A Little Bit Of History Changing

Great to qualify and top of the group mate, looking great in england to date too

Thanks. No league defeat since August remains an awesome run, even if I would like to be a bit further ahead. Though the fact we're in a Premier League title chase as it is is mad enough.

Tim Krul made a number of good saves as Newcastle kept their unbeaten record with a draw at Aston Villa.

The clash between the two surprise members of the early race for the Barclays Premier League title ended up all square, with Moussa Dembele's opening goal cancelled out by Nathan Delfouneso. It means that both sides continue their places in the Premier League top four, but both lose ground in their attempts to show they could win the Premier League.

Villa had entered matchday knowing they could have taken a double scalp from this encounter, with a win enough to leap over the visitors, and providing Manchester City also failed to win, it would have enough for them to to take top spot in the table.

But Newcastle have been in fine form, with the team without a Premier League defeat since August, and beating them has been a significantly harder task than many had been anticipating.

Nevertheless, Villa were given a very good early chance, with Alessandro Rosina's swerving free-kick acrobatically tipped away from target by Krul.

Newcastle's Dutch keeper then made another stop to deny Stephen Lichtsteiner as Villa looked likelier to grab the opening goal in the game's early stages, but despite that, it was Newcastle with the game's opening goal from their first attack.

Villa were caught out by an impressive break on the counter. A corner was cleared to Villa shirts, and they had patiently tried to work the ball back into the box. But an errant pass by Curtis Davies was intercepted by Dembele, who duly ran and ran and ran all the way to the goal.

This surprise development was against the run of play, and Villa duly set about trying to get the goal their early running perhaps deserved. But their shooting was awry, with Delfouneso firing over after he met Rosina's cross, before Krul had to make quickfire saves to deny first Stiliyan Petrov and then Delfouneso.

This profligacy was almost punished, with Joey Barton receiving Hatem Ben Arfa's pass back before slamming a powerful drive that was excellently beaten away by Ben Foster.

Ashley Young then ruffled the side netting as Villa resumed their greater likelihood in creating chances, and they came close again when a low fizzing drive by Rosina was fantastically stopped by Krul.

Newcatle almost made Villa pay again in first half injury time, with a free-kick taken by Jan Vertonghen, and only a smart stop by Foster denied the Belgian from doubling his team's advantage.

Ben Arfa then saw a drive land wide of the mark as Newcastle begun to try and accumulate a little bit of domination in the final moments of the opening 45.

The French attacking midfielder was also very close with the first opportunity of the second half, with Ben Arfa seeing a cracking, venomous drive rattle the post with Foster left standing.

Villa's first chance of the half was almost their way back into the encounter, only for Krul to pull off a very nice save to deny Roque Santa Cruz.

But the home side didn't have to wait too long after that for their way back to parity on the scoresheet. Former Villain James Milner's half-clearance was intercepted by Fabian Delph, who advanced and then played in Delfouneso. From there, the Villa striker hit the afterburners, with the striker running and running all the way to the penalty box, slaloming around Newcastle defenders before placing a shot into the bottom corner.

It was a superb individual goal from the Villa number 9, and the home fans were toasting the pacy work of their new local hero.

Krul then denied Rosina as Villa came close to a second a few minutes later, before Ben Arfa wasted a chance to restore Newcastle's advantage when he hammered a drive into the stands above the goal.

Foster then denied Dembele as Newcastle tried in vain to take the advantage back from the home side.

Curtis Davies was then presented a chance to get three points for the home side, but his header did not stay below the crossbar. A similar lack of accuracy then befell Young, who danced around Danny Simpson but couldn't find the target when clean through on goal, before Santa Cruz also fired wide.

Dembele was then presented a chance to nab a late winner for the Magpies, but when clean through, he couldn't place his drive beyond the gloves of Foster.

Young then almost won the game for Villa in the 92nd minute, but the winger's diving header was straight at Krul, and the game finished all square.

