Dream Team League - Season 3

[Redknapp69]

Super stuff Mark and really enjoyed the SB

Feel better about things after looking at the save

Not much in the West Ham 2nd leg game apart from we didn't hit target enough
Outplayed Dermo's Saints but Gabriel played havoc with my defence
Should have battered Stoke more than the 1 -0

[Cafcjgreen]

Great write up Mark!

Happy with that month, although 2 results went against me I'm happy with the performances

[trunky]

Unbeaten start even though we had a man sent off. Happy with that. Cheers Mark for the write up.

[Erkifino]

Great stuff Mark!
Happy enough with my start. Woulda taken the Utd draw before kick off! City looking scarey with Iniesta... Redders, wha are ya at?!

[Jesus]

What a cracking set of results to ease us in to the new season. Very happy with three clean sheets! Roll on month two.

[AJ]

I told you.

[Mark]

Absent Managers

With the season now firmly underway, fans of Everton and especially Liverpool were left confused by the absence of their respective managers - Fodster and EL-TOPPO. It made for a quiet start to the month due to the international break where only Silvio came back injured for Janis89.

The Premiership
Just a handful got the Premiership campaign back underway after the international break where Jesus suffered a shock 2-0 defeat at Cardiff. There was also bad news for ebfatz who was beaten at home with Lacina Traore scoring his first Southampton to earn a win for Dermotron. Ste117 will also be pleased to win away from home as Javier Hernandez and Steven Fletcher both struck in a 2-0 win at Leeds. Despite his absence, Liverpool also picked up a win for EL-TOPPO with Romelu Lukaku and Facundo Ferreyra scoring in another 2-0 away win at Stoke.

The other teams were also back in action on the Saturday as the weekend kicked off with a bang in a 5 goal thriller at The Liberty Stadium. Redknapp69 was delighted to see Juan Mata and a Thiago Silva own goal put him 2-0 up by half-time against Janis89. Fabio Coentrao pulled one back for Janis89 on the 72nd minute and Swansea self-imploded as Sergio Aguero equalised before Jordi Amat was sent off for the hosts. Mohammed Abdellaoue then popped up with a winner for Janis89! There was also a thriller at White Hart Lane where Klaas-Jan Huntelaar scored an early goal for ajvonkrondor against ebfatz but then lost Jan Vertonghen to a red card. Despite that, Ander Herrera and a second Huntelaar goal put Spurs 3-0 up before Alexander Milosevic pulled one back. ebfatz's misery was completed with a red card for Marco Motta in the dying minutes of the game. Elsewhere, Dermotron kept up an impressive start to the season with Marco Verratti, Mehmet Topuz and Mauricio Icardi handing Southampton a 3-0 lead before Cristian Rodriguez's debut goal turned out to be nothing more than a consolation goal for Cafcjgreen. Ste117 also looked set for victory after an early goal from Asier Illarremendi but Leicester surprisingly came back to win 2-1 thanks to 2 goals from a schoolboy. Mark and Fodster completed the day's programme with routine 1-0 wins with Ilsinho scoring for Everton and Jeremy Menez scoring for Newcastle who also had a missed penalty from Rodrigo Palacio.

Sunday also saw a rout for West Ham as BobMem's Summer signing Stefan Kiessling struck a hat-trick against Leeds. In addition, Alvaro Negredo added two goals of his own to record a 5-0 win! The bad news for trunky is that he lost 2-0 away from home with the good news going to Erkifino who saw Remy Cabella and Marko Marin strike to put Aston Villa 2nd.

Jesus suffered a shock defeat to Cardiff in midweek but his team made amends on Monday Night Football as Andres Iniesta once again ran the show in scoring twice against EL-TOPPO at the Etihad. A third goal was scored by Welliton which was actually his first goal in 5 starts.

Andres Iniesta has 8 goals in 9 games

After some European games, we were soon back in the Premiership where Sergio Aguero scored twice to reach five goals for the season to give Janis89 a lead against Fodster. Despite Nani hitting back for Everton, Mario Gomez then got two goals himself before Nigel de Jong's goal meant the game ended 4-2 to Janis89. Erkifino was immediately on the back foot at Leeds thanks to an 8th minute red card to Arturo Vidal but managed to draw 0-0 while Cafcjgreen was beaten for a third game on the trot thanks to Ander Herrera scoring the only goal of the game to give ajvonkrondor the three points. Jesus was given a scare by Stoke who went down to a Stevan Jovetic goal but equalised through Radoslav Kovac. However, a bullet header from Rolando saw Jesus pick up another three points to stay at the top of the table. The last game took place at Carrow Road where ebfatz lost for a fourth successive game as David Villa and Virgil van Dijk scored to give Redknapp69 a perfect response to the collapse against Man Utd.

