Weekend Roundup 1/17 - 1/18

Queen of the South - QoS traveled to Ross County looking for their first win in any competition in almost 3 months which happened at Ross County. The first half was what Football Manager would call "a bore draw" with only a couple of chances amounting no nothing from each side. The second half was more of the same until County got a lucky break in the 73rd minute when a sliding shot made it past Robinson to give Ross the 1-0 lead. The Doonhamers threatened after that but were unable to break through and were unlucky to come away with the loss. Queens has now slipped into the relegation playoff spot, 1 point from safety and 14 points from the lofty heights we resided in at the quarter-season mark. With 17 games left this season is now about avoiding relegation instead of challenging for promotion.

Blackburn Rovers - Blackburn hosted the jailbirds from Newcastle this weekend. Sam Allardyce saved United from relegation last year and we're hoping he can do the same thing for Rovers this year. The first half was 45 minutes of terrible soccer from both sides. Watching the game at the British Bulldog with my good fiend and Newcastle fan Greenie he compared the game to watching an electronic football game. The players just all got on the field and ran in random directions.

After enduring the first half Big Sam must have had words with Blackburn as they came out in the second half much more focused on playing actual soccer. Newcastle wasn't, and the difference paid off. First McCarthy was taken down in the box for a PK (heavily embellished by Benni), then Pedersen set up Roberts off a Robinson free kick to put Blackburn up 2-0. Newcastle crumbled at that point with Nicky Butt picking up a second card and United looking more light fighting each other instead of Rovers. The Pedersen-Roberts combo combined a second time to finish Newcastle off and send the fans home with a 3-0 win. The victory allowed Blackburn to claw themselves out of the relegation zone on goal differential but with only 6 points separating 9th from 20th its still a long road to safety.

CD Tenerife - After a week where CDT's leading scorer Nino was the subject of a 1.4 million euro transfer offer from Barnsley that he turned down Tenerife had to wonder if Nino would be unsettled by the attention. He answered the question with a resounding no, scoring after just 9 minutes and again in injury time to bookend the 4-1 victory by CDT. Girona never threatened int his game and the scoreline could have easily been worse for them. With the win Tenerife goes up to 3rd in the table, the last promotion spot, and only 1 point off the top of the table. With only 1 game until the midway point Tenerife have put themselves in the race for the second half of the season.