In the end, both sides will perhaps view this game as a missed opportunity, with Villa unable to make the most of their numerous chances, and Newcastle unable to retain the advantage they had gained by scoring first. It means both teams will have to wait and try again to prove they can end the season as Premier League champions, or at least within the top four.

Aston Villa: Foster - Lichtsteiner, Dunne (Collins 78), Davies, Warnock (Bouma 83) - Rosina, Delph, Petrov, Ashley Young (Bannan 90) - Santa Cruz, Delfouneso
Subs not used: Loach, Stoch, Mehmet, McNeil
Booked: Lichtsteiner, Dunne, Petrov

Scorer: Delfouneso (53)

Newcastle: Krul - Simpson, Vertonghen, Bassong, Jose Enrique - Barton (Donaldson 65), Schaars - Milner, Ben Arfa (Ameobi 87), Holtby (Obertan 80) - Dembele
Subs not used: Begovic, Edgar, Bender, Suarez
Booked: Jose Enrique Barton, Schaars

Scorer: Dembele (17)

Referee: Steve Tanner
Attendance: 40,153

I'd written up a report on the next game, but my internet crashed just as it was published, and I lost the report.

As I cba with re-typing, I will just tell you the basics - it finished Chelsea 0-0 Newcastle. First half was terrible, with only 4 chances in the whole half - Chelsea put 3 off target. Second half was better but neither side came close to finding the goal. My full-back David Edgar was sent off on 91 minutes, but nothing still happened, and the game ended 0-0.

Moussa Dembele and Luis Suarez proved the difference as Newcastle overcame injuries to see off neighbours Sunderland.

The Newcastle strikers scored a goal in each half as the Magpies continued to give chase of Manchester City in the race for the Barclays Premier League title. But it wasn't plain sailing for the Magpies, with Hatem Ben Arfa and Lars Bender both suffering injuries that ended their contests early.

Despite the damages, Newcastle fans will still be delighted at registering victory over the hated rivals, and continuing a sequence where they have lost just two of the last 18 clashes between these two clubs.

Newcastle had certainly entered the contest as pre-match favourites. The Magpies' long unbeaten run and attempts at wresting their first league title since 1927 have seen them become one of the season's surprise packages, and they were confident of continuing it with another victory here.

The early tempo however was lacking, with niggly injuries and bookings overtaking any real chance creation. Both sides had the odd moment of attacking their opponent's goals, but didn't look breaking on through to the scoresheet.

The first real chance of any merit took 20 minutes in creation, but Newcastle made the most of it. A ball out wide by Ben Arfa picked out Jose Enrique, who swept down the left hand flank of the pitch before releasing Dembele. The Belgian striker evaded his markers, eyed up the target, and found the bottom corner.

A crisp finish from Dembele, as he continues his fine form in his second season at St. James' Park, and gave his team the advantage.

Newcastle almost got a second goal within seconds, with the ball landing for Ben Arfa, only for the French attacking midfielder walloped his effort over the top of the goal.

Sunderland's first chance came moments later and did find the back of the net, when Fraizer Campbell rose highest to turn home a cross. But much to the visitor's anger, the goal was chalked off after the Black Cats' top scorer was ruled offside - a decision TV replays later showed to be narrowly correct.

Newcastle almost rubbed salt into the wounds, but Craig Gordon was equal to Joey Barton's fairly tame long ranger.

Andy Reid then hit the side netting with a tame effort of his own in a game that was beginning to liven up after the tepid opening stages.

But Newcastle's momentum took a blow when they lost a key player, with Ben Arfa taken off after a robust tackle from Lee Cattermole. The Magpies later confirmed he will be out for three weeks with a twisted ankle, which is better than the broken leg he suffered in January, but still a blow for the club.

Sunderland felt they should have been awarded a penalty in first half stoppage time when Lars Bender challenged Darren Bent, but despite Reid leading vociferous protestations, the referee awarded a corner, which Sunderland duly wasted.

The visitors made two changes at half-time and performed some decent early running, but it was Newcastle with the first concrete opportunity of the second half, with Newcastle sub Suarez going on a blistering run before hitting a powerful drive that Gordon did extremely well to deny.

