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Cercle Brugge 1 La Louviere 3

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 At the weekend, we had a bumper weekend in Brussels and Brugge. Apart from beer and culture there was also the chance to see a relegation scrap between Cercle and La Louviere. It offered a trip to the Jan Breydel Stadium, which they share with Club Brugge and is much maligned by visiting fans in European competition. It was apparently renovated last in 2016, but it looks like it was longer ago than that. Anyway, fun was still to be had and going to see a game in a new place is always a good experience. Cercle are the second team in Brugge but have had their moments. They have won the Belgian league 3 times - albeit the last time being in 1930. They have also won the cup twice, the last time in 1985. As recently as last season , they reached the Round of 16 in the Conference League, but avoided relegation by the skin of their teeth. After this result, they will be playing in the relegation round again and hoping to stay up somehow. Similarly La Louviere are also close to the relega...
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King's Lynn Town 1 Marine 0

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 King's Lynn took to the pitch at the Walks on Saturday with their 3rd 'permanent' manager with Paul Caddis taking over from Ian Culverhouse who was relieved of his duties after a disappointing run of results that saw the Linnets drifting towards the relegation zone. Hopefully, it wasn't just new manager bounce that saw the Linnets get the win. The game started off with neither side creating much but with King's Lynn with the lion's share of the chances. In the opening exchanges Terry Bondo and Ross Crane had a couple of good chances that they weren't quite able to convert and Marine had a single chance that fizzed over the bar. As the half drew to a close Ross Crane had another chance and Jayden Davis came close to giving Lynn the lead, but Barnsley in the Marine goal pulled off a couple of good saves.  The second half started in the same way that the first half had finished with the Linnets in the ascendancy. On 50 minutes they finally broke the deadlock w...
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Cambridge United 1 MK Dons 1

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 At the start of the day, Cambridge were in 2nd and Mk were in 3rd. A win for MK would have seen them leapfrog Cambridge and a win for Cambridge would have seen them go top - at least until Bromley played earlier in the day. Both teams would have probably been happy with a draw before kick off. However, the manner in which the points were shared was disappointing for Cambridge and a cause for celebration for the visiting Dons. The first half was as to be expected a fairly cagey affair with both teams looking more afraid of conceding rather than scoring. The majority of the chances fell to Cambridge, but chance of the half fell to ex-U Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, who missed a gilt-edge chance to put the Dons ahead. The second half saw Cambridge start to dominate more and the attacking substitutions showed intent as the best attack in the division attempted to break down the best defence. The deadlock was finally broken after both Kakai and Brophy had come close to giving the Us the lead...
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Aston Villa 1 Leeds United 1

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 A couple of months ago this would probably have been considered an easy win for Villa, but since then Leeds have improved and Villa after suffering injuries to the midfield 3 of McGinn, Kamara and Tielemans have suffered some poor results including 3 home defeats at the usually impenetrable Villa Park. Villa are still in third but Leeds after a poor start to the season have really started to improve. The first half was a bit of  a battle in the middle of the park with both sides lacking a cutting edge, although Leeds' forward Dominic Calvert-Lewin seemed to have more about him than Watkins when chances were created. It was Leeds who opened the scoring when Watkins fouled a Leeds player and  Anton Stach fired home to put the visitors in the lead. It was a great free kick, but there need to be some questions asked about Martinez's positioning for it and what Watkins was doing back there giving a gree kick away in that position. The second half saw an onslaught from Aston V...
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Cambridge Unites 3 Bristol Rovers 1

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 After a disappointing result against Harrogate last week, the Us looked to get back to winning ways when Bristol Rovers visited on Saturday. It was the first day of the year that it hadn't rained here and we actually saw some sunshine too. The game started off in a scrappy manner and it was The Gas who created the first chance in the first minute, when Cambridge goalkeeper Jake Eastwood foiled an attempt from Fabrizio Cavegn. It was then pretty much end to end stuff despite the whistle happy referee doing his best to break up the play. When Cambridge broke through on 34 minutes with Ben Knight finishing off a move started by Sullay Kaikai, you felt that they would be able to turn the screw a bit and add to their advantage. Indeed Kaikai should have made it 2-0 a few minutes later only to see his shot go wide.  The referee had other ideas and with the last play of the half awarded a penalty to Joe Quigley, who fell over in the box after a long throw and 'won' the penalty. H...
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Norwich City 2 Blackburn Rovers 0

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 This turned out to be a fairly entertaining game, but mainly due to the second half rather than the very scrappy first half.  Recently  Blackburn have been edging closer to the relegation zone and Norwich have picked up some form to escape from it. The result today saw the Canaries climb further away from it and Rovers  confounded to the relegation places. Both sides cancelled each other out in the first half with the best chance falling to Norwich when Hayden Carter came to the rescue for Rovers, heading the ball off the line and over after Ali Ahmed had set up Jacob Wright. In general, the Canaries had a lot more of the ball than Rovers but neither team made much use of it. Ex-Norwich player, Todd Cantwell tried to make some things happen for Rovers, but much to the joy of the home fans he was tackled every time he got the ball. The only chance that they created at all in the half was when Sondre Tronstad skied the ball over.  The second half saw Norwich come...
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King's Lynn Town 0 Alfreton Town 2

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 Well, things are looking to be going from bad to worse at the Walks where King's Lynn went down to bottom team on Saturday.  After starting the season with some exciting striker options, King's Lynn are now short up front and lacked anything resembling clinical up front. The first half saw very few chances for either side with a chance for the home side on 11 minutes from Adam Marriot being a rare opportunity. The first shot was saved and then the second was cleared off the line. King's Lynn did most of the attacking in the half, but the only other real chance fell to Alfreton on the 34th minute.  The second half started off in controversy when Adam Marriot back heeled the ball into the goal to give King's Lynn the lead. However, the linesman said the ball hadn't gone over the line. It definitely had. This was also the turning point in the game as Lynn seemed to go to pieces and Alfreton grew in confidence. The visitor's biggest threat seemed to come from set p...
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