Thetownend.com

Shameless copy and pasted from elsewhere, but its rather good.

14.59: Reading take the lead at Pride Park. A new low for Derby – a minute before kick-off and they're already a goal down.

15.04: Chelsea one-up with a beautiful flowing move finished off by a trademark Lamps triple-deflection.

15.08: Hold the front page! Emile Heskey scores and Wigan are one-up. Fergie is cross. Brucie is bleeding furious!

15.13: Gareth Barry scores for Villa. Randy Lerner's head goes 'kerchingg!' and he gives Tom Hicks a bell.

15.17: 2-0 to Chelsea! A penalty after Drogba is brought down in the area by, well, no-one- unless it was the ghost of Chopper Harris.

15.20: Penalty to Man U as Ronaldo goes down under pressure from a challenge by the southerly breeze.

15.24: Ronaldo converts the pen after pausing for four minutes in the middle of his run-up. 1-1.

15.32: Reading score again.

15.33: Reading score again.

15.34: Reading score again. Kitson hat-trick in 90 seconds. So untaxing, it's been gift-aided.

15.40: Chelsea go three up with a glorious strike by Ashley Cole.

15.41: Diouf is off at the Bridge. Red card for, well, being downright irritating. Correct decision.

15.46: Fulham score at Pompey. Bullard free-kick.
Half-time - and if it stays like this, Brum and Reading are down and Chelsea are champs.

16.02: Michael Owen scores at Goodison. (Calm down, he missed three sitters in the first half, obviously).

16.07: Reading get a fifth! Leroy Lita taps in a Robbie Savage pass-back.

16.10: Chelsea get four! Shevchenko scores. (At the same time, Scarlett Johannsen announces her engagement to Ricky from Eastenders and Katie Jordan strings together a sentence.) Bolton under real pressure now. Megson sends on three big lads and tells them: "When you get it – hoof it!"

16.24: Sven-Goran Eriksson is held captive in the away end at the Boro. Unfortunately there are so few fans at the Riverside he's easy to spot and the police step in. Liam Gallagher is arrested.

16.35: Didier Drogba falls to the ground in agony. The entirety of west London's ambulance crews are summoned. Will he make it to Moscow?

16.37: Drogba scores! How did he get over that cardiac arrest so quickly?

16.40: Everton equalise. Yakubu fluffs a gilt-edged chance but the ball rebounds off the corner-flag and this time the Nigerian makes no mistake.

16.45: Things are getting desperate for United, so Brucie takes off his centre-halves and plays 2-2-6.

16.48: Reading go six-up. Amazing!

16.49: Birmingham score but it's too late to save themselves. Everton scrape 5th, Chelsea win 5-0. Fulham hold on, and, with Reading, they are safe. Bolton are down and football fans everywhere are quietly happy.

17.07: Man U's search for a winner continues into the 17th minute of stoppage time. The ref has his whistle to his mouth...it’s a corner to Man U...in it goes, the big centre-half rises and....IT'S IN!!! Amazing!!!! BUT WHAT WAS BRUCIE DOING UP THERE IN THE BOX IN THE FIRST PLACE, EH???

I'd rather Reading went down  :D

I'd quite like to see Derby take all 3 points and send them down - about as humiliating as it could possibly be for Reading!

and hand them their second win of the season in the process.

Reallt can't wait for the weekend..top and bottom places are decided. Love it..fulham hopefully stay up. Reading and Birmgingham down...

I only would like Reading to go down - honestly couldn't give a shite about the rest. Richard Keys will be made to spin it as the most significant day in football history.

One of my friends is a Fulham fan. I can't decide if that means I should want them to stay up or go down!

Dont give a shit about the Premiershit. As Keegan said the top 4 are sorted before the season so... The only thing you dont know is who is going down.

....or who's going to win it-not that I'm interested or anything

I dont care who gets relegated as long as its Reading!

I wish the title of this thread was true.  Or at least the top four bugger off to a closed European league, which I can then ignore.

They would simply be superseded by another big 3 or 4 teams

Not necessarily. The creation of a European league would surely mean the end of the Champions League, which has been the main impetus behind the emergence of the "Big 4". Also, I don't imagine half of Asia would suddenly jump on the Everton, Aston Villa, Pompey and Spurs bandwagons!

Everton already have a reasonable Asian fanbase, hence the Chang Beer sponsorship and the signing of Le Tie, and the memorable 11 o clock kick off between them and Man City a few years back.

Anyone who thinks the "big four" splitting away from the premiership would be good for english football is wrong. Pure and simple.

steady on keegan

That is an insult...Keegan indeed!  I have metaphorically slapped you with a glove.  My weapon of choice is beer...we should have a drink-off.

With more and more rich owners of teams, one or two will be looking to create the next big thing. Really it's a big 3, as Arsenal, Chelsea and Man Utd win things most consistently in domestic competitions. The four does come from the Chumps League place as you say.

But it's the big money of winning the Prem which creates the big teams that can afford to splash the cash to achieve the title. I guess the only thing is whether the Prem would still have all the money from tv deals if the big four were removed.

If the big four left then:

- TV deals go down
- Clubs get less money
- Less is spent on youth funding schemes
- The quality of foreigners playing hugely diminishes
- Any good english players simpley get snapped up by the teams in the new 'super-league'
- The standard of football diminishes, crowd numbers dwindle and english football tends to be alltogether a bit more shit.

