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"One accusation you can't throw at me is that I've always done my best." (Alan Shearer) And our Chairman Damon can never be said to be one to make unfair criticisms.

Harsh, but fair, our Chairman dispenses his trenchant, pithy post match analysis of the overpaid heroes and goats that make up the “Happy Band” of Euro 2008. If you're in the prawn sandwich and skim latte club, or part of the "Dippy Darling" brigade this column is not for you!!

Who's hot? Who's not? Who's left their bottle at home? Watch this space carefully as the tournament unwinds.

Previous Analysis :

Week 10.... Week 9.... Week 8.... Week 7.... Week 6

... And something for the weekend, perhaps?

Bolton Wanderers 2 - Manchester City 0

Bolton pick up a much-needed win at the expense of the erratic Man City. A poor first half saw City just about shade things, though the visitors were finding Jussi Jaaskelainen in fine form for his 400th appearance for Wanderers. Things picked up after the break with Bolton getting stronger as the game went on and they took a deserved lead with a quarter of an hour remaining - Ricardo Gardner just about managing to finish via the bar from five yards out when Gretar Steinsson's cross found him unmarked in the middle.

City, somewhat bereft of ideas, nonetheless piled forward looking for an equaliser but were caught on the break with two minutes remaining, the unfortunate Richard Dunne finding his own net in trying to cut out Gardner's right-wing cross. Bolton move out of the bottom three (until Monday night, when they move back into it) whilst City drop to tenth.

 

Chelsea 5 - Sunderland 0

Nicolas Anelka grabbed a low-grade hat-trick as a rampant Chelsea took Sunderland apart at Stamford Bridge. The Black Cats had been pegged back in their own half from the start and it was no surprise when Chelsea got the opener on twenty-seven minutes when Alex bundled in Joe Cole's half-saved effort to finish a move he'd started himself from the half-way line. Three minutes later and it was two, as Anelka was given a break by the linesman to toe-end Alex's mis-hit over the line from a matter of inches after good Chelsea play down the right. The third came on the stroke of half-time, after a rapid succession of passes put Florent Malouda in on goal, only for the Frenchman to square to the unmarked Anelka to bag his second. There was to be no let-up after half-time and within six minutes it was four - Joe Cole beating George McCartney to the bye-line and standing up a cross that Frank Lampard headed home for his 100th league goal. Two minutes later and John Terry surged out of defence before setting Malouda away down the left. The winger's cross was met with an awful scuffed finish by Anelka but it was the striker's day with the ball looping up and over the hapless Morten Fulop to bring up the nap hand. Chelsea go back to the top of the table in some style and Sunderland will need to bounce back against Portsmouth with the teams below them picking up points.

 

Everton 1 - Fulham 0

A late Louis Saha goal continues Everton's recent revival whilst ending Fulham's short-lived recovery. This game pitted the side with the worst home record in the Premier League against the side with the worst away record and, from the quality of finishing on show, it wasn't hard to see how those records had been earned. With Yakubu and Johnson dithering in front of goal, Zoltan Gera managing to head against the bar from six yards and even the normally-redoubtable Tim Cahill missing the target with a free header, it looked as if Marouane Fellaini and Jimmy Bullard's speculative strikes against the woodwork were going to be as close as this game got to a goal. Ex-players do have a habit of coming back to haunt their old employers, though, and Saha got his head to Leon Osman's terrific cross with three minutes left to settle things. Everton appear to have weathered their early-season storm, but things are looking a mite stickier for Roy Hodgson's side.