Newcastle then removed Bender from the field with an injury, although the team later confirmed he will be back before the end of 2012, but their momentum was not harmed as they netted a second strike.

Substitute Stijn Schaars received a pass up from the back and laid it off for Barton, who sprayed an accurate ball towards Suarez. The Uruguayan motored away from the visitor's defence before calmly slotting home.

A very nice goal from the Uruguayan, who will now be hoping this can start some goalscoring form that has proven to be elusive in the first part of the campaign.

Sunderland's best chance of the entire game fell on 71 minutes, as a long range bolt from Bent was acrobatically tipped into the crowd by the previously untroubled Tim Krul.

Cattermole and Schaars then blasted free-kicks over at each end, before Suarez saw a long range bolt just skim the top of the crossbar on its way into touch.

Suarez then curled another one other within minutes, as Newcastle probed for number three.

Within quick succession, Jan Vertonghen and substitute Shola Ameobi were presented opportunities to do so, but neither could make them count.

Gordon then made a bold stop to deny Suarez with 92 minutes on the clock, before the Scottish goalkeeper made an equally impressive save to deny Dembele.

But in the end, Newcastle had their win, and they will be pleased to both get back to winning ways after consecutive draws, and to get a deserved victory over their neighbours. The club will now hope this will kick off a run of wins over Christmas period to get them back near the top.

This was a disappointing day for Sunderland, who despite claims of a penalty and a wrong offside, struggled to show desire for the three points, and they slink back down south with nothing.

Newcastle: Krul - Billy Jones, Vertonghen, Bassong, Jose Enrique - Barton, Bender (Schaars 60) - Milner, Ben Arfa (Suarez 45), Holtby (Ameobi 77) - Dembele
Subs not used: Begovic, Ariaudo, Obertan, Donaldson
Booked: Jose Enrique

Scorer: Dembele (20), Suarez (64)

Sunderland: Gordon - Sememberas, Situ (Turner 45), Berntzen, McCartney (N'Daw 51) - Malbranque, Cana, Cattermole, Reid (Armero 45) - Bent, Campbell
Subs not used: Waterman, Fritz, Dubarbier, Kenwyne Jones
Booked: Berntzen, Cana, Cattermole

Referee: Andre Marriner
Attendance: 56,387

Lewis Holtby's late winning goal helped Newcastle come from behind to defeat relegation threatened Hull.

The struggling Tigers had taken the lead against their high-flying guests through Matt Jarvis' goal inside the opening four minutes.

But Hull's hopes of upsetting the form book were undone when Luis Suarez equalised just after half-time, before Holtby's strike in the final minutes got Newcastle the three points on Humberside.

Defeat was harsh on the hosts, but ultimately, Newcastle had the bigger resources about them to claim victory in this tight affair, and with it, they return to keeping up the chase on champions Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.

The Magpies had arrived after the trip down the Eastern coast of England with a spring in their step after their Tyne-Wear Derby win, and eyeing up victory. Hull haven't won a game since beating Wolves on September 22nd, and have suffered a number of thrashings in that period - including a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal in their last game.

Despite the evidence not being in their favour, Hull nevertheless begun brightly, and had the lead inside four minutes. A poor pass out wide by Stijn Schaars was picked off by Bernard Mendy, who duly motored down the right hand flank for the Tigers. His cross was missed by visiting full-back Billy Jones, but not by Jarvis, who controlled the ball before finishing beyond Tim Krul.

It was a crisp finish by the winger, who was toasting his nice finish as the Tigers had the advantage in this encounter.

Newcastle did not look like getting back into proceedings early on, and struggled to create much. Their first chance took 17 minutes to formulate, although when it fell, it was a good opportunity, with Boaz Myhill making a fine stop to deny Joey Barton's strike from distance.

Moussa Dembele and James Milner were then unable to direct efforts onto the target, before Newcastle's injury problems claimed another victim, as Dembele left the field injured.

Like his teammate Hatem Ben Arfa had done in Newcastle's previous game, the Belgian striker twisted his ankle following a collision, and will face three weeks out.

