Leaving it Late....

I'm not sure exactly whats going on at the other end of the table but down where we are its all getting a bit exciting. And just to prove that its never too late to score that vital goal, last weekend saw several late goals and everything altered in the last 10 minutes.

The Addicks are making a habit of scoring late goals and it continued on Saturday. So first up over at the Valley the telegraph tells us those clapper things were obviously a good investment by Pards, "It was unclear exactly why Phil Walton gave the 86th-minute penalty. Hermann Hreidarsson fell in the penalty area with just four minutes remaining under a challenge from Fitz Hall, who then brought down Marcus Bent. Almost certainly, it was the second challenge that did for referee Peter Walton, though the initial tackle affected the decibel counting."

Meanwhile up at St James Park, Citys "Emile Mpenza held his ( presumably nerve ) when he swept the ball past Shay Given in the 80th minute after giving Oguchi Onyewu the slip to apply a finishing touch to a slick counter-attack after one of countless, witless Newcastle forays spearheaded by out-of-sorts Obafemi Martins foundered on the rock-solid defence of Sylvain Distin and Richard Dunne." Witless, now that's one objective they never applied to us back in the Dark Ages but then obviously it helps being rock solid when your defenders can pronounce each others name. With players called Oguchi and Obafemi no wonder Newcastle are having a nightmare.

Its all pretty naff having your stadium sponsored - ours would probably be called the Llanera - ( just going down the Llanera, love, back about half 6 - the What?) just to get a few extra bob, but at least up at the Reebok they did us a favour on Saturday. Sheffield "held out until the 80th minute, thanks to a series of spectacular saves by man-of-the-match Paddy Kenny. In the end he was beaten by Kevin Davies' 20-yard drive into the bottom corner." But Warnock is still apparently smiling "It may be misleading, but I'm enjoying every minute. I'm not going to give up when it's taken all this time to get here." Enjoying himself so much that without top scorer Rob Hulse he has had to resort to a defensive 4-4-1-1 formation. Expect more of the same come April 21st! But with 7 ( make that 8 ) consecutive away defeats who can blame him!

Unfortunately for the addicks we can't say the same about pathetic Everton who allowed a late equaliser at Villa Park - "it was not until seven minutes from time that Villa gained their reward for a second-half bombardment of the Everton goal that was in complete contrast to what had happened in the first half. Gabriel Agbonlahor's seventh goal of his first full season in the Premiership saved Villa from an uncomfortable few days before the hectic Easter programme." Now Gabriel, thats a good old English name. Didn't he score against us back in September ( yes, he did).