Meanwhile James McFadden will fail to rediscover his Scotland form in Birmingham rather than Everton, Lassana Diarra has endeared himself to Portsmouth fans by signing for them and then immediately issuing href=”http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2242830,00.html”>a come and get me plea to any club he deems bigger than the South Coast team. Elsewhere, and more importantly, Cambridge United have finally captured Rushden and Diamonds defender Wayne Hatswell for an undisclosed fee.Something happened in Newcastle, you say? Not on this clockwatch it didn’t. Tell it to the hand, because the face ain’t listening. This will remain a no-Newcastle zone… until we run out of anything else to talk about, obviously.In Sheffield, Wednesday are 1-0 up in the derby against United. A Sodje goal that’s been very much against the run of play as United are throwing the kitchen sink, and indeed the cutlery draw, at Wednesday. Can’t see this one staying like this.Today’s 3pm kick-offs in the Premier League include: Birmingham v Chelsea, Blackburn v Middlesbrough, Fulham v Arsenal, Portsmouth v Derby, Reading v Manchester United and Spurs v Sunderland. Follow all the action in Newcastle (alright one, albeit contractual, mention) with Scott Murray from 5.15pm .There are also 10 3pm kick-offs in the Championship - the pick off which, only if you happen to be a sailor, might be Plymouth v Southampton. A host of games in the lower leagues have been postponed because of the weather - Colchester v Hull among them.Bury v Stockport, Rochdale v Bradford, Macclesfield v Lincoln City, Barnet v Peterborough, Histon v Ebbsfleet United and Halifax v Stafford Rangers are all off too.2.15pm: In the rugby, meanwhile, it’s all about the Heineken Cup. Treviso v London Irish has already kicked off (currently Treviso 0-7 London Irish as it stands), as has Dragons v Perpignan (Dragons 0-10 Perpignan), meanwhile there’s a treat for alliteration-lovers everywhere when Leicester take on Leinster at 3.30pm, the same time that Toulouse will do battle with Edinburgh. Scarlets v Clermont and, let’s face it, the most interesting tie of the lot - Munster v Wasps - kicks off at 5.35pm, long after I’ll be off.Quick rugby predictions: Dragons to cap their inglorious Heineken Cup campaign with a disappointing surrender against Perpignan, for who a win will virtually guarantee qualification to the knockout stages as either group winners (if Irish slip up) or one of the two best runner-ups. Group leaders London Irish could (hopefully) go into an attacking frenzy to secure a bonus-point-winning thumping of Treviso and thus secure a quarter-final berth. Already-out Leicester to put in a far-too-late blood and guts display against Leinster, who need both a win and results elsewhere to go their way to progress. Meanwhile rock-bottom Edinburgh will roll over in the face of a sustained Toulouse attack - their cause not helped by coach Andy Robinson’s decision to rest all of his decent players. “It’s also a great opportunity for the players who are coming in as there’s no better place to prove yourself than in Toulouse,” he positive-glossed his doomed tactics.2.18pm: In Australia, Venus Williams has battled her way to the fourth round of the women’s singles after a shaky 7-6, 6-4 victory over India’s Sania Mirza.2.20pm: London Irish are streaking into a commanding lead after Tomas de Vedia and Peter Hewat hit Treviso with a one-two as both scored. One more try and they’ve got their bonus point. Dragons 0-10 Perpignan, by the way.The snooker: Ken Doherty faces Mark Selby in a battle of the comeback kings. Doherty managed to fight his way back from being 4-1 down against Shaun Murphy (winning 6-4 after three centuries in the final four frames). Meanwhile Selby, despite being two down with three to play against Stephen Hendry in the first round, won 6-5 and then pulled off the same trick against Stephen Maguire in the quarter-finals. “I’m gobsmacked to still be in the tournament,” he said, not unreasonably.2.23pm: Tudgay has opened up a 2-0 lead for Wednesday, who have just missed another chance to extend that lead further. Looks like they may have done enough - their fans certainly think so, as they’re bouncing up and down as if on one giant space-hopper. Meanwhile Hearts beat Hibernian 1-0 after Andrius Velicka struck the winner in the 20th minute.”