Predictions:
Man-U 2:2 Arsenal
Portsmouth 0-2 Man-City
Man-U vs Arsenal is set to be the first ever football match in 3D and it is being shown in 9 pubs in the UK. The people watching will need dark glasses to watch and it's all set to be the new Avatar.

Intresting poll I just had. Not many people voted but it looks like, most of you think that Liverpool will somehow fluke their way into the top 4.

Matches of note over the past 3 days:
Carling Cup semi-final second leg:
Man-U 3-1 Man-City (4-3 on aggregate)
Woo hoo!
The money spenders have finally been put in their place after months of boasting about the financial situation at Old Trafford we have stll got the better team! Wayne Rooney scored in injury time to send Man-U through to the final against Aston Villa.
African Cup of nations semi-finals:
Egypt 4-0 Algeria
Ghana 1-0 Nigeria
3rd place play-off:
Nigeria 1-0 Algeria
Egypt thrashed Algeria in a grudge match and will be looking to win the African Cup of Nations for the seventh time in the final against Ghana which will take place today My prediction is 2-1 to Egypt as the team spirit will be very high after the win against Algeria. Togo have also been banned for the next two Cup's because they withdrew from the compititon. This is incredibly in-human of CAF. Most people would have thought that they would say sorry for the Togo squad being machine-gunned but no. All we get is 'they are banned from the next 2 competitions'. Hopefully, the African teams will boycott the next tournament to show support.
Premier League:
Everton 1-0 Wigan
West Ham 0-0 Blackburn
Liverpool 2-0 Bolton
Hull 2-2 Wolves
Aston Villa 2-0 Fulham
Chelsea 2-1 Burnley
Birmingham 1-1 Tottenham
After the details of John Terry's affair with Wayne Bridge's girlfriend came out, it looks like he will be stripped of the England captaincy. This didn't stop him scoring the winner for Chelsea. You have to feel sorry for Burnley's new manager Brian Laws. Fulham's early form is falling apart after 5 losses in a row while the new owners of West Ham watched a boring draw.

Transfer watch:
So far this transfer window has beeen incredibly boring so we can keep this short.
Stoke player Leon Cort has moved to Burnley for 1.5 mllion.
Craig Gardner has moved from Aston Villa to cash strapped Birmingham for £3 mil.
Vladimir Weiss. The young left back has been loaned to Bolton from Man-City
Robinho looks certain to move from Man-City to boost his chances of playing in the World Cup.
Danny Welbeck, the teenage sensation has been loaned from Man-U to Preston. This is probably because Alex Ferguson's son, Darren manages Preston.
Jo has been loaned out again to Galasataray after being sent home in disgrace from Everton.
Amr Zaki has been loaned to Hull. In the first half of last season he was one of the top scorers in the Prem. Sine then, he's kind of been forgotten.

Algeria and Egypt look set to kill in another intresting semi-final (we're having so many these days) Algeria, who are in England's World Cup group knocked Egypt out of the World Cup in a play-off so it looks to be an intriguing match. I'm sure that Capello is getting a bit worried about Algeria. They beat Ivory Coast in the quarter-finals so why can't they beat England? Ghana are playing Nigeria in another semi-final as well.

Bolton 1-0 Burnley
Portsmouth 1-1 West Ham
Tottenham 2-0 Fulham
Wolves 0-0 Liverpool
Tottenham look like recovering from their game at Anfield while it seems to be just the opposite for Liverpool. Whenever it looks like Rafael Benitez's team have finally turned the corner and the results will soon come, they do something ridicoulous and and you can laugh at them. In a very emotional match where Owen Coyle returned to his old club, Bolton won 1-0 in a violent scrappy game, fortunately, under Owen Coyle Bolton are starting to change so that they no longer look like they'd rather be out on the streets kicking people. The Burnley fans still havn't forgiven Coyle and there were chants of 'Judas' all through the match. Harsh but fair.