Ze'ev Haimovich almost made things worse for the visitors, but the Hull defender could only direct his header over the goal.

Tim Krul was then called upon to keep Newcastle in the contest, with the Dutch goalkeeper denying a sweeping free-kick from his compatriot Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink.

The value of that save was almost shown from Newcastle's first attack of the second half, but Suarez couldn't keep his strike down after Holtby's pass had set him away.

The Uruguayan didn't have to wait long for another opportunity. A throw-in was flicked on by Barton to Schaars, who advanced before deploying a cross. The presumed target was Gabriel Obertan, but Suarez reached it first and tucked the ball into the bottom corner.

Suarez's third goal of the league season, and his second in as many games, as the striker looks to win back a first team place after spending the first stages of the season out of the first 11.

Newcastle almost got a second goal minutes later, but after jumping high to win the header, Obertan could only find the away allocation.

Vennegoor of Hesselink was close to finding Hull a second goal of their own, but he was well wide of the mark with his striker after he had done so well initially to create space.

Equally wayward was Mendy, and with substitutes, bookings and niggly fouls becoming the order of the day, it looked as if the game might slip towards a stalemate conclusion.

Then, with eight minutes of the encounter remaining, it was the visitors who found the game's third goal.

A poor clearance by Brian Easton was intercepted by Obertan, who advanced and sent in a cross. The delivery was half-cleared back to the right hand side, and Billy Jones' delivery was perfectly poised for Holtby, who glanced a header into the top corner.

A first goal since August for the German, who had been a big money signing in the summer from Schalke, and will be hopeful of netting more goals in the Premier League now he has ended his duck.

Hull struggled to create but created a superb chance with 92 minutes of the clock, when Lateef Elford-Alliyu evaded Newcastle defenders and hit a powerful drive that Krul did superbly well to keep out of his goal.

The young substitute was Hull's busiest player in their desperate scramble to rescue a share of the points, but his second attempt was also denied by Krul, and a third attempt flew wide of the mark.

Hull had no more responses in them, and they sunk to yet another Premier League defeat. The Tigers are facing up to a disappointing campaign in the Premier League, and look set to continue their status as a yo-yo club unless they rectify their problems quickly.

Newcastle will be pleased. They failed to convince for vast swathes of this encounter, but despite largely playing ugly, they added another win to their extensive run of victories, and the Magpies will take another win as they continue to attempt to fight their way into contention for the top spot of the Premier League table.

Hull: Myhill - Shannon (Cleverley 53), Haimovich, Zayatte, Easton - Mendy, Marney, Doyle, Jarvis (McShane 62) - Vennegoor of Hesselink (Elford-Alliyu 67), Fagas
Subs not used: Heimann, Riga, Jenner, Etherington
Booked: Doyle

Scorer: Jarvis (4)

Newcastle: Krul - Billy Jones, Vertonghen, Bassong, Jose Enrique - Barton (Simpson 89), Schaars - Obertan, Suarez, Milner (Donaldson 73) - Dembele (Holtby 33)
Subs not used: Begovic, Edgar, Smith, Ameobi
Booked: Schaars

Scorer: Suarez (52), Holtby (84)

Referee: Howard Webb
Attendance: 20,123

Good to see suarez beginning to find his feet a little! still toe to toe with City!

At long last. Annoying thing is he played better when he was homesick last season than he has done after I gave him a month's leave during pre-season, although that might probably be why he took long to get going.

My goal was qualifying for the Champions League again. I didn't anticipate we'd be in the title running even at this point of the season, and I'm looking forward to trying to keep up a title chase, no matter how weird it seems to be for me to say this given how shit I have been at this in FM down the years.

Forgot I still had this going. Its been a busy 2 weeks.

I'll re-start updates in a day or two. But I'll note down one nothing game. We finished 2012 with a 0-0 draw at home to West Ham United, which was frustrating as a win would've seen us end the calendar year as the Premier League leaders after Manchester City also failed to win.