‘Munster against Wasps’? Surely that was a Marvel Comics series from about 1973?” chortles Gary Naylor from atop a pile of well-thumbed tatty-eared mags.2.31pm: Mark Selby looks as though he’ll have the first frame of the Masters semi-final under his belt. In Australia, Llllllllllleyton Hewitt has just won the second set against Marcos Baghdatis, making the score 4-6 7-5, It’s about 2.30 in the morning in Oz, what the eff are they doing playing tennis?2.33pm: Steve Coppell has made a bold decision, it looks like he’s going to play three strikers against Manchester United, for who Owen Hargreaves and Wes Brown will be playing.2.35pm: “I’m a little disappointed and tomorrow morning I’m going to wake up and feel even more like crap about it,” said Mirza after her defeat to Venus Williams. There’s something about tennis players telling it like it is that make footballer’s bland post-game statements even more patronising to their fans.2.36pm: Treviso are mounting a fight back against Irish. It’s 6-19 now, two penalties after Irish were twice caught offside. Meanwhile J�r�mie Aliadi�re has started moaning at Middlesbrough already. “I thought we’d be better than we are,” he said, or words to that effect. Presumably he didn’t see the sign ‘Middlesbrough Football Club’ over the door that would have told him exactly what to expect when he walked in.2.39pm: Wednesday have won the Sheffield derby and are currently running round the pitch swinging all sorts of scarves round their heads. United just look a little glum.2.43pm: Some team news: Reading: Hahnemann, Murty, Ingimarsson, Cisse, Shorey, Doyle, Hunt, Harper, Convey, Lita, Kitson. Subs: Federici, Rosenior, De la Cruz, Long, Matejovsky.
Man Utd: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Carrick, Hargreaves, Park, Rooney, Tevez. Subs: Kuszczak, Giggs, Nani, O’Shea, Fletcher. Birmingham won’t be starting with their new %26#163;5.5m signing against Chelsea, preferring to play him in the position he made his own at Everton: the bench.2.46pm: Danny Cassidy has made an early effort to ruin the ‘no Newcastle’ riff in this report. All I’ll say, Danny, is you’ll have to try harder than that.2.48pm: They’re midway through the second frame in the snooker at Wembley. Selby claimed the first one, but Doherty is on the table.2.50pm: Porthmadog v Airbus UK is off, you’ll no doubt be distraught to here. A waterlogged pitch denying all League Of Wales fans a choice tie. A question from Laura Bagshot: “Given that Portsmouth haven’t scored since October, why do you think they’ve signed a defensive midfielder?” She also went onto talk about how mystifying it was that, given a certain club owner in a certain Northern English town wanted attacking, exciting football, why ‘Arry’s name was in the frame. But we’re not going to talk about that, are we? 2.55pm: “Is there anyone with bigger delusions of grandeur?” screams an angry Daniel Bryant in relation to J�r�mie Aliadi�re’s comments about Boro. “He threw identical tantrums at both West Ham (the championship version) and Celtic before sulking off to Wolves to barely register on the score sheet. Now he’s too big for Boro?” Before adding, “Awesome surname by the way.” Dad? Is that you?2.57pm: Accrington v Brentford is off now too. In Portsmouth, ‘Arry is attempting to redress Laura Bagshot’s comments about his defensive, goal shy football - he’s dropped Sol Campbell. What chance a certain veteran defender might end up in a certain Northern town to shore up a certain leaky defence?3pm: Not much else seems to be happening in the rugby. Irish haven’t managed to score that extra bonus-point winning try, while Dragons are attempting to make a game of it by attacking Perpignan’s line. They haven’t had any luck yet though - still 0-13 to the French club.At the Madjeski, Fabio Capello has taken his seat. Expect an Italian tax-official to take the seat behind him and start rifling through his pockets for receipts.3.03pm: Seconds after kick-off, Forest Green are 1-0 up against Aldershot and West Brom are a goal down against Cardiff. West Brom can’t have even touched it before they were picking it out of the back of their net.3.05pm: Aaron Lennon reacts first to a Berbatov knock back and scores against Sunderland. 