MISTER EGG'S CHAMPIONSHIP REVIEW
SEPTEMBER 17th 2016

FOREST 1 NORRIDGE 2
Monty's Flying Circus lost for the first time on home soil as Norridge came from behind to blah blah blahdy blah. Boss Neil said: "I just questioned them. I asked them how much they wanted it. Did they want to go on and win this game? What were they made of? How many U.S. presidents had served a second term? How many Diehard films had been made? They answered all these questions in the second half. Well, almost all of them. In the end, all you can ask of your players is pretty vague questions which require non-verbal responses and then pray to God they get the rub of the green. Which they did."
Reds head coach Philip Mountaineer was disappointed with the manner of his team's performance. "Norridge are one of zer big cheeses in zer Championship and we needed to be at zer higher level. We were a little timide wiz zer ball and also in defence. We made things too easy for zem. After zer penalty save we had a good reaction and we took zer lead. We wanted to keep playing in zer same way, but our level of mindless brilliance fell away and we handed them zer game on a platter. It was disappointing but at least it was not us playing like time-wasting robots at zer end. "

DIPSWITCH 0 VILLA 0
Villa boss Di Matteo insisted his side had not been lucky despite failing to register a shot on target during the whole match. "We played reasonably well during the first half," he said. "The second half was a bit more difficult but it was a good solid performance at a place that is always difficult to play at, because it is always so boring here, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, and so flat. I have never been to a place that is so flat."
Dipswitch boss Mick McCarthorse said: "My players gave everything they had. That doesn't amount to a hill of beans, or a hill of any size, I know, but when you've played in this part of the country for as long as I have you come to realise that mind-crushing boredom is an integral part of life here, which suits me fine."

CAERDYDD 0 LEED 2
"We have a new group, new manager, new ideas, and we are taking it step by step," Leed boss Monk said after second-half goals from Chris Wood and Pablo Hernandez settled the contest. "This victory was another step in me keeping the job for another week or two."
Caerdydd remain in the bottom three after a fourth successive defeat, with the club having won only once all season. Bluebirds boss Paul "Who?" Trollope said referee Graham Scott "changed the game" when he blew his whistle for the kick off. "If he hadn't done that, we might have got away with a result," said Trollope. "As it was, his actions instigated another woeful display, and once more we see that officials at this level are simply not up to the job."

BOREMINGHAM 2 WENDIES 1
Boremingham scored two late goals to come from behind to beat Wendies who lost because they only scored one. Boremingham boss Rowett went on for ages about revenge and spirit and penalty taking technique and matters of such soul-blenching insignificance that rumours of Hinkley Point C's completion were rife before he had finished.
Wendies manager Carlos Carlosvalhalos could not hide his disappointment with the result. He said: "I am very happy with our form. I am happy we are playing fantastic but not scoring. I am not happy with our not scoring. I am happy we scored one, but one is never enough when the opposition score more than one. About this I am not very happy. I do not know whether I am happy or not happy. I find it odd that when you repeat a word over and over it seems to lose all meaning. Happy. Happy. See what I mean?"

BRISTOLS 1 SHEEP 1
Bristols' boss Lee Johnson was grateful to substitute Aaron Wilbraham (yes, he's still alive) for a stoppage time equaliser against the goal-shy Sheep. Johnson said: "I'm really pleased for goalkeeper Frank Fielding. Someone said well done in the dressing room afterwards and there was a spontaneous round of applause from the players because they all love him. That's the kind of cheesily disturbing atmosphere I like to foster in the changing room, after all."
Sheep boss Nigel Pearson had good cause to regret his side's lack of finishing power. "You could see by the players' reaction at full-time how disappointed they were," he said. "We continue to stutter as a direct result of not converting the chances we are making." Pearson continues to sound like one of those weather presenters who insist that the only reason for increasing turbulence in our weather systems is the dislocation of the jet stream, notably failing to explain why the jet stream is acting so weirdly in the first place. In the same way, Pearson consistently fails to explain why his players are not converting chances. Are they crap? Does his influence inhibit them? We'll probably never know, because according to Pearson, "You can't spend too much time beating yourselves up about it."

BENTFORD 5 PRESTON NOB END (misprint) 0
Four goals in 13 minutes, including a first Bees hat-trick for Scott Hogan, a Harlee Dean strike and a Chris Humphreys own goal, gave the scoreline an emphatic look that Nob End supremo Simon "Flies in the Eyes" Grayson insisted didn't reflect the game. He said: "We started well and were on top, created good chances and counter attacked well and then Brentford scored against the run of play. We started positively but then they scored their second, and even though we started positively they scored a third, but despite our postive start they scored a fourth, and their fifth came after we started positively. This is a massive learning curve." No it's not, Simon. A learning curve is something that's plotted over time. This was just a shit performance.

BLACKBum 4 ROTHERINGHAM 2
Blackbum manager Owen Coyle was quick to praise the courage of his team to keep playing positive football. "The most important thing today was to win," he said. "It was important we got the three points, but it was the manner of the performance and how we won which was most important. What was most important was the way we played after going one down, and even at 3-2 they picked themselves up and scored a wonderful fourth goal. That was the most important thing of all." No, Owen, what's most important is that you occasionally shut up, because a highly significant number of people don't care.
Millers manager Alan Stubbs, the position of whose eyes continues to intrigue, was angry at the 'significant' part his side's defending played in the defeat and threatened to make changes in future. He said: "To be honest, I'm saying the same thing most weeks. First of all, you have to keep working at it and keep saying the same things week in week out. If not, leave them out." Which we've done.
Words, after all, do not avoid relegation.

WIGGUM 0 COTTAGING 0
Wiggum boss Gary Caldwell believes his side are up there with the best attacking teams in the Championship despite their dull 0-0 draw with Cottaging. "As an attacking team, I don't think there's many better in the league. The way we pass the ball is excellent, we cause teams a lot of problems, and we have attacking players who can score goals. My God we're good. Sometimes on my home computer I watch our videos all night just to remind myself how pleasurable our performances are."
Fulham head coach Slavisa Jokanoslavisovic said he was not satisfied with the Cottagings overall performance. "I cannot be satisfied because we didn't score," Jokanoslavisovic said. "At the end it's good news because we kept the clean sheet but we didn't score a goal. We are trying to build something different here." A non-scoring team, presumably.

NEWCASTLE 0 WONDERBRAS 2
Asked if his players had allowed themselves to be carried away by their exploits at Loftus Road, Newcastle chief Benítez said: “No, I don’t think so because we were talking about that the day after, we were talking about that the day before, we were talking about that the day itself, so they knew how important it was to be concentrated and then do the things we had talked about on these days. But it’s more about the decisions. The football decisions were wrong and then we put ourselves under pressure. It’s not that you have to forget – you have to forget but try to understand why and try to correct things as soon as possible.” All of which might make some sense if it made any sense at all.
Walter Zenga was more plain speaking. He insisted that he was enjoying certain aspects of his visit to earth, though he was looking forward to returning to his home planet of Zenga'a when his work here was done.

SEASON 2016/17

01	06.08.16	FOREST	4	BURTON DOWN	3
02	12.08.16	HOVE	3	FOREST	0
03	16.08.16	BENTFORD	1	FOREST	0
04	20.08.16	FOREST	4	WIGGUM	3
05	27.08.16	FOREST	3	LEED	1
06	11.09.16	VILLA	2	FOREST	2
07	14.09.16	ROTHERINGHAM	2	FOREST	2
08	17.09.16	FOREST	1	NORRIDGE	2