FA Cup 5th round draw:
Wolves or Crystal Palace vs Aston Villa
Man-City vs Stoke
Derby vs Birmingham
Bolton vs Tottenham or Leeds
Chelsea vs Cardiff
Fulham vs Notts County or Wigan
Reading vs West Bromwich Albion
Southampton vs Portsmouth
Don't know how, but it's always worth watching 1 or two games in the FA and the Carling Cup.
So far in the Carling Cup there has been two: Aston Villa 6:4 Blackburn and Man-City 2-1 Man-U. There havn't been many yet in the FA Cup (apart from the Leeds round 3 and 4 games which I don't like since they knocked out Man-U :-( ) but we're going to have a battle onm our hands between Portsmouth and Southampton. Harry Redknapp will be watching and laughng at these two clubs predicaments. Southampton have been relegated to League 1 and have been docked 10 points at the start of this season whle Portsmouth look likely to enter adminstration soon. There will be taunts. There will be jeers. and it will hopefully be a feast of football (although that looks unlikely).

Weekend results:
FA Cup 4th round:
Fulham 3:1 Accrington Stanley
Wolves 2-2 Crystal Palace
West Bromwich Albion 4-2 Newcastle
Tottenham 2-2 Leeds
Southampton 2:1 Ipswich
Reading 1-0 Burnley
Preston 2-0 Chelsea
Portsmouth 2-1 Sunderland
Notts County 2-2 Wigan
Birmingham 2-1 Everton
Derby 1-0 Doncaster
Cardiff 4-2 Leicster
Bolton 2-0 Sheffield United
Aston Villa 3-2 Brighton
Man City 4-2 Scunthorpe
Stoke 3-1 Arsenal
Prem results:
Man-U 4-0 Hull
It was an intresting weekend with a few acts of gant killing in the FA Cup. Got to give credit to Leeds and Reading they are performing ncredible acts of giant killing and between them, they have taken out: Burnley, Man-U, Liverpool and possibly Tottenham! Man-U have gone top of the Prem with a great result against Hull. Rooney scored 4 goals in an action filled match. The huge Championship rivalry of Newcastle and West Brom flared up again after a 4-2 win for West Brom. Meanwhile, Sol Campell made his debuet for Arsenal in a 3-1 loss against a very physical Stoke side. In what was probably Robinho's last game for Man-City he scored the last goal in a 4-2 win over Scunthorpe.

Aston Villa 6-4 Blackburn (7-4 on aggergate)
Arsenal 4-2 Bolton
Liverpool 2-0 Tottenham
Man-City 2-1 Man-U
It was two nights of incredible football on which there were two recoveries from 2-0 down to win by 2 goals. Aston Villa are through to the Carling Cup final after Blackburn surrendered from 2-1 up on aggrgate to 7-4 down on aggregate after Milner, Warnock, Agbonlahor, Heskey and Young all scored for Aston Villa while Nzonzi scored an own goal to sum up a 6-4 thrashing. Just like to point out that all of Aston Villa's scorers were English! In a game where Arsenal needed a win by 2 goals to top the table it looked like Burnley would pull of a shock win yet Arsenal picked up in the second half to score 3 goals. Liverpool are now only 1 point behind Tottenham after a 2-0 win while Man-City undeservedly won at Old Trafford after 2 Carlos Tevez goals. Who needs cricket?

Aston Villa 0:0 West Ham
Blackburn 2:0 Fulham
Arsenal 2:0 Bolton
Chelsea 7:2 Sunderland
Everton 2:0 Man-City
Man-U 3:0 Burnley
Stoke 1:1 Liverpool
Hull 0:0 Tottenham
Wigan 2:0 Wolves
Still in a state of shock about the Chelsea result. I thought that they were 'weakened' due to the loss of Drogba and Essien yet they seem to have got stronger. It's been a bit of a farce watching Wigan this season they have been incredible in periods, such as the 3-1 win over Chelsea. Yet at other times they just havn't turned up. (Like the 9-0 thrashing by Tottenham) Wolves encountered a good Wigan side and POW! Owen Coyle oversaw a 2-0 loss in his first match at Bolton while Man-U brushed aside a Brian Laws' Burnley. When Man-City encountered their first hard encounter under Mancini, they seemed to crumble against an improving Everton. For a while, it looked like Liverpool were actually recovenhamering from their awful form but another very late equaliser gave them only 1 point. Just like to point something out, the main contenders for the 4th Champions League spot are:
Liverpool
Man-City
Aston Villa
Tottenham
Now look at these teams' results
Liverpool 1-1 Stoke
Tottenham 0-0 Hull
Everton 2-0 Man-City
Aston Villa 0-0 West Ham
Not only did none of them win but between them, the top 4 challengers scored 1 goal.