1-0 to Spurs.3.07pm: Derby have scored against Portsmouth. Chris Kamarra was giving it the big one about how well Portsmouth and Diarra were playing, seconds before the visitors stuffed it into the Pompey net, Lewin Nyatanga doing the honours. QPR 1-0 Barnsley - Patrick Agyemang scores on his home debut. Crystal Palace 1-0 Bristol City, the Warnock revolution continues.3.10pm Kenny Miller has just missed a good chance at Fratton Park before Pompey took it up the other end and missed their own chance. End to end stuff. Who’d have thought it? At St Andrew’s Chelsea’s Shaun Wright-Phillips has twisted his ankle, while Nic Anelka has started for his new club.3.12pm: Reading broke against United, who have dominated, and Kitson nearly struck after Van der Sar spilled a catch. Jeff Stelling, on Sky Sports News, on the other hand, has just given a shout out to his niece Trisha who’s marrying Graham this weekend. By the same token, happy birthday to my mate Nick, who’s 30 today. Anyone else?3.13pm: “Any chance Bryan Robson is getting his resume updated after today’s loss in the Sheffield Derby. He is an absolute disaster as a manager,” froths George Templeton. 3.15pm: Coventry 0-1 Burnley - Ade Akinbiyi putting Burnley ahead with his sixth goal of the season. Reading are giving United a good game at the Madjeski, but Rooney has just had a Tevez-made chance saved.3.17pm: Treviso have fought back to bring the scores to 11-19 to London Irish. Irish really need to get a grip on this quickly. Dragons 0-25 Perpignan, which means Dragons are well and truly out of it. In Blackburn, David Wheater has scored for Boro. Blackburn 0-1 Middlesbrough.3.20pm: “Out of interest, and a wish to distract myself from an interminable illness, will the Guardian be MBMing matches from the African Cup of Nations?,” asks Ian Copestake. Yes, is the answer. Paul Doyle will be here for the opener tomorrow.Still Birmingham 0-0 Chelsea, but Chelsea are well on top. Birmingham are sitting back defending, inviting Chelsea on to them. Arsenal are having trouble breaking Fulham down too, the South London club have started very brightly.3.24pm Anyone else misread Ian Copestake’s email, thinking he’d said a terminal illness? Just me, then.It’s a frame-all in the snooker and Baghdatis is 4-3 up in the third set in Australia.3.25pm: Adebayor has scored a cracker against Fulham. Clichy clipped it in to the box and, like the proverbial fish, the Arsenal striker leaped to stick it in. His 14th of the season and, worryingly for Fulham, Arsenal have never lost a game Adebayor has scored in. Leeds 0-1 Doncaster, by the way.3.28pm: Rooney managed to get the ball into the net against Reading but was well offside, so it was disallowed. Jermain Defoe has been playing well for Spurs too, and may as well have one of those estate-agents’ For Sale boards stapled to his head. Chelsea are pinging the ball about against Birmingham, which will please Abramovich, but not the Scot in charge at St Andrews’3.30pm: Stoke are now 2 up against Preston, and it’s 1-1 at Coventry v Burnley. Hargreaves was virtually celebrating at the Madjeski, a screamer of a free-kick was just tipped round the post by Hahnemann. Berbatov has just slammed one into the cross bar at White Hart Lane, too.In Italy, London Irish have won 24-11, meaning they’ve earned that bonus point to finish top of Pool One, two points ahead of Perpignan.3.31pm: “If you are doing shout outs, which you seem to be, can you give a whoop and a shout out to Ruth Attride who has just moved back to England and is celebrating tonight?” asks my colleague Josh who is sat literally two feet away from me and needn’t have emailed this.Joe Flach’s having a go too: “Although there’s no