Nationwide Round-Up: Week 8

By: Richard Lord
Date: 29/09/2002

IT'S another week with more strange results (e.g. Grimsby winning) and some more familiar results (e.g. Sheffield Wednesday losing). In total there were 28 goals on Saturday in 11 fixtures.

We'll start at the top and work our way down to begin with. Portsmouth maintain their 100% record at home after their latest win. A 3-0 victory over Bradford makes it six wins out of six at Fratton Park.

Snapping at the heals of Pompey are Leicester - only beaten once this season - and the Foxes beat Wolverhampton 1-0 at the Walkers Stadium. Norwich are in third place after securing a good win at Preston, a game in which former Mariner David Nielsen opened the scoring.

Notts Forest are proving to be a real force this season, and it's now three wins on the bounce after they beat Rotherham 3-2 at the City Ground. They made hard work of it, after leading 3-0 at half time they were holding on nervously for the last 30 minutes.

That defeat for the Millers leaves them in a very respectable fifth position, leading the line of four teams all stuck on 18 points. Just behind them are Sheffield United, the team proving me wrong at the moment.

For I believed they would be cast adrift in the middle of the table in my pre-season predictions. Michael Boulding started on the bench but saw his new side go down 2-1 at home to Watford - the fourth placed team on 18 points.

Sandwiched between Sheffield United and Watford are Coventry. The Sky Blues appear to concede quite a few goals but also score a fair few too. They surprisingly lost at home to Millwall by the odd goal in five.

Now I've lost patience and I swiftly move down the table to focus on the bottom two clubs. Grimsby finally managed to win their first game of the season, 2-1 at Brighton and the result leaves the Seagulls bottom of the pile.

Although the win doesn't help the Mariners initially, it's at least a win and with three of their next four games at Blundell Park, Town have to get their home form together to make at least a fight of it.

Try not to laugh but it's getting increasingly embarrassing when I say Sheffield Wednesday failed again. Walsall had lost four games at home prior to this clash but still managed to overcome the challenge of the Owls.

Ipswich have somehow slumped to fourth from bottom after they suffered their third defeat of the season. Derby were the team to take all three points from the Tractor Boys thanks to a Carbonari strike on half time.

Burnley are slowly getting things together. Glen Little scored the only goal of the game in their 1-0 win over Wimbledon. The Dons are a team who continue to keep their fans (those who are left) guessing at what result will come next.

Finally, two promoted teams from last season cancelled each other out and as a result find themselves in the middle of nowhere - which is where both would have ideally placed themselves at the beginning of the season.

Reading and Stoke have both made decent starts to the season. Ironically they were the teams who finished behind the Champions Brighton, who find themselves cast adrift at the bottom.

Top players of the week are David Johnson (left, hair like Burnett, a leap like Chapman - now scored 12 goals this season), McVeigh (for scoring again and earning me more points in my Fantasy Football team) and Pouton (for scoring a great goal after having a free kick disallowed).

Top manager of the week could have gone to Groves (right) for finally earning a win; it could have gone to Redknapp (but that would have just been boring) so it's going to go to Paul Hart of Forest. He's doing a very decent job.

Mansfield disappointingly only conceded twice on Saturday, so I can't really mention them this week. Elsewhere it was the battle of the Al(l)sop(p)s at Whaddon Road as Cheltenham took on Notts County.

Both scored, but the winner is Allsopp for his brace because Alsop only scored once. Also I noticed Bradley Allen scored for Peterborough. We could still do with him. Finally, fancy being unbeaten so far this season yet find yourself in 17th place?

That's the exact predicament relegated Kingstonian find themselves in. However, they've only played seven games all season (won three, drawn four) while the teams around them have played 12.

League Table

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