Sunday's games threw up a surprise as Mark could only manage a draw at Cardiff. Mirko Vucinic gave Newcastle a deserved start but Walter's equaliser meant that Newcastle went home with a draw. Dermotron also continued a fine start to the season as Marek Hamsik put Southampton ahead but trunky's Hull fought back through Sergi Roberto and Ezequiel Lavezzi to win 2-1. The Chelsea fans are not happy with Ste117 for whom Asier Illarramendi had a day to forget. Ramires and Gonzalo Higuain gave Arsenal a 2-0 lead over Chelsea but Illarremendi pulled one back only to put one through the net at the other end to give their London rivals a 3-1 win. Alvaro Negredo reached 5 goals for the season as BobMem's West Ham won at Leicester. He scored after a brace from Stefan Kiessling with Leicester pulling one back through Carlos Vela but being beaten 3-1.

Monday Night Football saw Ipswich at Liverpool where despite a goal from Yeom Ki-Hun, they were beaten by goals from Alan Kasaev, Lukaku and Ferreyra with the latter now on 5 for the season.

There are four teams still unbeaten at this point and all of them remained unbeaten with BobMem beating Arsenal 3-1 (Cheryshev, Schwegler and Podolski), Erkifino defeating 10 men Ipswich 4-0 (Rodrigo x2, Lucas Moura and Kagawa) and ajvonkrondor hammering trunky 5-0 (Doria, Huntelaar, Rodriguez and Ibrahimovic x2). Mark also remained unbeaten but didn't win after a last equaliser from Pavel Mamaev earned EL-TOPPO a point. Ex-Geordie Marc Muniesa had scored first for Liverpool but Newcastle went ahead through Borja Valero and Menez before the late goal. Jesus recorded a fine 5-0 win at Ipswich (Iniesta, de Marcos, Rolando and Szalai) to stay top of the league and Janis89 looked more like his old self following a brace from Mario Gomez which earned a 2-0 win against Stoke. Last but not least, Dermotron bounced back from his first league defeat with a 3-1 win over Leeds (Icardi x2 and Hamsik).

Things were also looking better for Redknapp69 and Ste117 after Super Sunday where Chelsea won 1-0 over Cardiff as Milos Krasic's goal got a much needed win for Ste117. Redknapp69 also saw two goals from Juan Mata and one from Alexis Sanchez register a 3-0 win over Cafcjgreen who has gone four games without a point and has dropped down into 17th place.

Alexis Sanchez is finally off the mark after scoring his first goal for Redknapp69

After Monday Night though, it was ebfatz who dropped into his traditional 17th place with a 3-0 loss at Goodison Park. Nigel de Jong, Defoe and Michu scored the goals for Fodster to move up to 13th.

The final weekend of fixtures in September came after another round of European games in midweek. Having played on the Tuesday in the Champions League, Mark and Janis89 both travelled away and returned home with a point. For Newcastle, they earned a 1-1 draw at Man City where Jesus took the lead through Welliton before Yaya Toure's equaliser. For Man Utd, they went ahead twice at Norwich through Aguero and Gomez only for Rafael Toloi and Jonny Howson to equalise and earn ebfatz a rare point. Elsewhere, the losing run was ended at last for Cafcjgreen who went ahead through Aaron Lennon only for Jermain Defoe to equalise. But with seconds on the clock in the first half, Anders Lindegaard was sent off for Fodster which allowed Lennon to score from the spot before Shawn Parker wrapped up the 3-1 win. Two other managers also featured on Soccer Saturday but both suffered shock defeats away from home. Dermotron looked set to win after going 2-0 up through Sidney Sam and Traore but Leicester scored four times to win 4-2! Even more of a shock though was a defeat for ajvonkrondor at Leeds where Huntelaar missed a penalty before Leeds went ahead. Xherdan Shaqiri did equalise but they scored a winner in the 78th minute.