The African Cup of Nations:
The African Cup of Nations are now well underway with the top 16 teams in Africa battling it out. This competition got critiscism all round for the way it handled the Togo affair. The bus was shot at, 3 people died and all Angola can say is 'they have been disqualified' it's very harsh. So let's have a look at some of the maimn contenders:
Cameroon:
They are one of the favourites and with players like Samuel Eto'o who wouldn't? They have a squad where thereis no room for Sebastian Bassong so they have got to be good.
Squad:
Carlos Kameni (Espanyol, Spain), Hamidou Souleymanou (Kayserispor, Turkey), Guy N'Dy Assembe (Valenciennes, France), Rigobert Song (Trabzonspor, Turkey), Geremi (Newcastle United, England), Henri Bedimo (Chateauroux, France), Andre Bikey (Burnley, England), Benoit Assou-Ekotto (Tottenham Hotspur, England) Aurelien Chedjou (Lille, France), Nicolas Nkoulou (AS Monaco, France), Alex Song (Arsenal, England), Jean Makoun (Lyon, France), Stephane Mbia (Marseille, France), Georges Mandjeck (Kaiserslautern, Germany), Joel Matip (Shalke 04, Germany), Enoh Eyong (Ajax Amsterdam, Holland), Landry Nguemo (Celtic, Scotland), Achille Emana (Real Betis, Spain), Somen A Tchoyi (Red Bull Salzburg, Austria), Paul Alo'o Efloulou (AS Nancy, France), Achille Webo (Mallorca, Spain), Mohamadou Idrissou (SC Freiburg, Germany), Samuel Eto'o (Inter Milan, Italy)

Manager: Paul Le Guen

Prediction: Semi-Finals

Ghana; They have a good chance of winning this with their best player being Chelsea star Michael Essien and Fulham defender John Pantsil.
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Richard Kingson (Wigan, England), Daniel Agyei (Liberty Professionals, Ghana), Philemon McCarthy (Hearts of Oak, Ghana)

Defenders: John Paintsil (Fulham, England), Hans Adu Sarpei (Bayer Leverkusen, Germany), Samuel Inkoom (Basel, Switzerland) Eric Addo (Roda JC, Holland) Isaac Vorsah (TSG Hoffenheim, Germany) John Mensah (Sunderland, England), Lee Addy (Bechem Chelsea, Ghana) Harrison Afful (Esperance, Tunisia)

Midfielders: Ibrahim Ayew (Zamalek, Egypt) Michael Essien (Chelsea, England) Anthony Annan (Rosenborg, Norway), Emmanuel Agyemang-Badu (Sampdoria, Italy), Opoku Agyemang (Al Sadd, Qatar) Kwadwo Asamoah (Udinese, Italy) Moussa Narry (Auxerre, France) Andre Ayew (Arles-Avagnon, France)

Attackers: Matthew Amoah (NAC Breda, Holland) Asamoah Gyan (Rennes, France), Dominic Adiyiah (Fredrikstad FK, Norway) Haminu Draman (Locomotiv Moscow, Russia)

Manager: Milovan Ravijac

Prediction: Runners up

Ivory Coast:
Have a really good side with some incredibleplayers such as Drogba and the Tourre brothers. They havn't had much luck as they've been drawn in the group of death in World Cups 2006 and 2010 and they've been drawn in the group of death in this tournament.
Squad:
Goalkeepers: Boubacar Barry (Lokeren, Belgium), Aristide Zogbo (Maccabi Netanya/Israel), Vincent De Paul Angban (Asec Mimosas)

