Here I am again...

Despite a good performance from Bristol City this afternoon against a reasonable Crewe side, the plan to hold some sort of celebration party upon achieving top spot in Division 3 had to be put on hold as Nottingham Forest retained first place after beating Gillingham 1-0 at Priestfield. Yeovil could only draw at Blackpool (and they only did that with the help of M*rc*s St*w*rt yet again) so City are now two points behind Forest (who we play at The City Ground next week) but - and this could be crucial over the next seven months - City are now three points clear of Yeovil.

Good crowd too - 11, 889 (the highest in Division 3 this afternoon, 1059 more than Huddersfield had today) and more than were at the Burnley and Luton games in Division 2. A very good atmosphere as well; there were times when it reminded me of some very good days indeed.

Mighty Squirrel Kingdom's Player Of The Game: Jamie McCombe

One of the biggest grumbles at Ashton Gate since the days of Shaun Taylor and Mark Shail is that we haven't really had a dominant central defender. Well, we have one now.

Honourable mention: Nick Wright

I wonder how much Birmingham City want for him? A genuine right winger, when he came on Scott Murray switched flanks and he caused Crewe some problems.

Moment of Total and Utter Confusion: Gareth Roberts* being sent off. I'm assuming that his straight red was for serious foul play, but being at least 50 yards away I couldn't really see what happened. I actually thought one of ours was going.

Coaching point: Jennison Myrie-Williams is young, has a lot to learn and has tremendous 'upside' as the Americans say, but Mr Johnson needs to have a word with him about wanting to score The Best Goal In The World Ever. He gets into some great positions but then rather than looking for a simple layoff to a better placed team mate, he dithers or tries to takes it too far and loses possession. He also needs to work on the physical side of his game - he was getting knocked over and blocked out of earlier games, but although he's better than he was, someone needs to show him how to either tackle properly or at least make a nuisance of himself with defenders without giving away fouls. He also looked really deflated when he didn't get a penalty late in the game, to the extent that Phil Jevons had to go over to cheer him up.

I don't want to sound too critical and I can't complain too much as that sounds like Dave Cotterell, who was sold to Wigan Athletic* for a tidy sum earlier in the season.

NFL Picks For This Weekend

Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington, Carolina, Buffalo, Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, Miami, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Denver (yes, I know) and Chicago.

My 'can't fail mortal lock' bet of the week: Washington to beat Tennessee by 13-18 points at 4/1. I might also go for similar odds for San Diego over San Francisco and Denver over Oakland, the latter being a case of reverse schadenfreude. The Broncos are also my suicide pick for this weekend.

Oh for an upset, but more like oh for five.

EFL Special Update:

It looks as if the Redcoats are out of contention for the EFL XI playoffs after losing 43-58 to Hamilton...more later.

* No, not THAT Gareth Roberts. It's the same one that used to play for Tranmere.

** I still can't quite get over Wigan being in Division 1. It's like playing Championship Manager ten years ago when you're fifteen years in the future - it just doesn't look right.