Plymouth Argyle have moved back into a play-off spot in the Championship after beating QPR 2 – 1 at Home Park on Boxing day. Despite Plymouth having much of the play in the first half, QPR were ahead at the half time break. Martin Rowlands’ pass scythed it’s way through to Argyle defence and Gareth Ainsworth converted from close range after 20 minutes of play. Provider of Rangers’ goal Rowlands turned into villain handling the ball in the penalty area. Sylvan Ebanks-Blake duly converted the spot kick just after the half time break. The Argyle faithful had to wait until the death for the winner and it was Ebanks-Blake again; latching onto Peter Halmosi’s inswinging corner to fire home from six yards to give the home team the lead with seconds left on the clock. I think that QPR lost their discipline and that cost them the game with seven of their players being yellow carded included ex Plymouth player Akos Buzsaky. QPR are back in the drop zone and Argyle are back in a play-off place. Let’s hope that Argyle find themselves in the top six at the end of the season, automatic promotion is unlikely, but it’d be nice to see Argyle make a trip to Wembley in May. It’s just a shame that I won’t be here to see it in person as I will probably be in the US!
Liverpool couldn’t repeat their 6 – 0 hammering of Derby on Boxing day but still came away with all three points beating the home team 2 – 1. Fernando Torres individual effort beating two defenders to fire home from 12 yards out gave the Reds the lead after 12 minutes. Liverpool could have been two or three goals up by half time but failed to take their chances. Liverpool paid for their sloppy finishing midway through the second half, James McEveley latched onto Eddie Lewis’ direct free kick after Xabi Alonso’s handball firing home from an almost impossible angle. Liverpool missed even more simple chances before Steven Gerrard’s shot crashed against the crossbar. With time running out; Fernando Torres’ shot was parried by Derby keeper Lewis Price and Gerrard was on hand to tap home the spilled shot in the 90th minute. Liverpool are back into the top four moving ahead of Manchester City after City could only manage a draw with Aston Villa. Liverpool face Manchester City at the City Of Manchester Stadium on Sunday, but will still have a game in hand over all the teams around them. So if Liverpool win and Chelsea lose or draw against Newcastle on Saturday, the Reds will find themselves in third place come Sunday afternoon.
Quick round-up of my personal life; I have been having a bit of a Star Trek fest over the last few days. I bought Star Trek 1 – 8 on DVD as a Christmas present to myself to complete my collection, £42 for all eight movies, a pretty good deal I would say. I would rather have been spending time with Erin, but with everything that has happened that’s not really possible right now, but it doesn’t stop me missing her like crazy! Work has been pretty rubbish in general, Alternation was shit, even after all the promotion I have put in over the Christmas period there was less people than ever. My only motive for doing it now is the money, I get no enjoyment out of it whatsoever. The gigs on Saturday and Sunday were OK, the usual assholes were in place criticising my sound without knowing what the fuck they’re talking about. I’ve got to the point now where I don’t give a damn any more, I’m just biding my time now until my trip to the US of A. I’m fed up of having a system that only has three speakers out of eight working and they aren’t going to last long being hammered constantly, 12Kw of amps powering 2Kw (4Kw program power) of speakers really doesn’t work. I’m glad that that I am leaving as the owners really don’t seem to understand the simple principle that 3400w into one 800w speaker isn’t good for the speaker or amp for that matter.