Most of your points are fair, but I'm not so sure about this bit. I wouldn't say the standard would necessarily diminish, you just wouldn't have those top level players at the "big 4". I'm not sure that crowds would fall - the number of people who support their local team now would probably remain constant, if not be improved by those who don't mind travelling from Torquay to Old Trafford but would struggle to make it to the San Siro twice a year!

The johny come lately happy clappy brigade, which is a fair proportion of the premiership attendances at the moment, wouldn't pay to watch dull games with poor talent on show.

Terry 's injury looks nasty.

Scholes should have been sent off. Typical United decision there.

They're just saying on SSNews that Man U have got lucky with the ref and this is on the back of Fergie & Co moaning all season.

The FA needs to dish out more touchline bans to managers that complain too much imo.

Apparently Terry got a knee in the face then broke his arm falling. Owch.

Shevchenko 1-0 Chelsea

DING! Cmon Ricky

Fulham have scored!

Danny Murphy with the goal. Terry's injury dislocated elbow.

Good to hear on R5 that Reading fans are now crying into their inflatables. Says all you need to know about them. :D

It's alright, they can wipe it up with their scarves, they wont need to whirl them around any more at least.

Hang on in there Fulham. Makes me some kerching and sends Reading down!

Lebowski's three goals between Spurs and Pool bet is looking a poor one though.

Giggs scores, thats the back page sorted then

Giggs has won the title for man yoo

658 appearances for Man Yoo? He's going to end up a few shy of Trollope. Oh sorry that happened before football began.

Boro 7-0 Man city  :shock:

Sven going out on a high.

Ha ha poor Sven.

Fulham stay up. Reading and burmingham relegated. haha

Fulham stay up unless Reading score 8 in the next two minutes.

Reading down. Fulham stay up  :mrgreen:

unlucky Reading  :D

Yeh! Fulham safe and Reading down!

Boro finish 8-1 winners. Motd tonight should be fun

Boro is 8-1 now. Apparently.

Thanks for the £50.

*snigger*

Great to see the plastics go down.Motd a must see tonight i think  :D

How many plastic cunts will reading get next year?!?! Glad to see them down

They'll still get a fair few I'd imagine but nothing above normal for the Championship. I hate plastics!

I think Man U should get a special Championship medal for ref Steve Bennett, after all the big decisions went their way.

How he didn't send Scholes off, I will never know.

Anyway, back to the main news...

The Plastics are down. I wonder how Central News South will put a spin on it tomorrow. At the end of the day, it's their own fault as they were the ones who gave Fulham hope, when Fulham won at their place.

All we need now it City to fuck up in the play-offs...

To be fair they were getting attendances we could only dream of quite a few seasons before they went top flight. Of course its all about quality not quanitity. How many times have they taken good support away? Even to clubs like Liverpool.

More important is that all those utter fools in our midst (Wilts area) who have taken them on might now see sense and bin their plastic shirts.

It should stop them putting that extra tier on their ground and it might stop them doing the soccer schools over here. Not so marketable any more.

Yes Scholes should have gone, but United should also have had a blatant penalty in the 2nd half. The ref made aweful decisions both ways if you ask me.

This is what annoys me about them the most. Not really fussed how successful they can be on the pitch.

That's my worry if Shitty go up too.

Reading will go straight back up, surely?

nope, could lose a few players now

I think coppel will go too

Reading could keep the majority of their team on the basis that they are not very good, hence relegation.

Shorey will find a club because he's been capped and I suppose you can say he's half decent - West Ham have been mentioned alot. Kitson and a couple of others have admirers but to be honest the type of Premiership clubs that'll come in for Reading players will be struggling this time next year too.

I won't predict the downfall of Reading as I'd hate them to prove me wrong.

Their relegation is great though  :D

Yes, but the foul was on Scholes, who wouldn't have been there if he'd been sent off....

but Scholes first tackle, for which he actually got booked was never a yellow card. He won the ball.

Sure, he may have caught the man, but ffs man up. He got the ball therefore a good tackle.

So if the defender had gone in with a horiffic tackle it would have been ok because Scholes shouldn't have been there?

I know Scholes shouldn't have been on the pitch but the fact is he was. And was fouled. So it should have been a penalty. The ref was crap both ways.

roy hodgson for me is the prem manager of the season.how he kept fulham up is unbelievable.

haha steve bennets rubbish. And he's our representative at euro 2008 too!
oh dear

I saw MOTD and you are completely wrong.

He'll be fine. Unless Ferguson takes over as manager of Switzerland.

Are you mad?

ffs DRS, man up!

Sorry :(

Ferdinand's handball should have been a pen-blatant arm to ball

Wasn't exactly blatant...took me a while to relaise it didn't hit his shoulder

I think he is brilliant. Despite all the pressures involved in keeping them up, he still went about his business in a very dignified and respectful manner.

The so-called greats of the game could learn a lot from him.

Isn't Howard Webb England's Referee at Euro 2008? I think he is.

Why does sven refuse to eat humble pie??










Because he just 8-1

ah balls, so he is. He's actually alright though, so its not too bad.

 8)