Week 20 Results

The top five all win - the title's for one of them to win as we enter the final third of the season.

Aardvark Abacus 4 v 2 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI
Claymore Athletic FC 4 v 1 You Know Your Boston Rock FC
Mega Buck Bandits v Nil Satis Nisi Optimum (match postponed)
Real Muppets 3 v 1 York’s Returning Glory
San Dimas High School 1 v 4 Athletico Phoenix
The Cheese Makers 0 v 2 The Fabulous Artisans
The Dead Parrots 1 v 0 Final Fantasy XI
Trusted By Millions 5 v 1 The Cow-Faced Juniors

Two-thirds of the season gone and the phoney title war is now developing into a five team pitched battle. The Artisans halted their recent poor run and keep their two-point advantage with a 2-0 win over the Cheese Makers. Mario Balotelli's delicate half-volley on the half-hour broke the deadlock and James   Collins' clean completed the scoring. Matt's mid-season blip is putting his bid for a top-half finish under threat. Claymore are still the team in hot pursuit after demolishing Boston Rock 4-1. Two goals in four minutes, a curling shot from David Luiz and one from Sergio Aguero after a Paul Robinson flap at a corner, in four minutes after time had Clive in control but Frank Lampard arrived unmarked at the far post to pull one back with 11 minutes left. Maybe in previous seasons that would have led to a Claymore wobble but this team has backbone and Luiz and last season's player of the year Branislav Ivanovic put a gloss on the victory.

The Aardvarks came from behind to stay third and probably deal the fatal blow to Fred's chances of retaining the title. Emmanuel Adebayor's spot-kick for Ady was levelled by Didier Drogba's header and the evergreen Ryan Giggs poked Fred ahead in injury time but it was a defensive response of three cleans from Kompany, Cuellar and Shotton that won the points for the Aardavrks. Athletico Phoenix are also on 36 points after a comeback victory over San Dimas. Pavel Pogrebnyak's cool finish on debut got me off to a great start but the game swung in Brian's favour either side of half-time. James Morrison nodded in on 41 minutes, Robin van Persie brilliant curled home two minutes later which changed my team talk somewhat. That team-talk clearly went well as Tomas Rosicky got his first for a couple of years six minutes later to put the Phoenix in control.

Trusted brushed aside the CFJs challenge 5-1. Recent signing Papiss Cisse stabbed Beef into the lead on six minutes beat it was nine minutes from time before Edin Dzeko doubled the lead. Grant Holt's smart turn and shot pulled one back for Chris two minutes later but Beef had three cleans to finish his opponents off. Turning our attention to the bottom of the table a third straight win for Ryan lifts him out of last place for the first time since week six. Paul Scholes opened the scoring then Jonas Gutierrez's screamer made it 2-0 after 18 minutes. Peter Crouch pulled one back for Julian before the break but the last score of the game was Ashley Cole's clean to make it 3-1 in the Muppets' favour.

If anything the foot of the table is closer than the top with eight points covering the bottom ten. The Dead Parrots edged Final Fantasy 1-0 by virtue of bagging one more clean and it's Ceri's team that are our new table-proppers. The Mega Bucks/Nil Satis game was postponed due to oooh... let's say a power failure due to a faulty generator.