birthday or occasion could you crowbar a hello to my dear lovely wife Trudi? My grandma died the other day, and having never used the death of a family member before, I think this is a good time…”3.35pm: Peterhead have scored 5 goals in 29 minutes against Berwick. Blimey, is all that can be said about that. At the Madjeski, Coppell’s attacking approach is paying off - plenty of chances for the Berkshire side. Cardiff are now 2-0 up, away at West Brom thanks to Paul Parry’s strike.3.37pm: re: 3.20pm: “A MBM that would ‘distract him from a terminal illness’? Doyle’s good, but not that good,” says Gary Naylor. “Thanks, Tom,” counters Ian Copestake, “your comment made me realise my typo. For a moment there I thought there was indeed hope!” Back at the football, Spurs have had another shot saved. They could be three or four ahead by now.3.40pm: “A bit off topic, but do you have any favourite football writing books? I’m particularly interested in what might be considered ‘old school’ British coverage: alliterative, mock-epic, hyperbolic prose,” writes Dr. Kevin Crawford, Assistant Professor of English and Theatre at Reinhardt College in the US.At the risk of planning your course for you, Kev, I’d recommend ‘Goalkeepers Are Different’ by Brian Glanville - though I haven’t read it since I was seven. Anyone else want to recommend anything and therefore do Kev’s work for him?3.42pm: Adebayor has made it two for Arsenal, while it’s now Portsmouth 1-1 Derby. 3.44pm: “Thanks for the shout-out,” writes Joe Flach. “Although it seemed to confuse her more than impress her. Maybe I should try flowers as they’re the more widely recognized romantic gesture…My own misunderstandings of womankind.” In the Heineken Cup the next two games have kicked off, it’s currently: Leicester 3-6 Leinster, Toulouse 3-0 Edinburgh. 3.46pm: Birmingham are giving Chelsea a hard time. After beating Petr Cech, Jerome had a shot cleared off the line. From the resulting corner, Birmingham blasted just over. Meanwhile, useless Peruvian Pizarro has replaced the knacked Shaun Wright-Phillips. Reading 0-0 Manchester United at half-time.3.50pm: Everyone’s getting in on the act - my wife know wants a shout-out. It’s two frames-all in the snooker and, at the Australian Open Llllllllleyton Hewitt has won the third set 7-5 to take the lead by two sets to one.Half-time scores in the Premier League: Portsmouth 2 - 1 Derby, Tottenham 1 - 0 Sunderland, Fulham 0 - 2 Arsenal, Blackburn 0 - 1 Middlesbrough, Birmingham 0 - 0 Chelsea, Reading 0 - 0 Man Utd. Or you could save me the bother of cutting and pasting this by going here, where you’ll discover Kilmarnock are holding Celtic and Shrewsbury are beating Morecombe 2-0, not that you’ll care.Books: “The Blinder’ by Barry Hines. But it’s way better than the professor’s specification,” says Pat Yarker who says he used to play in goal, and so remembers fondly Brian Glanville’s novel. “There should be a London club called ‘The Borough’. As for corners… ‘I could save fifty corners…’” he quotes. “The Ice Warrior %26 Other stories (Including The Goalkeeper’s Revenge) by Robin Chambers,” recommends Johnny Mac, who may or may not be the same Johnny Mac I once gave a lift back from a rock festival to.Here’s Gary Naylor’s opinion on the book debate, should you care: “If Dr Crawford wants old school football writing, there’s always Tony Adams’ ‘Addicted’ which includes some epic drinking sessions to boot. And if he’s after hyperbolic prose, there’s Ashley Cole’s book which is…” wait for it… “megabolics”.
