Season 27 week 2 processing...

Welcome to week two of the season, it was a pretty good start for most of you last week but can you keep it up this week and get an early jump on your rivals ? we shall see.

Reset is underway ( don't want to forget that again ;-) )

Gonna be a tough week this week, City and Plymouth both to play.  Not the greatest week to take my eye off the ball.  Team is fairly settled so still quite hopeful.

Data entry has started...

data entry all done, a long day...

Running the friendly games now...

Reserves & Youths started...

I'll run the rest of the pre-league games in the morning, including all the cup draws, so the league games will most likely kickoff about 1300 hours wednesday...

Reserves, Youths & Schoolboys running through atm...

League preview.

There are some big games this week, and we're only in week two, as Charlton travel to Plymouth and Watford travel to Fulham in the Premiership. Champions Watford will be hoping to maintain their unbeaten run and have drafted in Phil Jones for a rare appearance in defence, whilst Fulham are unchanged. Charlton will be relying on Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge to get the goals they need to beat a lack lustre Plymouth side who switch out their long ball game for the more cultured fast tactic this week. 

Away from the two big games we have Man City's stubborn refusal to sell the mis-firing Sergio Aguero to Schalke, who made a huge offer for the under pressure striker last week, and it would have been easy for the City boss to just sell and start again, but Geoff believes in Aguero and knows deep down that he can do it, even if it takes time, and the City fans will be hoping that this week's game against Westham provides the perfect springboard for his talents this afternoon.

Aston Villa host Liverpool in a fascinating battle between promoted sides with Villa unchanged from last week, Arsenal travel to Birmingham in a six pointer game with Arsenal in good form at the moment and Birmingham making four changes following last week's opening day defeat.

The last game of this week's Premiership fixtures sees Chelsea travel to Leicester, as the Londoners continue to recover from some poor management decisions in previous seasons and the side are seemingly now on a definite up turn in fortunes and it'll be an interesting match as well with hosts Leicester needing to find some form in what is an insanely competitive league this year.

The big games continue in the Bundesliga where Champions Schalke have a tough game at Borussia Moenchengladbach, Bayern Munich host Stuttgart and Hamburg have to travel to Cologne. These are all good teams that have been together for awhile now and all capable of beating each other, so hard to predict the outcome of these games, Bayern and Hamburg make minimal changes but Schalke make no less than six changes for their game and i'm sure Gladbach will be up for hosting the Champions, should be an interesting week in Germany.

It is a huge week in Spanish football where Sevilla entertain Real Betis and Barcelona play hosts to Real Madrid, and with the big game so early in the season it begs the question, who of the big two will be playing catch up come week three. Both sides are unchanged for this week's clash of the giants.

Is this the season that Gremio make a decent impact on the Brasileiro ? they play Champions Flamengo this week at home and we will know more about them after this game but things are looking good with the Champions weakened and stiffer competition from both Gremio and Fluminense will hopefully make for a superbly unpredictable and close fought season, and with Sao Paulo also strengthening it could be a five team race this year.

Excellent reviews thanks Paul.

Sounds like Schalke have put out a stronger team for the Champions Cup?

Fluminense still have a very young side and a way off the quality of the other four. Hopefully have enough to avoid the bottom three though.

The charge for the Scudetto title is always worth following because Italy is full of good clubs who are all capable of winning against top opposition on their day. This week sees Champions Napoli take on arch rivals Cagliari and these guys have been going at it for a long time now and are just about honours even at the moment, so that game will certainly be interesting. 

Inter Milan are always tough to beat and the deposed Champions will be no different this season despite all the changes in recent weeks to the playing squad, only two changes to this week's team though as they take on hugely improved Roma who suffered a blow in goal last week and have to draft in Amelia for a rare start this week. Are Roma any good without the big man ? we shall see I guess.

Juventus and Milan had quiet pre-seasons with few new faces gracing their squads but both have well capable squads as Juve demonstrated last year coming so close to grabbing the title. It'll be interesting to see if they can be as competitive this year without adding to their array of talent. Juve have a tough trip to Fiorentina to negotiate while Milan face improving Bologna at home. Parma are fairly stable these days and will be looking to upset the apple cart at home to Ancona.

And as if that wasn't enough we have the first games in the various Champions Cups to savor as well.

Tottenham make five changes for their Fairs Cup game against Cagliari and its a match up I havent seen before in CF so I'm looking forward to this one, Cagliari go with their league team on reduced aggression, helps protect against strain injuries, whilst Tottenham bring in Dempsey, Lennon and Okazaki into their attack. Aston Villa are unchanged for their Fairs Cup game against Basel.

Birmingham have a really tough game in the Europa Cup against Valencia that will be competitive, tough start for both sides. 

Champions Cup is going to be very close again this year with no weaker sides really, Man City are bringing in Paulinho for Drinkwater the only change for them, Plymouth bring in Mahrez at target man with a switch to fast, Watford are unchanged, whilst its all change at Charlton as the boss makes eight changes, De Rossi comes in for Inter, Barcelona go to a five man attack with the introduction of Thiago Alcantara and Schalke make five changes with Pato in at target man. Should be interesting.

Morning all...let's just hope Leicester actually turn up today  Too easy for Tom last week!!

Tom@Charlton wrote:

Excellent reviews thanks Paul.

Sounds like Schalke have put out a stronger team for the Champions Cup?

Blimey, don't remember making 6 changes!
A couple were enforced, and a few positional changes, but mostly the same players....

Same for Champions Cup really...although trying out 5 at the back with three AMs in front...hopefully tough for Inter to break down....famous last words....

league games look like being delayed slightly while the midweek games finish, wont be delayed by much though. i forgot to allow for the extra euro games now.

KPaul Hemmings wrote:

Barcelona go to a five man attack with the introduction of Thiago Alcantara and Schalke make five changes with Pato in at target man. Should be interesting.

Worried it may be too attacking, but we shall see! I'm not going for 1-0's!!

Mixed results so far in Europe for most of you, the games are almost finished, will run through all the results after we have done the league games, almost finished...

Preston holding out strongly against the mighty Borussia Dortmund at half time...

Mixed results never sounds good....

Right league games will kickoff at 1400 hours, just about ten minutes away, good luck to everybody...

The teams are taking their places...

the ref raises the whistle to his lips, and we're off...