The rest of the Premiership had games to play on the Sunday where Erkifino went ahead at Arsenal through Kagawa but Ramires scored in the 90th minute to tie the game. After results went his way on Saturday, BobMem saw an opportunity to catch up with an away win at Cardiff but surprisingly lost 2-0. The first of two head to head clashes saw trunky go 1-0 up against Redknapp69 thanks to Sergi Roberto. But Swansea rallied to win 2-1 with goals from Alexis Sanchez and David Villa. The other head to head was EL-TOPPO against Ste117 and the latter lost 3-0 as his former squad got one over him for leaving them in season one of the Dream Team League. Andreas Cornelius, Kasaev and Lukaku scored the goals for the home team.

The Champions League
The group stages finally got underway in the Champions League and it was a tough debut for Mark at this level, travelling to Barcelona while Janis89 welcomed Milan to Manchester. Aguero struck again for Janis89 to start Man Utd off before Mario Gomez made it 2-0. However, the Italians fought back and ex-Hull striker Mariano Pavone pulled one back before ex-Swansea player Panagiotis Tachtsidis bagged an equaliser in a disappointing 2-2 result for Janis89. Mark had far better luck as Dante was given his marching orders after just 20 minutes and that led to Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Valbuena, Martin Caceres and Gotoku Sakai scoring each before Cesc Fabregas got the last goal of the game.

The following night also saw a frustrating draw for ajvonkrondor who played at Real Madrid. Patricio Julian Rodriguez got Spurs going but Neymar equalised in the second half. There was better news for Erkifino though who despite being away at Leverkusen, won 3-0 thanks to a hat trick from Lucas Moura!

Lucas Moura has finally scored his first goals of the season

Things improved the following week for ajvonkrondor as Tottenham won 2-0 at home to Viktoria Plzen. After Huntelaar had missed a penalty, the goals were found through Yohan Cabaye and Zlatan Ibrahimovic's 5th of the season. A win was also the order of the day for Erkifino with Lucas Moura continuing his European form with a brace and Arturo Vidal scored twice as well to help beat Marseille 4-0.

Mark also made it two wins from two after Valbuena and Menez scored in a 2-0 win over Red Bull Salzburg while Janis89 overcame a late scare from Ajax, winning 3-2 after actually going 3-0 up through two goals from Aguero and William Carvalho.

The last action of the month in the Champions League concluded with a fantastic 6-0 win for Erkifino at Zeljeznicar! Another hat trick for Lucas Moura means he now has 8 in 3 games in Europe while the other goals were scored by Marko Marin (2) and Rafa. ajvonkrondor's narrow win over CSKA (Samuel Eto'o) keeps him on course for qualification but he has dropped into 2nd place.

Janis89 also ends on a positive note with a 4-0 win against BATE at home, Gomez scoring twice again and Mikel Arteta and Pedro scoring the others to leave him top of his group. Mark also remains top of his group despite only drawing 0-0 at home to Porto.

The UEFA Cup
With Redknapp69 being knocked out in the Inter-Toto Cup and Arsenal and Derby competing as CPU teams for England in the competition, we only have the fortunes of BobMem and trunky to follow in the UEFA Cup. Both kicked off the first round with away trips as BobMem manages only a 0-0 draw in the Czech Republic against Jablonec whereas trunky gets a win in Poland as Ezequiel Lavezzi's goal is enough to beat Slask Wroclaw.

Ezequiel Lavezzi continues to be a key player for trunky's Hull City

Without an away goal, there was a worry for BobMem in the second leg but those fears were blown away with an easy 3-0 win at home thanks to two goals from Kelvin and Wason Renteria. Joining BobMem in the next round is trunky who completed the job with a 1-0 win thanks to Edin Dzeko.

The reward for trunky is a first leg game at home against Spartak Moscow while BobMem travels to Norway to face Molde in the Second Round.

The League Cup
Those not involved in Europe found themselves entered into the League Cup at the second stage. There was Cafcjgreen (Burnley), Jesus (Bury), Ste117 (Gillingham), all away from home while Fodster (Chesterfield) and EL-TOPPO (Preston) and ebfatz (Peterborough) and Dermotron (Accrington) landed home ties. It turned out to be a comfortable evening for most of our managers except for Cafcjgreen who went 2-0 down at Burnley before an own goal, Lewis Holtby and a brace from Fredy Montero capped a great 4-2 win while EL-TOPPO led 2-0 against Preston thanks to Romelu Lukaku's penalty and Facundo Ferreyra but then Preston levelled the game to go all the way to penalties where they were beaten 3-2. Finally, Ste117 needed just four minutes of extra time to go through after Javier Hernandez had initially put Chelsea up at Gillingham but they equalised to take the game into extra time where Steven Fletcher scored the golden goal. That meant that everyone went through to the next round after routine wins for Jesus (5:0 - Iniesta x2, Welliton x2 and Adam Szalai), Fodster (2:0 - Jermain Defoe and Gerard Deulofeu), ebfatz (3:1 - Tom Cleverley, Rafael Toloi and Gary Hooper) and Dermotron (5:0 - Gabriel x2 and Icardi x3).