 

Manchester United 4 - Hull City 3

Man United survive a late Hull fightback to move up to third. It took just three minutes for United to take the lead when Cristiano Ronaldo was able to turn on Dimitar Berbatov's pass and send a daisy-cutter in off Boaz Myhill's near post. With things looking ominous for City, they stood up to be counted in this one and pulled level twenty minutes later when Daniel Cousin tucked a great header past Edwin van der Sar from Andy Dawson's free kick. Had they been able to keep the scores level for any length of time, the game may have panned out differently, but while taking the match to their hosts they were caught with a fantastically fluid counter attack that saw the ball reach Michael Carrick in three passes from the United area, and the midfielder advanced to send a left-foot drive wide of Myhill and in off the same post Ronaldo had struck. Shortly before half-time a good old-fashioned thumping header by Ronaldo, from Nani's corner, put Man United in the driving seat and things looked even rosier after Nemanja Vidic was given space to volley home another corner ten minutes or so into the second half. In danger of copping a hammering, Hull came back again. Substitute Bernard Mendy snuck in on the blind side to loop a delicious lob over van der Sar, despite the best acrobatic efforts of Vidic to clear, and then terrified Rio Ferdinand to the extent the England man was forced to manhandle him to the ground in the United area. Giovanni (who else?) stepped up to stick away the penalty and it briefly looked as if another incredible chapter was going to be written inteh story of Hull's season. Alas, it was not to be but nobody - the tantrum-throwing Wayne Rooney, perhaps, excepted - can begrudge this Hull side anything they go on to achieve this season, surely?

 

Middlesbrough 1 - West Ham United 1

A point apiece for two young and beleaguered managers, but it will be Gareth Southgate who's the happier of the two as West Ham's clinical inability to keep a clean sheet costs them again. United belied their recent struggles and started in fine form to dominate the first half from the whistle, the lively Freddie Sears, in particular, causing the home side problems and it looked just a matter of time before the first goal came. In the end, it took twenty-one minutes before Luis Boa Morte found Hayden Mullins on the edge of the area. The West Ham man's first attempt, left-footed, ended in a hilarious air shot that wouldn't have looked out of place coming from a hungover pub team on Romney Marshes. However, when the ball fell kindly on his right peg, he unleashed a peach of a drive into Russ Turnbull's top left corner to more than spare his blushes. It was to be the only goal of the first half, despite the Hammers' pressure, and Southgate would have been glad of the chance to regroup during the break. The hosts, boosted by a couple of substitutions, slowly clawed their way back into the game and with seven minutes left won a free-kick on the edge of the box which Mido, on after sixty-seven minutes, lined up to take. His effort was hit true enough but the West Ham wall, as a man, seemed to jump out of the way of it (did his boot come off?) and it ended up nestling in the corner of Robert Green's net.

 

Newcastle United 2 - Aston Villa 0

Newcastle's revival under JFK continues with an impressive win over high-flying Villa. United started sloppily but, luckily for them, found Villa a little disjointed, with the normally crisp link-up play letting them down on several occasions as the first half turned into a bit of a non-event, though the visitors could well have been a goal or two up before the oranges were wheeled out had they been able to find a final ball. A no-doubt expletive-laden pep-talk at half time saw the Magpies come out with far more conviction in the second half and the midlanders buckled on the hour when Obafemi Martins turned smartly inside Martin Laursen and beat Brad Friedel from the edge of the area. Suddenly, Newcastle were in the ascendant and Martins scored his second twenty minutes later after Jonas Gutierrez had more-or-less incinerated Nigel Reo-Coker down the left flank. From the bottom of the table up to fourteenth in a matter of weeks, Kinnear can well feel he's been worth his chance.

 

Portsmouth 1 - Wigan Athletic 2

A much-needed victory for Wigan leaves new Pompey boss Tony Adams still looking for his first win. In torrential conditions, Athletic started briskly but Portsmouth had wrested back the upper hand by the time Titus Bramble conned the referee with an appalling dive over the rashly-outretched leg of the presumably mirror-breaking Papa Bouba Diop. Amr Zaki stepped up to belt home the penalty for his eighth of the season. Nothing really went right for Portsmouth, with the woodwork struck several times and Jermaine Defoe's effort cleared off the line, but they looked to have earned a draw when substitute Nico Kranjcar smashed a loose ball through a crowd of players with ten minutes left. It wasn't to be, though, and Lee Cattermole's cute through ball put the periodically-much-maligned Emile Ivanhoe Heskey through on goal to notch his 100th league goal - and the winner - right at the death. Wigan climb out of the drop zone and Portsmouth into the mid-table pack.

