Week 28 Results

A small step nearer to the title for Trusted.

Aardvark Abacus 1 v 0 Athletico Phoenix

Fred West Landscape Gardening XI 4 v 1 Claymore Athletic FC

Mega Buck Bandits 0 v 5 Cheese Makers

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum 1 v 1 FCK2

Real Muppets 1 v 2 The Dead Parrots

San Dimas High School 2 v 0 YTFIB
The Cow-Faced Juniors 4 v 3 Final Fantasy XI

Trusted By Millions 1 v 1 The Fabulous Artisans


	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1	Trusted By Millions	28	16	5	7	61	40	21	53
2	Claymore Athletic FC	28	16	4	8	69	53	16	52
3	The Cow-Faced Juniors	28	15	4	9	70	48	22	49
4	Real Muppets	28	13	6	9	55	46	9	45
5	San Dimas High School	28	12	7	9	55	49	6	43
6	Aardvark Abacus	28	12	7	9	43	48	-5	43
7	Cheese Makers	28	12	6	10	60	47	13	42
8	The Fabulous Artisans	28	10	9	9	70	59	11	39
9	Fred West Landscape Gardening XI	28	11	6	11	64	59	5	39
10	Final Fantasy XI	28	10	8	10	43	42	1	38
11	FCK2	28	8	9	11	46	51	-5	33
12	Athletico Phoenix	28	9	6	13	39	59	-20	33
13	Mega Buck Bandits	28	8	7	13	40	54	-14	31
14	Nil Satis Nisi Optimum	28	8	5	15	43	58	-15	29
15	The Dead Parrots	28	7	6	15	34	48	-14	27
16	YTFIB	28	7	5	16	30	61	-31	26

The top two have a tough week but Trusted know that two wins will give them the title.

Beef's team played out a tough draw against the Artisans. Edin Dzeko ghosted in to head Trusted in front on four minutes but Jonjo Shelvey's stunning volley from the centre circle midway through the first half was Ben's equaliser and there were no further goals despite Ryan Shawcross seeing red for Trusted. Claymore slipped up though crashing 4-1 at Fred West. Wilfried Bony has had an excellent season and put Fred in front on 10 minutes. Olivier Giroud got clive back on terms after three quarters of the game but Bony's injury time penalty, quickly followed by cleans from Younes Kaboul and Cesar Azpilicueta damaged Claymore's title hopes.

Mathematically the CFJs are still in the race after coming from behind to beat the Cup winners. Connor Wickham seems a different player after his Cup Final goal and opened the scoring with a looping header. Mesut Ozil had Chris level three minutes before the break but a barnstorming run and shot from Yaya Toure had Ceri back in front almost immediately. Wickham's second four minutes from time seemed to have delivered the points to Final Fantasy but Willian walked the ball in in the last minute to cut the deficit and cleans from Vergini and Sagna (did Clive ship him out too soon?) gave Chris the win. The Muppets season is ending with a whimper and it was another defeat for Ryan this week. The Dead Parrots were the victors and turned the game round after Laurent Koscielny had poked Ryan's team ahead on 26 minutes. Fernando Amorebieta's first WSFFL got Dean level and Erik Pieters got the winning clean that sees the Parrots off the bottom.

YTFIB now prop the table up. Julian's team failed to bounce back from their big loss at Cheese Makers and went down 2-0 to San Dimas. Saido Berahino scoring an early close range goal for me and Dejan Lovren finished things with a clean. There was only one goal between the Aardvarks and Phoenix. Danny Rose's thumping header after 33 minutes gave Ady the points.

Matthew's team followed up their 6-0 with a five goal win at Mega Bucks. Two more for Juan Mata in this one. What a coincidence! Nil Satis and FCK2 finished level. Seamus Coleman has been one of the defenders of the season but his headed own goal put Kevin in front on half an hour. Paul got a share of the points with a quarter of an hour left with Nikica Jelavic first to react and following up from a rebound.

Week 27 Re-arranged game

Cheese Makers enjoy the break far more than their opponents. Juan Mata gets a brace to set the Stade De Fromage team on their way.

Cheese Makers 6 v 0 YTFIB

FA Cup Final Result

Congratulations to Final Fantasy XI who claim their first winner's trophy with a comprehensive win over Trusted.

Final Fantasy XI 3

Wickham 18

Baker [c]

Delaney [c]

v

Trusted By Millions 0

(no cancelled cleans)

At Wembley, Attendance 90,000

Final Fantasy XI

Schwarzer; Baker, Rangel, Wilson, Delaney; Larsson, Nocerino, Toure, Taylor; Jerome, Wickham

Subs: McGregor; McAuley; Ince; Ba

Trusted By Millions

Adrian; Shawcross, Jones, Cahill, Tomkins; Sessegnon, Ramires, Lallana, Gerrard; Cisse, Dzeko

Subs: De Gea, Ridgewell, Moses, Hernandez

When the teams were announced a few eyebrows would have been raised with the surprise selections of Connor Wickham up front and Mark Schwarzer, a former Trusted player, between the sticks for Final Fantasy. Beef also had a tough decision between his 'keepers with Adrian getting the nod over David de Gea, the league's most expensive goalkeeper. The Spanish custodian was at the centre of the action on 18 minutes and his failure to hang on to a long shot set up Wickham to poke in from four yards and score his first Final Fantasy goal.