Unbelievably, with the European teams now entering the Third Round, there are three games that feature managers coming up against each other in the League Cup. Dermotron will play at Janis89's ground, Mark travels to play against ebfatz while Erkifino welcomes BobMem. It's a good opportunity for the other managers to progress as ajvonkrondor plays Leicester, trunky plays Bournemouth, Jesus plays Middlesbrough, Cafcjgreen plays Sheff Wed, EL-TOPPO plays Barnsley, Fodster plays Arsenal, Redknapp69 plays QPR and Ste117 plays Leeds.

[BobMem]

Superb effort in the shout box and with the write up Mark. Over 2 hours!

Pleased with this month, although disappointed with the Cardiff result. 4 points behind the leader, with 2 games in hand; I'll take that at this early stage.

Can't believe Toppo is second without submitting a squad!

[Cafcjgreen]

Great effort in the SB and with the write up Mark!

I've got a lot of work to do before next months games!

[ebfatz]

Awful form from Norwich!
Truly awful!

But 17th is safe enough if the season were to end today.

[Erkifino]

Did not expect a write up like this after the work in the shout box. Great stuff mark!
Set conceding two goals from a school boy was my favourite bit!!
Obviously I woulda liked to kept the cleanie against arsenal and kept eleven players on versus Leeds but being unbeaten, game in hand four points off the top, I'm not doing too bad.
Iniesta is on fire... I think he, not Man City, will win the league.

[Erkifino]

Awful form from Norwich!
Truly awful!

But 17th is safe enough if the season were to end today.

awful form? Kinda apt considering the players ebzenezer!

[Redknapp69]

3 wins and a loss - will take that any month!

A change of luck was needed and that's what we ot

Imploded from 2-0 up against Janis's Man U to lose the game but since then we've picked ourselves up and gone on a decent run. Nicely positioned in 9th ready to continue the climb!

Superb effort in SB today and a great write up - very much like the sport website style writing with the photos with stats underneath as well

[ebfatz]

awful form? Kinda apt considering the players ebzenezer!

My players are top notch!

Maybe I should actually look at the save game once in a while and work out the CA/PA of my players, but that kinda takes the fun out of it for me

[AJ]

Losing to Leeds/ fucking horrible
being spot on about Man C/yeah baby

all hail King Mark of doing fun stuff in an amazing way!

[Jesus]

Three wins, a draw and a loss. We shouldn't be losing to Cardiff though, the only disappointing result of the month. Other teams slipped up though which makes up for it. Toppo is currently second with two strikes to his name, hope he doesn't get a third next week after such a bright start. Amazing effort with the write up too Mark, love a good read of this every Wednesday.

[Dermotron]

That hammering by CPU team keeping us from 2nd place Great start to the season

[BobMem]

Cardiff look decent. They were the better team against me.

[Topofthekop]

Been so busy with work and keep forgetting about this.. Work is so hectic right now, one of the other shift managers has gone on emergency leave (Up to a month) and means I get more hours to cover....

Whens the deadline? And Mark can you pm me let me know when my sub runs out or I wont know if I can still participate.

[Redknapp69]

Deadline is Wednesday lunchtime

Come on Toppo - takes 2 min to submit a team

[Mark]

The First Casualty

It should have been a fresh start for Liverpool Football Club after the appointment of EL-TOPPO as manager who endeavoured to add eight players to the squad as he made a start on reshaping the team at Anfield. However, it hasn't quite gone to plan since then as supporters were left mystified by the absence of EL-TOPPO for three months. Enough is enough, decided to the Dream Team League committee, a manager needs to be present as their team gets their fixtures completed. Three strikes and you're out is the general rule and unfortunately, EL-TOPPO has now been given his marching orders with his squad surprisingly left in fourth place in the Premiership.