Defenders: Kolo Toure (Manchester City, England), Emmanuel Eboue (Arsenal, England), Guy Demel (SV Hamburg, Germany), Souleman Bamba (Hibernian, Scotland), Benjamin Angoua Brou (Kispest Honved, Hungary), Arthur Boka (VfB Stuttgart, Germany), Abdoulaye Meite (West Bromwich Albion, England), Siaka Tiene (Valenciennes, France)

Midfielders: Yaya Toure (Barcelona, Spain), Didier Zokora (Sevilla, Spain), Emmanuel Kouamatien Kone (International Curtea of Arges, Romania), Cheik Ismael Tiote (FC Twente, Holland), Emerse Fae (Nice, France), Jean-Jacques Gosso Gosso (AS Monaco, France)

Forwards: Didier Drogba (Chelsea, England), Salomon Kalou (Chelsea, England), Bakari Kone (Marseille, France), Kader Keita (Galatasaray, Turkey), Aruna Dindane (Portsmouth, England), Gervais Yao Kouassi 'Gervinho' (Lille, France)

Manager: Vahid Halilhodzic

Prediction: Winners

FA Cup replay results (these happened ages ago):
Reading 2:1 Liverpool (take that all Liverpool fans who are hyping this up as if it were the C
hampions League)
Newcastle 3:0 Plymouth
Birmingham 1:0 Nottingham Forest
FA Cup third round non replay results:
Bristol City 1-1 Cardiff
Back to replays:
Portsmouth 2:1 Coventry
Derby 1:1 Millwall (Derby through on penalties)
Sheffield United 3:2 QPR
Sorry this was so late.

Aston Villa 1-0 Blackburn
There wasn't much in this Carling Cup semi-final, with James Milner scoring the winner in the first half.
An apology to my followers:
I'm afraid I forgot to mention anything about the African Cup of Nations and The FA Cup 3rd round replay and the results will come to you very soon :-(

Transfer Watch:
Stoke are very intrested in a move for David James and might try to sign him from relegation threatened club Portsmouth.

Transfer watch:
Arsenal have re-signed former player Sol Campbell despite Arsene Wenger's policy of never re-signing players.
Maxi Rodriguez has taken a medical at Liverpool and is widely expected to join within the next few days.
Andriy Vorinon has joined Dynamo Moscow on a 3 year deal. Another bad signing from Benitez, he was on loan at Hertha Berlin last season.
A Celtic trio of Barry Robson, Chris Killen and Willo Flood have joined Middlesborough where they will join old manager Gordon Strachan.
Wigan have signed Celtic defender Gary Caldwell, Ivory Coast international Steven Gohouri and Serbian goalkepper Vladimir Stojkovic

Burnley new manager:
After Owen Coyle left for Bolton, Brian Laws has now taken over. The former Burnley player was sacked by Sheffield Wednesday in December and his aim at Burnley will be to try and avoid relegation.

Man City 4-1 Blackburn
Sorry, forgot about this. Man-City are now in the top 4 after Carlos Tevez scored a hat-trick in a 4-1 win. I ask one thing: Dont get carried away with the 'great Mancini' talk. He's only played easy matches in Blackburn, Wolves, Stoke and Middlesborough. Wait till they play a top 6 team and then we can judge.
Predictions:
FA Cup 3rd round:
Bristol City 1-3Cardiff
FA Cup 3rd round replay:
Birmingham 2:1 Nottingham Forest
Portsmouth 1:0 Coventry
Derby 0:0 Millwall
QPR 2:1 Sheffield United.

Would like to write something, but with all the games cancelled ther's noting to write about.

Prem results:
Birmingham 1-1 Man-U
Arsenal 2-2 Everton
Due to the weather conditions, only 2 matches were played. Both of the 'top 4' drew in good old-fashioned scraps. Birmingham are doing incredibly so far this season with an 11 match unbeaten run. This is hard enough to achieve in the Premier League let alone if you've just been promoted!
Arsenal drew 2-2 all with an improving Everton with Rosicky scoring the equaliser deep in injury time.

