Coming Soon: The Championship

We beat Rotherham 3-1, Forest only drew with Crewe - they finished fourth after Blackpool smashed Swansea 6-3 at the Liberty Stadium.

So...we're up. We're in the Championship next season. We did it! Cue Jeff Stelling!



Much more later, but my Friday post was almost ridiculously spot on:

'Three of the four goals Rotherham have scored in their last eight games came in the first 20 minutes, including two in the first ten minutes. If Rotherham are going to score, it'll be early on (ie before ten minutes) or - and this is a particular City weakness in the last eight games - just before half time (three of the six goals conceded at home in the last eight games have been in this period). If Rotherham don't score early on, the chances are that they won't score at all.'

Not quite accurate - Rotherham got their goal in the 58th minute. Now for the spooky bit... If the patterns within Rotherham's away form and City's home form occur tomorrow, City should probably be a goal up half way through the first half (first fifteen minutes seems like a good time), with the possibility of a second before the end of the half. It then becomes more likely that there might be a third before the hour.

David Noble scored in the eighth and 44th minutes. Alex Russell got the third in the 55th minute. Not only was I excited about the way the game was going anyway, I also couldn't believe just how well it went to form.

Of course, the other prediction that was easier to make but still pretty accurate was the one where after the game I meet a couple of mates outside Quba Ice on North Street, drink a lot of San Miguel and sing songs.

Quba Ice before the game and before the urban bullfighting with cars and buses that took place later.

There will be more to come...but here's a really good photomontage of a very memorable season to enjoy.

Nearly there...still...

OK, we lost at Millwall and Forest won. So here's the deal:

We beat Rotherham tomorrow and we're up. Forest have to play Crewe at home in what will be Dario Gradi's last game as Crewe manager.

Beat Forest and you'll never need to pay for anything in Bristol again.

But here's the interesting one: there always seems to be one team that comes from absolutely nowhere and this season it's Blackpool. If both City and Forest lose tomorrow, they'll go up.

Here's some stats to mull over:

City v Rotherham

Over the last eight homes, City's record is:

P8 (LOL!) W4 D2 L2 F10 A7 Pts 14

City failed to score twice in those games, against Swansea and Cheltenham. We've kept cleans sheets in half of our last eight home games as well, which is a stat that isn't being as emphasised as it should be. Going back over all 22 home league games this season, our scoring pattern looks like this:

Goals scored:
0 three times - two draws and a defeat
1 - nine times
2 - seven times, most recently in the win over Yeovil
3 - three times - three wins, although the last time we scored three goals at home was in January.

I won't bore you with the details, but the pattern over last eight games looks remarkably similar to that.

In contrast, Rotherham's last eight aways go like this:

W1 D2 L5 F4 A10 Pts 5.

They've failed to score in five of their last eight away games, the last time anyone failed to score against them was when they won at Brentford in March. Their last away clean sheet before that was against Brighton in February, but having seen Brighton in February, that doesn't surprise me.

So trying to be as objective as possible (once again), Rotherham 0 is not entirely out of the question.

So it looks like 1-0 (6/1 at William Hill) or 2-0 (5/1) would probably be realistic. Which would - of course - be enough.

Key points

Three of the four goals Rotherham have scored in their last eight games came in the first 20 minutes, including two in the first ten minutes. If Rotherham are going to score, it'll be early on (ie before ten minutes) or - and this is a particular City weakness in the last eight games - just before half time (three of the six goals conceded at home in the last eight games have been in this period). If Rotherham don't score early on, the chances are that they won't score at all.

If the patterns within Rotherham's away form and City's home form occur tomorrow, City should probably be a goal up half way through the first half (first fifteen minutes seems like a good time), with the possibility of a second before the end of the half. It then becomes more likely that there might be a third before the hour.

So...City need to score early and make sure they don't let Rotherham back in the game before half time.

In other news...


Leeds United will be playing in the third tier of English Football for the first time EVER...which is still frankly astonishing, especially as their decline was so dramatic. The Times has a brief timeline of how it all happened.

The 'All English' Champions League Final will have to wait another day. Not bothered about who wins in Athens in a couple of weeks although I'd pay to see Gennaro Gattuso and Craig Bellamy have a pop at each other.

You just know that Gattuso would have had something to say if necessary.

Don't you just know that Gennaro and Craig were meant for each other...

I'm going to have to change my desktop wallpaper, as Randy Moss was traded to the Patriots on Sunday. I can't bring myself to wish him good luck, so I hope it ends really badly for him.

If you clicked on the link above, you'd also have read that Troy Smith ended up being taken by the Ravens in the fifth round. Well fancy that. I didn't think that he looked anything like a first rounder and I said so:

'I can't remember which one of the ABC/ESPN commentary team (Brent Musberger, Bob Davie and Kirk Herbstreit) was raving about Smith being a first round draft pick now, but it strikes me that this is an extremely premature assessment. There's no doubting that he has the ability, but as I mentioned above, he will need work on handling pressure situations and there are accuracy and consistency issues. He was outstanding in the first half of the game, but dropped off dramatically in the second.'

Madame Zaza, top pro prospect evaluator.

I have no idea what to do with my Randy Moss replica jersey now...perhaps I'll order a brand new JaMarcus Russell one.

The Oakland pick that I'm really intrigued by is that of Michael Bush of Louisville in the fourth round (incidentally, the round that formed part of the Moss trade); way back in November I wished him good luck after he broke his leg in the game against Kentucky. Now almost six months later he's a Raider.

There will be more. There always is.