FA Cup semi-final draw

The yellow bag was in work today where Paul W and Craig did the draw. here’s how they came out.

Fred West Landscape Gardening XI v The Wateringhole Society

The Cow-Faced Juniors v San Dimas High School

The two teams in the top half v the two teams in the bottom half then. 

Games to be played next midweek, 4/5 April.

Week 22 Results

Another Fred defeat. Have we got ourselves a title race?

Aardvark Abacus 0 v 1 Mega Buck Bandits

Athletico Phoenix 2 v 2 San Dimas High School

Cheese Makers 3 v 4 The Fabulous Artisans

Claymore Athletic FC 6 v 3 Fred West Landscape Gardening XI

FCK2 0 v 1 Real Muppets

The Cow-Faced Juniors 5 v 0 Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

The Wateringhole Society 2 v 2 Trusted By Millions

YTFIB 1 v 2 Wheel Madrid

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1	Fred West Landscape Gardening XI	22	15	0	7	64	45	19	45
2	Real Muppets	22	13	5	4	38	27	11	44
3	Trusted By Millions	22	11	5	6	46	32	14	38
4	The Cow-Faced Juniors	22	12	1	9	66	44	22	37
5	Athletico Phoenix	22	10	7	5	50	39	11	37
6	Wheel Madrid	22	11	4	7	43	43	0	37
7	The Fabulous Artisans	22	11	3	8	41	35	6	36
8	Cheese Makers	22	10	4	8	36	37	-1	34
9	San Dimas High School	22	8	5	9	51	47	4	29
10	Claymore Athletic FC	22	9	2	11	47	55	-8	29
11	Mega Buck Bandits	22	8	3	11	41	40	1	27
12	Aardvark Abacus	22	6	6	10	27	35	-8	24
13	FCK2	22	6	4	12	32	41	-9	22
14	Nil Satis Nisi Optimum	22	6	2	14	32	46	-14	20
15	YTFIB	22	6	2	14	38	63	-25	20
16	The Wateringhole Society	22	3	9	10	23	46	-23	18

Match of the Week

Claymore's unlikely bid for second place is still on track after taking down our leaders 6-3 despite trailing three times. Former Claymore defender Craig Dawson glanced in on 12 minutes to have Fred ahead but an unlucky deflection off Alfie Mawson squared things up on the half hour. Parity lasted just two minutes with Dele Alli converting a penalty. Sergio Aguero made it 2-2 on 69 minutes but another Dawson header six minutes later put Fred in front again. Then Clive got four cleans to turn the result on its head.

Elsewhere in the league

Fred’s defeat gave Ryan a chance to close the gap and he took it, just. Steven Ward’s clean the only counter in the game against FCK2. The gap at the top is down to a point. The gap from Ryan to third is six points now as Trusted were held by The Wateringhole Society. All the action came in the last half hour. Andre Ayew put Kiran ahead but Benik Afobe and Gary Cahill had Beef staring at all three points with three minutes to go. Kiran’s team secured their ninth draw of the season with a Michael Keane clean but will be concerned about Manolo Gabbiadini’s injury ahead of the Cup semis in a fortnight.

The CFJs have got their act together a bit late in the season and are up to fourth. Chris and Co crushed Nil Satis 5-0 with Willian and Alexis Sanchez both on target in the first 15 minutes and that’s six defeats in a row in the league for Paul S. Athletico are on the same points after a 2-2 draw with San Dimas. Riyad Mahrez’s early strike for Brian meant his team led for 86 minutes before Romelu Lukaku scored twice for me in injury time only for Ashley Williams to get an equalising clean. Wheel Madrid are also on 37 points. Paul’s team ended their run of eight without a win by beating YTFIB through Jamie Vardy (maybe I was hasty with the whole selling him thing) and a Simon Francis clean.

The Artisans are another team on a roll and Ben edged a win in a 4-3 thriller against Matthew. The Cheesers led twice early on through Robert Huth and Manuel Lanzini but the Artisans levelled first through Christian Eriksen and then a spectacular first of the season from Jesse Lingard. A Troy Deeney own goal put Ben ahead for the first time and Enner Valencia’s first of the campaign just a bout finished it. The other ‘Battle of the Brothers’ was less exciting but settled by a Valencia. Antonio got the only goal of the game for Dave against Ady in the third minute of injury time after a moment the Aardvarkskeeper will want to forget.