Your guide to games:
As you all know, the weather has recently been horrible and as a result, lots of games are being cancelled. This is your guide to all the Prem + Carling Cup cancelled games.
Manchester City vs Arsenal: 1st leg of Carling Cup semi-final
Aston Villa vs Blackburn Rovers: ditto
Arsenal vs Bolton: Prem game
Burnley vs Stoke: ditto
Fulham vs Portsmouth: ditto
Hull vs Chelsea: ditto
Sunderland vs Bolton: ditto
Wigan vs Aston Villa: ditto
Liverpool vs Tottenham: ditto
West Ham vs Wolves: ditto

Premier League games that are happening (predictions):
Arsenal 3:1 Everton
Man-U 2:2 Birmingham

Damage to Africa:
African football has taken a serious blow as South Africa get ready to host the World Cup. On the way to the African Cup of Nations, the Togo team bus was shot at and the driver was killed. The Togo squad had a decent chance of winning the tournament with Adebayor from Man-City and Salifou from Aston Villa their Premier League players. The Togo squad will probably go out of the tournament in protest despite it being played on. It raises worry about the World Cup in South Africa as the South African situation is similar to the Angolan one. Clubs are also worried about the players safety in this tournament

Transfer watch:
Man-City have signed Viera from Inter Milan. Viera is widely expected to take over the captaincy from Gareth Barry and might be the natural leader that Man-City are looking for.

Napoli have signed Dossena from Liverpool. Dossena was another disasterous signing by Rafael Benitez and Liverpool will be glad to see the back of him.

Birmimingham have signed playmaker Michel for £3 million.

Snow plays havoc with Prem:
Our chances of winning the World Cup have been set back. Not by Maradona, not by Portugal, but by the weather. The festive season is over yet the snow doesn't seem to realise it. Due to the snow, Both Carling Cup semi-finals have been delayed plus 2 Prem games. Now, 3 Premier League games have been cancelled due to the snow. This is very bad as the games will have to be played sometime and this will most likely be near the end of the season. Added to the other games, this could make 2 games a week for most teams. This will in turn cause weariness, so the players will be in a tired state at the start of the World Cup, causing mistakes.

How will Burnley survive without Owen Coyle?
As most of us know, the Bolton job has been taken over by Owen Coyle. How will Burnley survive without him? This is the question that people are asking. Burnley have got to have one of the weakest squads indivisually in the Prem. The only thing keeping them together is great team spirit. Will this team spirit last without Coyle? Probably not. Goodbye Burnley, it's been fun.

My apologies, there are actually for Prem teams out of the FA Cup (West Ham, Man-U, Hull and Blackburn). However, only one of the teams (Man-U) got knocked out by lower league opposition.

Prem predictions:
Stoke 0:2 Fulham
Carling Cup:
Aston Villa 2:1 Blackburn

Transfer watch:
The money wagon of Man-City have been linked with ex Arsenal captain Patrick Viera. Viera has a good relationship with Mancini and is reportedly unhappy under Jose Mourinho
Likely price: £4,000,000
Chance of happening: 60%
Newcastle are trying to sign in form Leeds player Jermaine Beckford although Leeds wouldn't be happy to lose him with a likely season in the Championship coming up.
Likely price: £1,900,000
Chance: 70%
Fulham are trying to hold onto Bobby Zamora expecting offers from some big clubs.
Likely price: £7,500,000
Chance: 40%
Nemjanda Vidic has recently been linked with Real Madrid and AC Milan. The Serbian giant might be tempted to leave if the wages are high.
Likely price: £30,000,000
Chance: 60%

The Blackburn job:
Ever since Sam Allerdyce left, the farce otherwise called the Bolton job has been started. Today, no other then Owen Coyle was linked to it and there might even be some truth in this rumour. A week ago, despite saying that he was '' privileged to be building something special'' with Burnley he also acknowledged that Bolton will ''always have a special place in my heart''. My surprise is: why would Owen Coyle want to leave Burnley to go to Bolton? Owen Coyle is a growing managerial talent and I wouldn't be surprised if he had a big job in the next 5-10 years. Burnley would be very sad to lose him if he left but might have to.

