, but it's extremely unlikely that Sheff U will beat Man City and either Man U or Brighton in the final (and they would have to win it, as a final is not enough these days). Possibly other factors to consider if Man Utd / Chelsea won their respective European competitions and didn't do enough in the league, but it's hard to see a realistic scenario where passports won't now be required later in 2023.

I don't miss the derby at all, but if Sunderland were to come up then I would rather it was in a few years when we are more established at the top end of the table just so the gap gets bigger and bigger, and the situation be far more like it was in the mid nineties and early 00's than what is was under the Ashley years. Re Boro, I've said a few times that I was very much up for them coming up - haven't played them for over 13 years now, I like Carrick, a much more local fixture, more significant than an average PL match against the likes of Palace, Fulham, Brentford etc. but not a proper obvious derby, but that banner the other week reminded me that they will try and make it far more than it should be, so I'm at least hoping Sheff Utd go up automatically, and then see who has made the playoffs to determine who I'd like to come up. I thought the fact they had played Sunderland as many as 10 times since they last played us, the fact it's closer to Sunderland, and that their general profile is nearer Sunderland than it is to us, and the difference will only increase, I thought Sunderland would naturally become the obvious main rival from their perspective, but probably not.

I'm assuming Barcelona vs Real Madrid isn't allowed to be part of ITV 4's deal. That match is often on during the blackout period on a Saturday, but on at 8pm tonight. Inter vs Juve it is. I'm not going to get a sub as I have too many generally, but there is more and more stuff ending up on Viaplay these days. Even next week, they have all the international matches apart from England and Wales matches.

ITV have definitely had the best picks for the QFs, 2 incident packed matches, whereas BBCs both looked foregone conclusions pre match, and not too far into them.

Man, don't think I've ever seen such a complete turnaround in a match, ever. Better for us, but you have to feel for Fulham.

Yeah, fair enough, but we won't be odds on like we would at home against some of those bottom half teams. So in the 'double chance' odds, Man Utd are 8/15 to achieve either a win or a draw, so odds-wise, it's more likely we won't win that match than win it. We were around 4/6 to beat Forest and around 7/10 to beat Wolves, so in both cases we were odds on and expected to win, whereas I think it'll just be Southampton and Leicester where we will be odds on in the remaining 12 (maybe Leeds at a push). I guess it could change by the time we play teams, if they have less to play for, but still a generally tough remaining set of fixtures. That said, there are obviously advantages that some of the '6 pointers' against the better sides are at home because statistically we will have a better chance of getting points, and simultaneously ensuring direct rivals don't take 3 points, but instead of having say 6 easier games and 6 tougher games, we've basically got a large amount of remaining games (like 8 or 9) where many would expect the end result to easily go either way.

I'd be much more confident of a greater points tally if the venues were all completely reversed. The away fixtures are really tough, some big, traditional grounds we have to go to - Everton, Villa, Leeds where you know their fans will be up for it against another big city team, especially with that team being on the up (controversially in some peoples eyes), West Ham too. Our home form is very good, but we probably won't be betting favourites to beat Man U, Tottenham, Arsenal, not massive faves to beat Brighton, and (from all 12 remaining fixtures) it's just really Southampton and Leicester at home where you look and think we should definitely be winning that one, whereas if they were reversed, you would be thinking Brentford, West Ham, Villa, Everton, and Leeds, if that makes sense. We likely wouldn't win all 5 of them (and we did obviously drop points in two of them), but every match the opponent would range from in and around 4/1 to 6/1, and individually we'd be expected to win, whereas here, we will only have two fixtures where the opponents will be that price.

Surprised Palce vs Arsenal isn't on Sky today. It was obviously moved from Saturday 3pm to today due to Arsenal's European match the other night, but Sky usually have 4 PL matches (Fri or Mon, Sat 5.30pm and then 2 on Sunday), but just the two this week - maybe x amount of games per game week can't be televised. 3 FA Cup matches back to back, but Brighton vs Grimsby at 2pm hardly seems worth watching unless you're an active Brighton fan. I guess they did win at Southampton, so perhaps the tiniest of chances, but it's never great seeing a team as big as 50/1 (William Hills) to win if watching as a relative neutral. I know there are other ways to watch, but the Arsenal match on TV would have been perfect timing clashing with this match.

Yeah, I might actually be going to that Man Utd game towards the end of April, and with this result, and their run in, we may be in a position to now want them to beat Man Utd by the time that game comes around.

I'm kind of over the Everton going down thing now as well. Happy if they drop, but don't mind them staying up. The PL is probably better with them in it than some other teams, and we seem to be moving in a completely different direction to them now anyway and other fish to fry.

Another top result. Chelsea still 9 points behind, and with GD, basically 4 games - that will take some turnaround from both for them to pass us. 7 points and still having to go to Stamford Bridge sounded a lot less comfortable, but that's not the case.

Gerrin marra, you Mackem beauty!

That's that then. 1-0 Chelsea.

Good for us (City score, not Conte). Keeps more European options open if we do tail off a bit in the league.