Ceri invested £13.5m in Wickham in August 2011 but injuries and loss of form had left him looking like an expensive flop. His goal will now mean he goes down in Final Fantasy folklore. He limped off seven minutes later but his goal gave his side confidence and had the opposite effect on Trusted.

Beef's midfield should have had the beating of Ceri's patched up selection but Steven Gerrard and Adam Lallana had off-days and created little. Frustration built and Ramires lashed out and caught Seb Larsson with a backhander in an off the ball incident. There was no way through for Trusted and Nathan Baker and Damien Delaney added clean sheets to complete the win and become only the seventh team to win the Cup in the last 18 seasons, delighting at least one set of the Okus Stadium fans in the process.

The winning manager was delighted, saying: "I feel very happy of course and a little surprised to win 3-0. It's quite an emphatic win for my budget team. After we lost Toure to injury last week, we feared for the worst, and with only one starting midfielder and our regular goalie out it seemed like a big ask. But our strikers seem to have woken up late in the season and added to our good solid defense and we had just enough to win through."

Beef was magnanimous in defeat and was left wondering what happened: "Well done, Ceri, you deserved the trophy!  Must be the worst ever WSFFL Cup Final performance with not one contribution from any of my 15 players who all played for their respective teams at the weekend. I'm in the dressing room ticking them off at the moment as the league could slip away now that Clive has Aguero and Rooney back in action."

---

How they got there:

Semi-finals

Final Fantasy XI 1 Aardvark Abacus 0
YTFIB 1 Trusted By Millions 5

Quarter-finals

Aardvark Abacus 2 v 0 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
Fred West Landscape Gardening XI 1 v 2 YTFIB
The Dead Parrots 0 v 1 Final Fantasy XI
Trusted By Millions 5 v 2 Claymore Athletic FC

1st Round

Aardvark Abacus 0 v 0 San Dimas High School (Aardvark win replay 2-1)

Cheese Makers 0 v 1 YTFIB

FCK2 1 v 2 Final Fantasy XI

Mega Buck Bandits 1 v 3 Claymore Athletic FC

Real Muppets 3 v 5 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

The Cow-Faced Juniors 0 v 2 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI

The Dead Parrots 3 v 2 Athletico Phoenix

Trusted By Millions 2 v 1 The Fabulous Artisans

Week 27 Results

Claymore end the Muppets' title hopes and cut the goal difference difference to Trusted in the process.

Athletico Phoenix 0 v 1 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI

Cheese Makers P v P YTFIB

Claymore Athletic FC 5 v 2 Real Muppets

FCK2 1 v 2 Trusted By Millions

Final Fantasy XI 1 v 1 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

Mega Buck Bandits 1 v 2 The Cow-Faced Juniors 
The Dead Parrots 1 v 1 San Dimas High School

The Fabulous Artisans 4 v 1 Aardvark Abacus


	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1	Trusted By Millions	27	16	4	7	60	39	21	52
2	Claymore Athletic FC	27	16	4	7	68	49	19	52
3	The Cow-Faced Juniors	27	14	4	9	66	45	21	46
4	Real Muppets	27	13	6	8	54	44	10	45
5	San Dimas High School	27	11	7	9	53	49	4	40
6	Aardvark Abacus	27	11	7	9	42	48	-6	40
7	The Fabulous Artisans	27	10	8	9	69	58	11	38
8	Final Fantasy XI	27	10	8	9	40	38	2	38
9	Fred West Landscape Gardening XI	27	10	6	11	60	58	2	36
10	Cheese Makers	26	10	6	10	49	47	2	36
11	Athletico Phoenix	27	9	6	12	39	58	-19	33
12	FCK2	27	8	8	11	44	49	-5	32
13	Mega Buck Bandits	27	8	7	12	40	49	-9	31
14	Nil Satis Nisi Optimum	27	8	4	15	42	57	-15	28
15	YTFIB	26	7	5	14	30	53	-23	26
16	The Dead Parrots	27	6	6	15	32	47	-15	24

The top two keep on winning but do it the hard way.

Trusted fell behind at FCK2 when Ben Foster saved a penalty on 16 minutes but Stephane Sessegnon outpaced the home defence to level on 31 minutes and the winning goal came from an unfortunate deflection off of Glen Johnson. Claymore came back from two down to end the Muppets' chances of the title. Raheem Sterling bamboozled the Claymore defence to open the scoring and a still discombobulated Jonas Olsson turned into his own net to see Ryan two up at the break. A super piece of control and smart finish from Olivier Giroud got Clive back in th egame and four cleans made for a comfortable win and cut the goal difference cap to Beef's side.

The CFJs came from behind as well beating Mega Bucks 2-1. An excellent Phillipe Coutinho snapshot had Dave ahead with 12 minutes left and Chris needed cleans from Geoff Cameron and Sascha Riether to get all the points. San Dimas are fifth this week after a draw at the bottom-placed Parrots. Erik Pieters' misplaced cross drifted in just before the break to give Dean the lead but Adrian Mariappa got my equalising clean on debut.