The slow (and painful) death of the FA Cup:

The FA Cup used to be an exciting event in the calender. The 3rd round was one of the favourite bits of the season, everybody hoping for an upset as the format of the competition in theory could lead to a group of amateurs playing Chelsea or Man-U. However, the FA Cup has gone down in estimation. If you asked Rafael Benitez 'choose, the FA Cup or 4th place in the Prem' he would say 4th place. The supporters have lost intrest. At Wigan vs Hull there were only 5,000 people. The FA Cup has gone from being a fan friendly, exciting competition to being a complete waste of space in most club's eyes. There are also not many more upsets. Only 2 Prem teams have gone out of the competition (Hull and Man-U) and Hull lost to another Prem team.

4th round draw for the FA Cup:

Accrington/Gillingham v Fulham

Aston Villa v Brighton

Bolton v Sheff Utd/QPR

Bristol City/Cardiff v Leicester

Everton v Nottm Forest/Birmingham

Millwall/Derby v Brentford/Doncaster

Notts County/Forest Green v Wigan

Portsmouth/Coventry v Sunderland

Preston v Chelsea

Reading/Liverpool v Burnley
Scunthorpe v Man City

Southampton v Ipswich

Stoke v Arsenal

Tottenham v Leeds

Tranmere/Wolves v Crystal Palace

West Brom v Plymouth/Newcastle

FA Cup 3rd round results:
Chelsea 5-0 Watford
Leeds 1-0 Man-U :-(
Sheffield United 1:1 QPR
Wolves 1:0 Tranmere
Arsenal 2-1 West Ham
Aston Villa 3:1 Blackburn
Ipswich 2:1 Blackpool
Bolton 4:0 Lincoln City
Everton 3:1 Carsile
Fulham 1:0 Swindon
West Brom 2:0 Huddersfield
Leicester 2:1 Swansea
Man City 1:0 Middlesborough
Millwall 1:1 Derby
MK Dons 1:2 Burnley
Nottingham Forest 0:0 Birmingham
Plymouth 0:0 Newcastle
Portsmouth 1:1 Coventry
Preston 7:0 Colchester
Reading 1:1 Liverpool
Scunthorpe 1:0 Barnsley
Crystal Palace 2:1 Sheffield Wednesday
Southampton 1:0 Luton
Stoke 3:1 York
Sunderland 3:0 Barrow
Brighton 1:0 Torquay
Wigan 4:1 Hull
Tottenham 4:0 Peterborough

No major upsets in the Cup. Results will be posted tomorrow.

I forgot to mention: Happy new year!

FA Cup predictions:
Aston Villa 2:1 Blackburn
Blackpool 0:2 Ipswich
Bolton 0:1 Lincoln City
Everton 2:1 Carsile
Fulham 2:0 Swindon
West Brom 1:0 Huddersfield
Leicster 2:1 Swansea
Man City 4:2 Middlesborough
Derby 0:0 Millwall
Burnley 2:0 MK Dons
Birmingham 3:1 Nottingham Forest
Newcastle 2:0 Plymouth
Coventry 2:2 Portsmouth
Preston 1:1 Colchester
Liverpool 1:1 Reading
Scunthorpe 0:2 Barnsley
Sheff Wed 2:2 Crystal Palace
Southampton 2:2 Luton
Stoke 1:2 York
Sunderland 2:0 Barrow
Torqauy 2:2 Brighton
Tottenham 2:1 Peterborough
Wigan 0:0 Hull

Gary Megson:

Why was Megson sacked? The answer is because of the moaning of the Bolton fans who hated him for no good reason. He took over in 2007 and has done oksy as manager yet the fans hated him. The last straw was when he drew 2-2 with Hull after surrendering a 2-0 lead. The chairman was bullied into sacking him.

The new job could go to Alan Shearer, Darren Ferguson or Stoke No.2 Peter Reid. Darren Ferguson would be my appointment because of a unique prospect of Fergie vs Fergie in Prem matches.