3rd October
Crystal Palace 1:0 Aston Villa
Everton 0:1 Swansea
Hull 2:1 West Ham
Leicester 1:3 Newcastle
Man Utd 2:2 Tottenham

Patricio Julian Rodriguez and Ander Herrera looked to have given ajvonkrondor an easy win at Old Trafford only for Janis89's team to fight back through Mario Gomez and Fabio Coentrao. It's still enough for ajvonkrondor to move up to 2nd place though after a shock first defeat of the season for Erkifino against Cafcjgreen where Shawn Parker's goal proved to be a winning one. trunky also reminded everyone that he was around for a battle after subjecting BobMem to a defeat, taking a 2-0 lead through Ezequiel Lavezzi and Moussa Dembele before Denis Cheryshev scored a consolation goal for West Ham. With Mark at Leicester and Redknapp69 at Fodster's ground, both recorded away wins with David Villa scoring the only goal for Swansea while Olivier Giroud, Yaya Toure and Wendel scored at Leicester in a 3-1 win. That also means that Mark is now the only manager yet to taste defeat in the league.

13th October
Aston Villa 1:1 Man City
Chelsea 1:0 Newcastle
Crystal Palace 4:0 Stoke
Everton 1:0 Leicester
Man Utd 3:0 Leeds
Norwich 0:1 Hull
West Ham 3:0 Ipswich

All eyes were on Villa Park as Erkifino challenged top of the table Jesus and he took a lead through a surprise goalscorer in Demy de Zeeuw. However, Welliton's 77th minute equaliser earned a point and kept Jesus at the top. Elsewhere, Mark suffered his first defeat away at Chelsea where Javier Hernandez scored the only goal of the game for Ste117. One goal winners were also in order for Fodster with Gerard Deulofeu helping him to beat Leicester while Ezequiel Lavezzi struck for trunky to condemn ebfatz to a 6th defeat of the season. BobMem and Janis89 both win 3-0 at Ipswich and Leeds respectively with Alvaro Negredo scoring twice along with Arjen Robben for West Ham while Mario Gomez got two goals for Man Utd along with Ilkay Gundogan. The biggest result of the day goes to Cafcjgreen though with a 4-0 win against Stoke. Goals from Fredy Montero, James Tomkins, Shawn Parker and Fabio Borini extended Crystal Palace's winning run to three games.

14th October
Swansea 1:2 Arsenal
Tottenham 1:0 Cardiff

These were key games for ajvonkrondor and Redknapp69. The Tottenham boss knew that a win would put him just a point behind Jesus whereas Redknapp69 knew that a win and results going Swansea's way could potentially put his club into 2nd place. It was all looking so good at one point for the latter manager as David Villa's 5th goal of the season put him ahead against Arsenal but two goals from ex-West Ham striker Gonzalo Higuain condemned him to defeat. In the other game, Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrated a return from injury with a late winner against Cardiff.

15th October
Southampton 6:0 Liverpool

Dermotron continues to adapt very easily to Premiership life as EL-TOPPO's former squad are blown away at St. Mary's. Sidney Sam and Roberto Firmino get the ball rolling with Lacina Traore adding another. Gabriel, fresh from signing a new contract, then completes the rout with a fantastic hat trick that puts him on 10 goals in just 8 appearances for the season.

Gabriel strikes the iron after signing a new deal at Southampton

16th October
Porto 0:5 Newcastle
BATE 0:3 Man Utd

Fantastic results for both managers in the Champions League where Olivier Giroud struck a hat trick and Wendel got two goals himself to help Newcastle qualify from their group with two games to play. Janis89 has not yet qualified himself but he will be happy with the win thanks to goals from Younes Belhanda, Mario Gomez and Fabio Coentrao.

17th October
CSKA 1:0 Tottenham
Aston Villa 3:0 Zeljeznicar
Everton 2:4 Southampton

A very disappointing night for ajvonkrondor who finds his Champions League campaign under threat, the defeat leaving Tottenham second and three points behind Real Madrid. With two games left, he is only one point ahead of CSKA. Meanwhile, Erkifino witnesses two goals from Stijn Schaars and a goal from Rodrigo in a 3-0 win against Zeljeznicar and it means that he has already progressed into the next phase. On the same night, there is also a Premiership result where Fodster saw Gerard Deulofeu score twice but Dermotron's team defeat him 4-2 thanks to Lacina Traore, Sidney Sam and a brace from Mauro Icardi. The result puts Southampton into second place!