Half of the top eight is still up for grabs and the Artisans staked their claim for a place with a big win over the Aardvarks. Matej Vydra bagged his first for Ady in 20 seconds but Chris Brunt had Ben level three minutes later. Martin Skrtel glanced in a header after 26 minutes and Christian Eriksen clinched it right at the end. Fred gave himself a chance of finishing in the top half with a 1-0 win at Athletico. David Silva with the only goal.

Final Fantasy's Cup Final build up finished with a draw against Nil Satis. Demba Ba scored for Ceri but Seamus Coleman got  Paul's equaliser with a clean. More worryingly for Ceri the talismanic Yaya Toure limped off and will most likely miss the Final against Trusted. Lastly and leastly, the game between Cheese Makers and YTFIB was postponed due to... oooh, let's say a sudden outbreak of lactose intolerance at the Stade de Fromage.

Week 26 Results

Wow! Trusted go top on goal difference.

Athletico Phoenix 1 v 1 Final Fantasy XI

Cheese Makers 3 v 1 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI

Claymore Athletic FC 2 v 2 Mega Buck Bandits

Real Muppets 0 v 2 Aardvark Abacus

San Dimas High School 1 v 5 Trusted By Millions

The Dead Parrots 1 v 3 The Cow-Faced Juniors

The Fabulous Artisans 1 v 1 FCK2
YTFIB 5 v 3 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum


	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1	Trusted By Millions	26	15	4	7	58	38	20	49
2	Claymore Athletic FC	26	15	4	7	63	47	16	49
3	Real Muppets	26	13	6	7	52	39	13	45
4	The Cow-Faced Juniors	26	13	4	9	64	44	20	43
5	Aardvark Abacus	26	11	7	8	41	44	-3	40
6	San Dimas High School	26	11	6	9	52	48	4	39
7	Final Fantasy XI	26	10	7	9	39	37	2	37
8	Cheese Makers	26	10	6	10	49	47	2	36
9	The Fabulous Artisans	26	9	8	9	65	57	8	35
10	Fred West Landscape Gardening XI	26	9	6	11	59	58	1	33
11	Athletico Phoenix	26	9	6	11	39	57	-18	33
12	FCK2	26	8	8	10	43	47	-4	32
13	Mega Buck Bandits	26	8	7	11	39	47	-8	31
14	Nil Satis Nisi Optimum	26	8	3	15	41	56	-15	27
15	YTFIB	26	7	5	14	30	53	-23	26
16	The Dead Parrots	26	6	5	15	31	46	-15	23

Four games ago Beef was seven points adrift of Claymore. His team are now five wins away from having three pots on his mantelpiece.

With the Charity Shield already bagged and the FA Cup Final looming Trusted hammered San Dimas and with Claymore drawing it's Beef's side on top on goal difference. My team took the lead against Trusted through Romelu Lukaku's solo effort But I was behind by half-time. Steven Gerrard converting from the spot and Edin Dzeko scoring a minute later. After the break Javier Hernandez scored from close range and Gerrard added another penalty before Gary Cahill's clean rounded things off. Clive had spent nine of the last ten weeks on top but his draw drops him to second. It could have been worse. Mega Bucks were two up with twenty minutes left. Guy Demel poked in a controversial opener on half-time and the lead was doubled thanks to Grant Holt's first of the season. Joe Ledley pulled one back a minute later and Branislav Ivanovic got the equalising clean.

Only one win in five for the Muppets means Ryan's up against it in the title race and his team slipped to defeat against the Aardvarks. Steven Jovetic broke the deadlock on 81 minutes and Petr Cech got the clean to confirm the points. Fourth-placed CFJs are probably too far away to make it back-to-back titles. Chris did win at the Parrots this week despite falling behind to Rickie Lambert's first-half penalty. Willian scored a superb curling equaliser and Gylfi Sigurdsson had Chris ahead on 90 minutes and Julian Speroni followed up with a clean.

The MOTM jinx didn't really catch Ceri out as Final Fantasy drew 1-1 at the Phoenix. Yaya Toure's third minute penalty looked to have secured all the points but Adnan Januzaj got Brian's late, late equaliser. Cheese Makers complete the top half after a good win over Fred. February signing Mohamed Salah opened the scoring just after the half-hour and Juan Mata added a second with a free-kick seven minutes later. Mata added his second five minutes into the second half with a cool finish after a brilliant cut-back and Fred could only reply with an Alex Buttner clean.

The Artisans and FCK2 shared the points at Goddard Stadium. Christian Eriksen took a while to settle but now looks at home and his gaol had Ben ahead 12 minutes from time. The Artisans couldn't close it out though and John Terry's clean got Kevin a point. YTFIB are off the bottom after beating Nil Satis. Steven Naismith's goal had Paul ahead early on but Julian hit back through Jason Puncheon and Samir Nasri to lead at the break. It was Mikel Arteta's unlucky own goal that gave Julian breathing space and Puncheon's second (a beauty) and a Hugo Rodallega flick header in the last five minutes saw YTFIB home.