3.58pm: “This really is power MBM ing. How do you keep up with it all? Are you in a secret underground volcano HQ with TV screens beaming in the info from all over the place amid complex algorithms churning out reporting decisions. Do you have little oompah loompahs running around consulting on long, computer-generated lists and making more lists from those lists. I hope so,” says Billy Murphy.Billy, if by underground volcano you mean a bunker in Farringdon and, if by Oompah Loompahs you mean Josh sitting next to me, then you’ve about got it.4.03pm: The rugby: Leicester 15-6 Leinster, Toulouse 10-0 Edinburgh. Seru Rabeni and Brett Deacon have both gone over for tries for Leicester and Vincent Clerc has scored for Toulouse after touching down a kick hoofed just over the try-line (I’m surmising, as I can’t actually see it).4.06pm: Llllllllleyton Hewitt is 3-1 up and two sets to one ahead of Marcus Baghdatis in the fourth set in the Australian Open. It’s about 3am down under. I’ll say it again: what the eff are they still doing playing tennis?!4.08pm: 45 seconds into the second half, it’s now Scunthorpe 0-2 Wolves. At White Hart Lane, Sunderland have just missed a glorious opportunity to equalise. Mayhem in the Spurs’ defence nearly allowed them in. It’s now Peterhead 7-1 Berwick after 51 minutes, they’re going crackers there.4.11pm: Birmingham are looking very comfortable against Chelsea. As a Chelsea fan, I’m trying not to get annoyed about it. I will say this, and apologies to any Birmingham fans: What the hell’s going on, it’s Birmingham for %$%26#163;’s sake, pull your @$%%26%26#163;: fingers out!4.12pm: “MorecAmbe, yer ignorant southern get,” emails Joe about my half-time scores entry, proving that at least someone cares. Still, guilty as charged, Joe. The North scares me. Kenwyne Jones has scored for Sunderland against Spurs, but the linesman flagged him offside. Unlucky.4.15pm: West Brom 1-3 Cardiff, Joe Ledley heads off a West Brom revival by knocking in Cardiff’s third. Aliadiere, fresh from moaning about how bad the club is, has just missed a sitter for Boro against Blackburn, as has Tuncay.4.17pm: Amazing goal from Benjani! A fast-flowing movement from one end of the pitch to the other, and that’s a hat-trick for Benjani - Portsmouth 3-1 Derby. Perhaps ‘Arry was indeed the man to bring exciting football to a certain northern club. Meanwhile Ronaldo has just missed a good chance against Reading, it’s nil-all there.4.20pm: Cech just manages to prevent a Birmingham goal. I’ll have no hair left if Chelsea don’t start getting a clue against Birmingham. “Regarding your laudable policy of not referring to the chap in your photo, could you please extend that into the MBM later today?” asks Ian Copestake, not from his death-bed. “Now that would be something.” Tell it to Scott, Ian.By “Scott, Ian”, I don’t mean the Anthrax shredder, by the way.4.24pm: While United turn the screw at Reading, and Jamie Cook scores a hat-trick for Crawley against Rushden, here’s the rugby: Leicester 15-6 Leinster, Toulouse 22-3 Edinburgh. It’s a very fiery affair in the Leicester game, while Edinburgh, frankly, have self-destructed. Selby is 3-2 ahead of Doherty in a tight snooker semi-final a Wembley and LLLLLllllllleyton Hewitt is a game away from winning his fourth-round match against Baghdatis, who may or may not have fallen asleep given the time there.4.28pm: There are even more chances at Reading, and they’re not all going to United. Mark Hughes is going mental on the touchline against Boro after a few tasty tackles - he’s having a right old shout at Gareth Southgate, who’s not taking it sitting down. Excellent stuff.More books - though I can’t vouch for their quality - ‘Football Against the Enemy’ by Simon Kuper, recommends Stephen Webster “as it’s for an American…” he adds.4.30pm: Burnley score a second against 10-man Coventry. It’s now Coventry 1-2 Burnley, as Robbie Blake scores his sixth of the season. Meanwhile, Anelka was played in by Malouda after some slick passing, and his deflected shot was just saved. Arrrghghh.4.32pm: Smertin chipped the ball into the Arsenal box for Dempsey, who plonked it straight into the back of the net. Unfortunately three Fulham players were offside and the Arsenal defence just smirked back at them inscrutably.4.36pm: Stoke 3-1 Preston and in the rugby, a somewhat belated mention of a brilliant ruck (as in fight not, erm,a ruck). Leicester’s Julian White is lucky not to get a red card for sticking one on Leinster’s Malcolm O’Kelly. That was a proper punch, and there’s really no way he should be on the pitch anymore. It happened in the first half, but I’ve only just remembered to write about