A Game of Two Halves

The end of the most exciting Premiership season in years was a bit of an anti-climax really as it was pretty much as you were. Man Utd duly beat Wigan to collect back-to-back titles, Everton beat Newcastle to secure a deserved UEFA Cup spot and Fulham s 1-0 win over preoccupied Pompey meant that 4 goals for each of Birmingham and Reading meant nothing. We look over the final weekend s results, including Boro s schallacking of Man City and look back over the season as a whole. Then we look forwards, so to speak, to this weekend s FA Cup final and then the Champions League final. Your last chance for a dose of AGOTH before the off-season! Download mp3

Well, here we are: the last weekend of the English Premier League season and there s still a title up for grabs and relegation to be settled. We ponder the battles that count and ask whether Steve Bruce wants to send the Premiership down south; whether Reading represents Derby s best chance to double their win tally; and whether Portsmouth are already heading up the M27 en route to Wembley and next week s FA Cup final. We ll also lend a little support to Kevin Keegan - we agree with the sentiments of his greatest but boring comments and maybe salvation can only be achieved by Uncle Sepp and his foreign player restrictions. And the silly season has already started with much transfer talk from coaches to centre-halves although, of course, for the Blue half of Manchester the silliness started a couple of weeks ago. Download mp3

Bit late this week but what a week it s been. Full of passion, emotion and excitement and some of it even during a game. No clearing of the Premier League s muddy bits, in fact Chelsea s win putting them level on points with the defending champs only helped to make a little dirtier; Everton and Aston Villa maintained their status quo with a draw and it s even tighter at the bottom with Fulham staring down relegation. There was history made in the Champions League as two English clubs made it through and Rangers also made it through to the UEFA Cup - so no Italian or Spanish representation in either of Europe s premier cup comps. And just to top it off, we had the commotion at Stamford Bridge after the game and the ludicrous news that Sven will be getting the chop as manager at City. Draw breath now, cos it s almost the weekend again . Download mp3

As we enter the home straight for this season there s still a few things that need sorting. Apart from the Premiership itself, Utd s draw with Blackburn giving Chelsea renewed hope, there s the sole UEFA Cup spot for the 5th placed team and definitely one relegation spot. And as luck would have it, there s a couple of games that might just sort out at least two of these conundrums, with Man Utd visiting Chelsea in the early game on Saturday and Aston Villa tripping to Goodison Park in the late game on Sunday. We cast an eye over these last remaining battles, looking at what happened last weekend and what lies in store for the remainder of the season and ponder the imponderables such as does anyone at Reading actually want to stay in the Premiership? We also look over the week s news, real, not-so-real, and pure fanatasy and wonder whether any of the likely promoted clubs will have what it takes to be competitive in the world s best football league. Download mp3

Well, Chris is back and despite his best intentions the show is still long. But it is scripted. We ponder whether the Premiership is all over at the top bar the shouting and even whether any movement is likely at the bottom. In the news we look at the latest instalment of the Liverpool soapie and whether Rafa will stay and in a spate of goodwill we come to the defence of fellow managers Sven and Avram. But not Capello. Oh no, not Fabio. There s Champs League previews, a preview of this week s fixtures (just how come Chelsea get 2 more days to recover than Liverpool?) and a peek over the fence at the Championship table although who s coming up is, at this stage, anyone s guess. Download mp3

Well, in a rather fitting end to his loan spell - Andrew Caple has successfully managed to get us to the magical 40 shows threshold to avoid the drop. Actually, the drop could be applied to the temperature in England this past week-end. Thankfully the football continues to turn up the heat where the fires of title success and league survival see the top and the bottom clubs jostle for final positions. We cast an eye and a word or three over next month s FA Cup final - the most romantic in years we reckon - and make our predictions on who will prevail in the upcoming semi s of the Champions League. Next week - the return of Chris, quality scripting and of course, opinion over fact by the (snow) shovel full. (Late note: Apologies for tardiness this week - the show was published but, in the wrong category!) Download mp3

A meandering river of a show this week covering the usual landscape of topics as we look over last week s games, Champions League updates and of course cast an eye to this week-ends fixtures and welcome the removal of Daylights Saving and getting a little bit of Prem sunshine an hour earlier. Small mercies in a 50% more for free show! Download mp3.