18th October
Hull 3:1 Spartak Moscow
Molde 0:2 West Ham

The UEFA Cup 2nd Round sees trunky and BobMem win in the first leg. BobMem will be pleased with his 2-0 win where Juan Ernesto Sosa opened the scoring before the returning Stefan Kiessling made it 2-0. Hulk, Antonio Nocerino and Jonas Gutierrez scored for trunky in Hull's win but he will be wary of the away goal scored by Spartak Moscow.

Stefan Kiessling has been missed at West Ham

20th October
Cardiff 2:2 Southampton
Ipswich 2:0 Chelsea
Leeds 2:2 Everton
Liverpool 1:1 Aston Villa
Stoke 0:2 Newcastle

A surprising afternoon in the Premiership with three draws the outcome of the five games. Southampton will be especially disappointed with a point having gone ahead at Cardiff through Marco Verratti and Lacina Traore's 5th of the season only for Cardiff to rally and claim a point. Likewise for Erkifino, Shinji Kagawa gave Astno Villa a lead but Liverpool equalised in the 81st minute. It's a better story for Fodster who fell behind 2-0 at Leeds before Jermain Defoe and the in-form Gerard Deulofeu (5th of the season) tied the game. Ste117 lost 2-0 at Ipswich which means that the only Dream Team League manager to win on this day was Mark who saw Olivier Giroud and Rodrigo Palacio beat Stoke 2-0. It's not all bad for Dermotron though who sees the point put Southampton top, possibly only for a day though.

21st October
Arsenal 0:1 Tottenham
Crystal Palace 1:2 Norwich
Hull 0:1 Man Utd
Man City 4:2 West Ham

Jesus makes sure that Dermotron doesn't stay at the top very long after a thriller at the Etihad Stadium. BobMem actually saw his team fight back twice through Alvaro Negredo after goals from Welliton and Jack Rodwell. But another Welliton goal and Steven Jovetic both in injury time puts Man City top of the league once again. Southampton actually drop to third place after ajvonkrondor recorded a derby win against Arsenal with Klaas-Jan Huntelaar's 5th of the game putting Tottenham into 2nd place. Janis89 also won against trunky with Mario Gomez once more on the scoresheet which moves Man Utd into 4th. Finally, it was also all happening at Selhurt Park where Cafcjgreen's recent run was ended by ebfatz who finally won after 7 games without a win. Shawn Parker had initially cancelled out Darren Fletcher's opener for Norwich but Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg won the game for them which was overshadowed by an incident between Lewis Holtby and Rafael Toloi which saw them both given red cards.

22nd October
Leicester 1:2 Swansea

It could have been a miserable night for Redknapp69 who fell behind and didn't look like he'd get a result until Alberto Moreno popped up with a goal in the 77th which was followed up by a winner from Kevin Volland five minutes later.

Kevin Volland scores the winner for Swansea City, his first of the season.

23rd October
Tottenham 2:0 Real Madrid
Aston Vila 0:1 Leverkusen

A win against Real Madrid was all that ajvonkrondor wanted and he got it with Samuel Eto'o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring in the first 10 minutes alone. That puts ajvonkrondor level with Real Madrid but Tottenham have now actually qualified thanks to Viktoria Plzen beating CSKA. Elsewhere, Erkifino loses to Leverkusen but has qualified anyway. Both managers will be wanting to guarantee top spot though in their next and final group match.

24th October
Newcastle 2:0 Barcelona
Milan 1:3 Man Utd

The attention is focused on the match in Italy where Janis89 knows that just a point will ensure qualification to the next stage. Man Utd actually fell behind but Koke and two goals from Mario Gomez (who now has 15 goals in 15 starts) put them through. Meanwhile, Mark sees goals from Mathieu Valbuena and Pato defeat Barcelona and declare Newcastle as winners of their group!

