We win easily against hapless Rotherham, only one shot on target the whole game, while Stocky sets up Preston's first goal and I think I read he won the man of the match award on his debut...

Game was over in first 20 minutes yesterday after a couple of early goals. Rotherham didn't have anything about them at all and could be in trouble if their home form doesn't stand up.


Just a note to everyone on this great thread. I have two more games (away at Swindon and home to Chesterfield) in the next two week. After this (Jan29th) I am off to Las Vegas initially for a 3 month break, but if I get an opportunity to work, maybe longer so will def be missing the rest of the season. Although I was much more into the match reports last season, I have really enjoyed reading all your reports and comments in what is probably the most competitive league this season.

I think we will just miss out on the play offs again and here are my predictions for the rest of the league.

Winners- Swansea. Money to spend nice stadium all the momentum.
Automatic - Huddersfield. A bad run but a win yesterday. A chance for Swans and Southend to get away from them but they didnt really take it.

Play off lottery. I think Forest who look to be getting it together at home will beat Oldham in the final.

Of course I hope I am wrong and Bournemouth stay on strong but If Hayter goes I cant see where the regualr goals will come from.

Best of luck to everyone and Im sure I will contribute in some form from sunny LV.

Mexico vs Iran

Note viewers, Gary Lineker's changed his shirt during the thirty minutes that Songs of Praise was on. Pink. See, I’ve been saying for days there’s nowhere near enough pink in this competition. Still, the BBC (as Gordon Strachen so rightly noted) need few excuses to show Alan Rough’s finest three seconds. (And did anybody else noticed the strange look on Leonardo's boat whenever Gordon opened his trap...? It was almost as if he was thinking "i thought this was an English-language channel.")

Impressive opening – particularly from Iran who missed a couple of great chances against the swathy Mexies who all looked like extras from Viva Zapata! There was an excellent moment when the thuggishly curly-haired Gerardo kicked Ali Karimi up-a-height. The look he got for his trouble suggested that a jihad upon his house wasn’t gonna be far behind. Nice to see, too, the Ranies sticking up for pensioners everywhere by playing Ali Daei, someone who makes Dwight Yorke look like a spring chicken. Bravo. Oh no, hang on, he plays for the other lot.

Mexico went one up by Iran positively hit back, proving there weren’t about to roll over from any John, Paul, George or Gringo and got a worthy equaliser. The two lads in the middle, were especially tough and combative (“this axis of evil” perhaps?)

An initially dull second half exploded into life with two goals in three minutes and little Zinha bringing a touch of Brazilian-born magic to the party.

Forest looked (scarily imo) a very good outfit yesterday. Holt and Tyson could be a very good strike partnership indeed. Obviously it could mean nothing if we lose both our away games as per the norm in the next 7 days. However, that is the first time in 2 seasons that i've left the City Ground in a really optimistic mood. If we get 4pts from Brentford and Rotherham (probably a tough ask even if we had a good away record) at their places and we sign a midfielder before the end of January i'll stick my neck out and say we'll go up automatically. There's a thin line in this league between good and bad and we've fell short so far.