Week 21 Results

Fred slips up but the chasers can’t take advantage.

Fred West Landscape Gardening XI 4 v 5 Athletico Phoenix

Mega Buck Bandits 3 v 3 FCK2

Nil Satis Nisi Optimum 0 v 3 Claymore Athletic FC

Real Muppets 1 v 1 The Wateringhole Society

San Dimas High School 4 v 4 YTFIB

The Fabulous Artisans 4 v 0 Aardvark Abacus

Trusted By Millions 2 v 4 The Cow-Faced Juniors

Wheel Madrid 0 v 2 Cheese Makers

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	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	Pts
1	Fred West Landscape Gardening XI	21	15	0	6	61	39	22	45
2	Real Muppets	21	12	5	4	37	27	10	41
3	Trusted By Millions	21	11	4	6	44	30	14	37
4	Athletico Phoenix	21	10	6	5	48	37	11	36
5	The Cow-Faced Juniors	21	11	1	9	61	44	17	34
6	Cheese Makers	21	10	4	7	33	33	0	34
7	Wheel Madrid	21	10	4	7	41	42	-1	34
8	The Fabulous Artisans	21	10	3	8	37	32	5	33
9	San Dimas High School	21	8	4	9	49	45	4	28
10	Claymore Athletic FC	21	8	2	11	41	52	-11	26
11	Mega Buck Bandits	21	7	3	11	40	40	0	24
12	Aardvark Abacus	21	6	6	9	27	34	-7	24
13	FCK2	21	6	4	11	32	40	-8	22
14	Nil Satis Nisi Optimum	21	6	2	13	32	41	-9	20
15	YTFIB	21	6	2	13	37	61	-24	20
16	The Wateringhole Society	21	3	8	10	21	44	-23	17

Match of the Week

Athletico’s title bid has faltered in recent weeks with a run of only two wins in eight. Brian’s team showed  everyone their potential with a win in a nine-goal thriller over Fred. It had looked good early on for the leaders as Marcos Rojo (who’d surprisingly turned up unmarked in the penalty area) and Eden Hazard (who’s back to his awesome best it seems) had the home team two up in 25 minutes. The comeback started in first half injury time. Nathan Redmond finding the far corner to make Brian’s half-time talk a bit easier. 

The game was level five minutes after the break when Diego Costa lashed in following a corner. Midfielders Leroy Sane and Riyad Mahrez scored within a minute of each other just before the hour to take the score to 3-3 but there were more goals to follow. Redmond got his second with four minutes to go to put Athletico 4-3 up only for Dele Alli to level for the Gardeners two minutes into injury time. There was still time for a deciding score. James Tomkins got the clean to complete a great win for Athletico and cut the gap to the leaders to nine points.

Elsewhere in the league

The chasing pack couldn’t take advantage. The Muppets were held to a draw by the Wateringhole Society. Ryan’s team were in front five minutes before the break when Sadio Mane fired home but new signing Manolo Gabbiadini earned his team a point seven minutes from time when he was quickest to a spilled shot. Trusted fell to a resurgent CFJs. Andre Gray’s brace had given Beef a 2-1 lead but Fernando Llorente got his second in injury time to level things for the Howells before Cameron and Sagna cleans took the game away from Trusted.

Goals at the start and end of the game helped Cheese Makers to jump over their opponents, Wheel Madrid. Troy Deeney’s clever, controlled volley came on four minutes, Manuel Lanzini was given too much space to fire home and complete the win in injury time. The Artisans are sneaking into third place contention and made it four wins out of five when sweeping the Aardvarks aside 4-0. Firmino and Wijnaldum got the goals for Ben, van Aanholt and Fernandez got the cleans.

San Dimas are getting detached from the top half after being held by YTFIB. Julian was 3-0 and 4-1 up (a brace from Marco Arnautovic helping him on the way) but Romelu Lukaku and cleans from Grant and Daniels rescued me a point. Claymore are improving week by week and saw off Nil Satis 3-0. Susan Tadic and Sergio Aguero goals had this one in the bag by the break, Alex Kolarov added a clean to round it off. Mega Bucks and FCK2 shared six goals in their game. Harry Kane gave Kevin the lead twice but a saved pen by Artur Boric (his first counter of the season) and a successful penalty from Josh King had Dave in front but Glen Johnson’s clean shared the spoils.