Pato was a star for Newcastle last season but has only just scored his first for this season

27th October
Chelsea 1:2 Man City
Everton 3:1 Hull
Man Utd 3:2 Crystal Palace
Newcastle 3:2 Ipswich
Norwich 3:1 Stoke
Swansea 4:1 Leeds
Tottenham 3:2 Leicester

Goals galore! At least three goals per game is the order of he day as every home game ends up a victory apart from Ste117 who loses to Jesus despite equalising through Javier Hernandez. Adam Szalai had scored for Man City and the winner came from an own goal by Nicolas Otamendi. trunky was given a huge task when Yann Sommer was sent off early on and soon found himself 3-0 down as Jermain Defoe, Michu and Gerard Deulofeu gave Fodster a 3-0 lead that was cut by one after a late goal from Jonas Gutierrez. Continuing to keep the pressure on Jesus are Tottenham who had Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Zlatan Ibrahimovc and a 90th minute winner from Doria to thank for a 3-2 win over Leicester while Janis89 also won to keep pushing at the top as Younes Belhanda, Sergio Aguero and Casemiro scored although he nearly threw it away as Lewis Holtby struck twice for Cafcjgreen but lost 3-2. Mark, Redknapp69 and ebfatz were all victors over managerless opposition as Mirko Vucinic (2) and Boja Valero won 3-2 for Newcasle against Ipswich, Juan Mata (2), Maxime Gonalons and David Villa helped Swansea to beat Leeds 4-1 and ebfatz picked up another win after beating Stoke 3-1 with goals from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Darren Fletcher and Luuk de Jong.

28th October
Aston Villa 2:0 Cardiff
Southampton 1:1 Arsenal

After drawing his last game against Cardiff and seeing both Janis89 and ajvonkrondor win, the last thing that Dermotron wanted to do was drop points against Arsenal but that's what Southampton did after taking a lead through Marco Verratti. There was better news for Erkifino though who saw Lucas Moura and a fit again Sami Khedira score to beat Cardiff and put Aston Villa 7th but only 6 points away from top spot.

29th October
West Ham 4:2 Liverpool

BobMem will certainly not be happy to lose to Man City in the last match and so he will be happy to be on the right side of a 4-2 scoreline this time against Liverpool who have dropped down the table to 9th after EL-TOPPO's departure. Liverpool actually took the lead but West Ham fought back with a stunning hat trick from Alvaro Negredo while Jose Ernesto Sosa added a goal of his own. It puts West Ham into 5th place with the league table looking extremely tight now.

31st October
Crystal Palace 4:2 Sheff Wed
Leeds 0:3 Chelsea
Man City 3:1 Middlesbrough
Man Utd 5:1 Southampton
Norwich 2:2 Newcastle (Norwich win 5-4 on penalties)
Swansea 3:0 QPR
Tottenham 3:1 Leicester

Mark and Dermotron become the first to be knocked out of the League Cup after being beaten in the Third Round. The game between Mark and ebfatz actually ended 1-1 with Marco Motta scoring for Norwich and Jeremain Lens equalling to go to extra time. There, Yaya Toure scored to put Newcastle in pole position to progress only for Motta to score again to force the game into extra-time. It was an exquisite show of penalty taking with only Wednel missing for Newcastle as Norwich go through. Dermotron's Southampton were given a rude welcome at Old Trafford where Mario Gomez, Francois Affolter and Ilkay Gundogan scored before a response was found by Gabriel. But then Alvaro Dominguez was sent off and Janis89 went through courtesy of another goal from Gundogan and the 5th scored by Mohammed Abdellaoue. The easiest wins went to Ste117 (Fabian Delph x2 and Javier Hernandez) and Redknapp69 (David Villa, James Milner and Kevin Volland) scoring to knock out QPR and Leeds respectively while Jesus (Adam Szalai and Andres Iniesta x2) and ajvonkrondor (Ander Herrera, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar) both went through with 3-1 scorelines. Last but not least, Cafcjgreen was left chuffed to bits to see Aaron Lennon, James Tomkins, Ricardo Osorio and Lewis Holtby put Crystal Palace 4-0 up after just 32 minutes but was then left tearing his hair out with a red card for Marco Amelia leading to Sheffield Wednesday scoring twice. Fortunately, his players did enough to win and go through to the Third Round!

Note: trunky, BobMem, Erkifino and Fodster play their Third Round games in November.

[Dermotron]

"9m on Gabriel is crazy money"

[Cafcjgreen]

Good month for me! Happy with that.

[ebfatz]

Two important league wins and unexpected progression in the Cup.

I'll take that!

[BobMem]

Hmm, mixed month for West Ham. Lost to trunky and Jesus, but beat my poor Tractor boys and a Liverpool team playing default. I've yet to beat one of the other managers in the league this season!
Pleased with UEFA cup result though!

Great write-up Mark, looks professional with the images with captions. It's like I'm reading BBC Sport