What A Season!

John Scales
Jan 24
4 min read

Updated: Feb 13

" Referees, like most of us are human beings".

Football pundit, Alan Brazil.

I can't believe what is happening this season! Nothing to do with my Swengland teams, they are nearly always shit but with my three favourites in the Football league pyramid.

Let's start at the bottom as seems appropriate - St. Albans City. Even with a new manager hired top try to save them from the drop, they have n't been able to arrest the slow marooning at the bottom of The Nationwide South.

Now eight points adrift of safety, they are looking down the barrel. A creditable 1-1 home draw with leaders Torquay was a step in the right direction but more steps are needed between now and Easter when the first writing appears on the wall.

Next it's The Hatters, another team under a new manager hoping to save them from a swift exit from whence they came. last year a source of pride as they gave most Premier opponents a seriously good game, much better than any of the teams who came up last season, Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton. And now.....11 straight away defeats in a row a terrible defence and..........

With a home game against the hated Millwall on Saturday, The Hatters need to start entertaining the home fans as well including me, frozen to death nearly at the last home game a 0-0 draw with Preston.

And then, there is this lot....

The only solace I can take from this is that Manchester United are in the same predicament, although better off by two points. Yes, okay, they have a lot of injuries but the question is why do they have a lot of injuries and why is MVDV injured again with a hamstring injury his second of the season? I can tell you why it's because of the style of play that deep, hard, headed Postecoglou, insists on playing. Highline which requires is defenders, especially NVDV, to chase back to catch flying forwards or wingers when the ball is played through or over the top of the high line. And plenty of managers see this as a bonafide tactic. Indeed, they must've all got together before the start of the season and agreed to play this way against Tottenham. The bonus of this would be that they would not only have eventually injured half the team (in this they have succeeded beyond the wildest expectations), but a comfortable three points in the bag. I'm reminded of a Frank Zappa song' Dumb all over.'

SWENGLAND

No real change at the top of the table here as Tom Iddon's team hold onto the advantage. It's the usual suspects apart from Saint Ives Seagulls and Calzio breaking the stranglehold.

The weekly points winners looks interesting with a reality league team topping, the table with two more in third and fourth place. Still, it is transfer time for reality league with the window open and new players coming in.

Speaking of new players, in the Swengland Fives or fantasy challenge league, this weeks theme is exactly that, double points for new players transferred into Premier teams in this transfer window. I don't think they really thought that through as there are precious few new players in the league.

It's back to 5 aside this week and last week for that matter. Last week it was a budget of only 25 million and again, a five aside team. Points were in short supply, here is the table:

The Swanger land fives league has been a lot of fun, as long as you remember to update your team according to the theme every week. If you don't you get the dreaded DNP, which, once again manager, Keith Lee obtained, and of course Lorna is a serial obtainable as she only picked one team at the beginning of the season. If you don't pick a team Lorna, you don't score, any points, apart of course from the first game of the season.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

I especially enjoy the Champions League, even though, if you look at the table, you wouldn't believe it!

This league is made up of teams who have one swing land in their lifetime and are still with us. Again, as you would expect it's the usual suspects and I'm rather hoping that a new team wins this year so that next year we will be able to have a fixtures league using the 12 teams. During our swing gland history, which you can see on another tab, we have had lots of different sorts of leagues, and as the history progresses, you will see all of them, make sure you have a look at my history of swing land page, I will be doing and has been doing hay season every update.

SWEDEN

In case you missed it in the last update, I am going to be coming to Sweden. I will be in Sweden in February 19-23, so I am suggesting a Swengland et-together on Saturday the 22nd seats in a pub showing Premier League football is a necessity and I will ask Berry to sort all that out. Looking forward to seeing everybody. And you can look forward to getting your awards for 2023-24.