I recently re-started playing and... well, I'm not sure how, but this happened


I made the FA Cup Final as well.

Been playing along and already began the 2013-14 season, so round-up time.

First, the BPL:

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One point off top spot in the end, even after we lead the table for a bit on the final day. If only we hadn't conceded a 90th minute equaliser to Bolton, for example. But still, 2nd place four years after the divergence from history... will take that.

My goal was top four all along to make sure we kept ourselves on the Champions League gravy train. After a 1-0 defeat by Spurs seven games before the end of the season, I thought "We're gonna need a miracle". Then we won all of our last five games. Not bad given they consisted of Chelsea, Liverpool, Sunderland, Man City and Aston Villa.

The win over City was perhaps the crucial one. Win for City would've won them the title there and then, and left us behind Villa on the final day ahead of the big showdown for a top four spot. But after Rasmus Elm scored twice in our 2-1 triumph, we started the finale 2nd. Then at various points on the final day I was checking and found that, improbably, we were actually leading the table. What a shame Robinho got a 70th minute winner at Wolves to give City a comeback win, and with it, back-to-back titles, but what else can ya do.

Champions League

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Well, we gave a better go of it than I was anticipating, and would have had a goal or two were it not for some great saves by Valdes. But a front three of Messi, Ibrahimovic and Ribery was essentially unstoppable, and given Iniesta put us behind inside 100 seconds, it was gonna be long. Still, the fact we even made the Champions League Final was mad enough.

For stats fans, we got out of a tough group with Juventus, Porto and Twente, as previously noted. After that, we beat Panathanikos in the 1st knockout round 3-1 on aggregate (1-1 in Greece, 2-0 on Tyneside). That put us through to face Fiorentina, who I thought would triumph. So a 5-2 win on aggregate (3-1 at home, 2-1 in Italy) was better than expected. The second leg was kinda helped by La Viola having a player sent off inside nine minutes.

So, this put us (rather unbelievably) into the semi-finals, but I thought, "Surely Bayern Munich is a step too far". And it seemed that way when Esteban Granero gave them the win in the first leg. But a 4-3 aggregate win (2-1 defeat in Germany, 3-1 win at ours) sent us into the top showcase of European football, with Lewis Holtby nabbing a hat trick to send us to Madrid to face Barcelona. Shame we couldn't add to the list of miracles with another, but still very good to even make the final in the first place.

And lastly, the FA Cup...

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We did it! We won a fucking trophy!

Not a bad way to get it either. All seemed lost when Jose Enrique limped off at the end of a game where we second bet, but a 50 yard pass from Danny Simpson to a possibly offside Ryan Donaldson lead to the winner in the very last minute of the game. And sure enough, we have triumphed in the FA Cup.

Quite in-keeping with our progress to the damn finale. 1-0 v Portsmouth in Round Three, 1-0 v Plymouth in Round Four, 2-1 v Watford in Round Five, 1-0 v Bolton in the Quarter Finals, 1-0 over Aston Villa in the semis, and lastly, a single goal win in the final.

So, 2nd in the BPL and Champions League, and FA Cup winners. Not bad for a team predicted to finish 6th in the pre-season prediction cavalcade.

In terms of the ins and outs, January was a quiet month, with my budget being spent on the monthly payments that helped to pay for Holtby and Ben Arfa. We did have one out, with Billy Jones joining Aston Villa for £4.5m. More busy were pre-contracts. Mid-way through, I noticed Andre-Pierre Gignac and Stephane M'Bia - two players highly recommended by my scouts - were expiring, so nabbed them on freebies, while David Edgar decided he had enough of being third fiddle to Bassong and Vertonghen, and agreed a Bosman transfer to Bayern Leverkusen. Ironically, with one or the other missing most of the rest of the campaign, he became my (highly rated) first choice, so what can you do.

Not sure what to get next in the summer. Will try for a few talented youths after neglecting that for a while, and a new right-back, but aside from that, who knows.

In any case, onto the next adventure. With any luck there's my first ever FM Premier League title in it.