The Prem is definitely hotting up with only 7 games left so you d think that would inspire the world of football to talk about other things than Beckham and his 100th cap. Sadly, bottom-feeding is our game so we mull over that, Cap n Ferdy (what a joke) and of course review and preview all the games gone and upcoming. Download mp3

Fear not, the script writer walkout afflicting Hollywood recently might have blighted AGOTH for the next four weeks (have a great holiday Chris) but, there s (seemingly) plenty to talk about regardless. Late and long this show can ill afford a lengthy introduction so rug up/put your sun-cream on and snuggle down this Easter for this week s agoth! Download mp3

Well, the 100th show is up but no royal recognition as yet - maybe Liz hasn t got to her iPod yet. We may be centenarians (thanks spellcheck) but there s no slowing down after a week that had more matches than you could poke a stick at. FA Cup, Champs League, UEFA Cup, there was even room for 9 Premier League matches. And whilst the FA Cup results probably mean that Fergie will be inducted into the Whingers Hall of Fame, it almost certainly means no UEFA Cup for 6th place - unless Cardiff win the FA Cup. A blow to the likes of Villa. So we ve a bit of a mega roundup, before we mull over Uncle Sepp s latest rantings, this time about tackling - there shouldn t be any. And then to the preview and this week it s a threesome, as Andrew joins us. Andrew will be filling in for me as I take a 4 week break in Thailand. Material witness in Thaksin s court case. Very hush, hush. Can t say more. Download mp3

The dark clouds may have cleared a little over the Thames Valley and the Madjeski ground in particular but they certainly thickened up over St James Park. Robbed they may have been, but still no win under Keegan, now only 3 points above relegation and already Kev s in crisis talks. And this week they face Liverpool at Anfield, although we expect Benitez to rotate and we ll see a 2 seater of a strike force, in Kuyt and Crouch. Liverpool s jostle for 4th spot with Everton looks likely to go down to the wire as does the title race, with barely a point between Arsenal and Man Utd, with Chelsea potentially only 3 points behind. A slip and the Blues, far more media shy sans Mourinho, will be well and truly in the hunt. And what s really interesting this year is that far from being a hindrance, the Euro comps are really galvanizing the English teams with Arsenal s performance against AC Milan nothing short of breathtaking. Not that Chris Kirkland is worried - he thinks the JJB mud will bring Arsenal down to Wigan s level! Download mp3

About the only people who were happy with the Eduardo injury were the EPL as the plight of the Croatian striker finally moved focus away from the 39th Game. It possibly also helped Manchester United close the gap on a distracted Arsenal. We review the weekend s games, starting with the one that slipped by us, the Carling Cup Final, and muse on more than one dreadful officiating decision. Then it s the weekend review and we wonder whether the Gunners can get their heads in order for the game of the weekend against Villa. Download mp3

There may not have been any games this weekend but we still managed to ramble on for 50 minutes or so. We look over the success or otherwise of EPL teams in the Champions League, consider whether Jose will end up at Barca (and Frank at Liverpool) and also wonder how come Inter had only 1 Italian in their starting 11. Then it s onto the preview of the weekend s games and somehow we get to talking about Eccles cakes. Now that must be a podcasting first. Download mp3

No games at the weekend so that allows us to concentrate a bit more on last weekend s results and the news from the week. Actually Mark does lots of concentrating trying to find a reasonable excuse as to why Manchester City achieved it s first double over Manchester United in his lifetime. And, we get all excited about the race for 4th place and, shock, horror, neither of us has Liverpool getting up. Of course, there s also plenty of time devoted to the Premier League s ludicrous plan to play a 39th game abroad . Needless to say, there s not much that s complimentary about the EPL although this does offer a huge opportunity to the FA. Download mp3

Yes, there s plenty of discussion about England s new era under their new Italian coach and that plus too much coffee had Chris coming up with the terrible pun. We wonder why Capello a) didn t put the Becks issue to bed and just play him for his 100th cap, b) play a 4-5-1 formation when there s no obvious player to be the lone striker, and c) give Crouch 30 mins instead of Owen. We didn t get onto whether he dyes his hair but that s probably a gimme. Of course there s all the usual review and preview, and what a good week it was for Liverpool, Arsenal and Wigan. Even joy for Fulham which is a pretty rare emotion for the Cottagers although we kind of like their chances to stay joyous this weekend and even climb out of the bottom 3. Although Liverpool s joy could be shortlived as they play in part 2 of Super Sunday, with their trip to Stamford Bridge following the Manchester derby. Download mp3