it. The scores: Leicester 15-6 Leinster, Toulouse 22-3 Edinburgh.4.38pm: Rooney scores a belter! After showing so much attacking intent, it was inevitable Reading might succumb at the back and United have capitalised. It’s 1-0 to United. At Ewood Park, Matt Derbyshire has scored his second of the season, making it Blackburn 1-1 Boro. Meanwhile West Brom have grabbed another back, leaving them just one behind and McFadden has come on for Birmingham, where he nearly scored. Roy Keane has gone attack crazy against Spurs, bringing on Andy Cole for his right-back.4.40pm: Pizarro scores for Chelsea! Miracles do happen! He nodded in from a corner and Chelsea have gone one up after being outplayed for most of the game. Meanwhile Arsenal have now scored three, courtesy of Rosicky’s strike. Apologies for the delay in service, the mice had fallen out of their wheel.4.45pm: “Great to see you dropping pint sized thrasher Scott Ian’s name, but one thing: the wee man is not is a shredder. Scott was always the rhythm guitarist in Anthrax - the fancy solos were played by the lead guitarist, Dan Spitz. Now if you’re looking for a shredder, your best bet is Alex Skolnick from Testament,” screams Liam Francis Boyle in his spandex troos. The last time I saw Mr Ian, Liam, he was absolutely plastered at the Kerrang! Awards. He did, however, sign my friend’s face.
“Tom, with speed in your email moniker, a respect for thrashing guitar sound, and much hair to be pulled out over Chelsea’s struggle, I guess you look like an accountant,” smirks Copestake, not sounding particularly ill at all anymore.4.48pm: Madness at the Madjeski - both United and Reading could have scored in the last minute. Reading are really going for it but United are snuffling them out. Snuffling, eh? Never used that word before. Ooh, Reading nearly scored again - Van der Sar has looked a bit dodgy today.At White Hart Lane, Roy Keane is throwing everything at Spurs and might sneak the win. Chelsea are holding on to the ball and refusing to give it to Birmingham. I still can’t believe Pizarro scored. Not having seen it, I’m willing to bet it was a fluke.4.52pm: Incredible, it’s now West Brom 3-3 Cardiff after an own goal. Leicester aren’t following the script against Leinster, they’re refusing to go down without a fight (almost literally). It’s Leicester 18-9 Leinster now. Edinburgh, though, have rolled over and died. Toulouse 34-3 Edinburgh. 4.53pm: Despite the pressure Sunderland have been applying to Spurs, Robbie Keane has just made it Spurs 2-0 Sunderland - his 100th Spurs goal. Ronaldo scores at Reading too, Reading 0-2 Manchester United. Bit lucky that one. Oh, and Aliadi�re has just missed another sitter.4.55pm: Though the Australians are an admirably sporting race, surely it’s madness to still be playing a major tennis tournament at what must be about 4am there. Baghdatis has just fought back to win the fourth set tiebreaker and it’s now going into the fifth and final set. Brilliant, but stupid.4.58pm: There’s no change at the top of the table then, as Arsenal, United and Chelsea all won. The rest of the results can be found here. If you dig about a bit, you can also find all the statistics you can shake a stick at here. Including those vital Finnish referees stats .See ya! I’m off. As it stands, Selby is beating Doherty 4-2 in the snooker, the tennis is tied 2-2 in the final set and the rugby looks like this: Leicester 18-9 Leinster, Toulouse 34-10 Edinburgh. I, on the other hand, look like Worzel Gummidge after an incredibly fraught, adrenaline fuelled romp through as many sports as I could manage to watch on all the TVs I’ve stolen from around the building.Should you have nothing else to do on Saturday night - and given that you’ve been reading this, I have reason to suspect that you don’t - you could do much worse then reading Scott Murray’s minute-by-minute report on a certain northern club’s attempts to beat Bolton.Thanks for all your emails. Or at least for the ones that weren’t abuse or offers to embezzle millions of pounds from Nigeria.
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