 

Stoke City 2 - Arsenal 1

The shock about this result is that it doesn't really come as much of a shock, with Arsenal still carrying some of the unwanted baggage they've been lumbered with for the last few years. A side that is often accused of lacking the stomach for a physical confrontation was always going to find the going tough against Stoke and the home side played to their strengths perfectly in sending them back to North London empty-handed. The first goal was as simple as it was inevitable - a Rory Delap special finding both Kolo Toure and Manuel Almunia unwilling to commit and allowing Ricardo Fuller to nip in and glance a header home. The second came from the next page of the manual - Delap's lower-trajectory number being flicked on at the near post by Ryan Shawcross to the unmarked Seyi Olofinjana to bundle home in an ungainly sprawling tumble. Robin van Persie then took a moment to display the petulant brattishness that has also sullied Wenger's teams, rightfully seeing red after an unnecessary barge into Thomas Sorensen, before Gael Clichy picked up a consolation for his side with a drive from distance that pinged off a couple of defenders on its way into the net. Were it not for the up-and-down form of Aston Villa, we might be talking about a crisis at Arsenal. Were it not for the heroics of Hull, we might be seeing more credit given City.

 

Tottenham Hotspur 2 - Liverpool 1

Though it was Harry Enfield rather than Jimmy Greaves who originally said it, football IS a funny old game. Liverpool, who've enjoyed the rub of the green in recent weeks, put in arguably their most convincing performance of the season and came away empty-handed after a late Spurs snatch-and-grab at White Hart Lane. From the moment Dirk Kuyt smashed home the opener from a narrow angle after just three minutes to the moment he just failed to direct his shot on target with a sliding effort just after the hour, there was only going to be one winner and Tottenham were barely in the game. Then, seventy minutes in, Jamie Carragher notched his fourth career goal for Tottenham when heading in a corner under pressure from Ledley King and things all went a little bizarre. Suddenly, there were two teams on the pitch and Tottenham almost took the lead only for Roman Pavlyuchenko to shank Pepe Reina's fumble over the bar before, in the last minute of the game, the Russian was able to make amends after Darren Bent had chased to retrieve Reina's parry from a David Bentley effort. From Enfield to Chris Barrie ... errrr, quite remarkable.

 

West Bromwich Albion 2 - Blackburn Rovers 2

Honours even in an intense match that has had the pundits lining up to make horses' arses of themselves in attempting to crucify referee Mike Jones. It's a shame, as the game itself was a bit of a belter but this is an opinion piece so here we go. We join the game on thirteen minutes and Baggies defender Ryan Donk has a rush of blood to the head, grabbing a fistful of Rovers striker Jason Roberts's shirt in the box, in full sight of the referee. Stonewall, cast-iron, nailed on penalty - as easy a decision as Jones will ever have to make - yet it appears he is meant to allow shirt-tugging, just because a plethora of lesser men won't blow for it. Nonsense. Benni McCarthy steps up to gratefully leather the ball past Scott Carson but his day is going to get worse. Having already been booked for a horrible tackle on Jonathon Greening, the South African then goes up and intentionally handles a long ball that is getting away from him to earn a second yellow card. A little pernickety from the ref? Perhaps ... but why should he have to make allowances for the rank stupidity of men who have done little else except PLAY THE BLEEDING SPORT ALL THEIR LIVES? Neither McCarthy, his manager nor any of the hordes of dull ex-pro pundits who try and defend the striker have a leg to stand on. Back to the game and, helped no doubt by their numerical advantage, West Brom get right back into things and draw level ten minutes after half-time when Roman Bednar provides a slick finish to Ishmael Miller's perfect through ball. Seven minutes later and Miller does even better, turning on a sixpence and lashing a left-footed effort low into the corner from just outside the box. With time running out and Albion on course for a much-needed and probably-deserved win, Keith Andrews, playing fourth-tier football last season, picks up the ball twenty-five yards out and finds the bottom left corner for his first goal for his new club. There is a distinct absence of happy bunnies at the Hawthorns after this one, I can tell you.