A bumper second piece of my new blog, this week there's plenty to cover from the weekend gone by and also loads to look forward to as we can now finally say we are in touching distance of the jumps season starting for real at Chepstow this Friday.
Apart from the horse racing I'll be diving into a Premier League early season round-up with the dreaded international break taking place this week, and also having another in-depth look at another side in the division in Norwich and why they are struggling to compete with the other clubs.
Fylde rugby union get their usual mention with a look at their result against Rotherham, rugby league reaches it's climax with the Grand Final on Saturday night and it's going to be knock-out this weekend as Tyson Fury takes on Deontay Wilder in their 3rd fight.
Joint player of the matches? Not for me personally...
Liverpool and Manchester City played out a thriller on Sunday, but I can't help but focus some of my attention away from the Salah wonder goal and put it towards the joint player of the match award that was handed out to Salah and Foden.
Don't get me wrong, they were both excellent, but I remember once getting a joint award at a rugby league presentation night and it just takes the edge off things a little.
Anyways, the game lived up to it's pre-match hype and I did say in my predictions earlier on in the season that it would be a close competition for the title this season.
Manchester United weren't nowhere near their best against Everton, but I'm sure they wouldn't be entirely disappointed with a point, especially after they were beaten by Aston Villa the week before.
Burnley and Norwich played out a draw and I was surprised to hear it mentioned on Match of the Day afterwards that it was the first draw between the sides in the top flight, I would've expected a few more that's for sure.
More on Norwich later though, meanwhile Wolves and Leeds picked up vital wins to steer them away from the relegation zone, beating Newcastle and Watford respectively, Watford have also sacked their manager Xisco Munoz after less than 10 months in charge, and replaced him with the loveable Claudio Ranieri.
Brentford continued their good form with a win over West Ham, Nuno got his Spurs job back on track with a 2-1 victory over Aston Villa and Crystal Palace battled back from 2-0 against Leicester to rescue a point in what could be a vital one as we enter into a very busy part of the season.
Norwich, a recipe for disaster
Nothing against Norwich and Daniel Farke but they just can't get it right in the Premier League can they?
They are like a yo-yo, they just seem to go up and down and I know they aren't the only team who can't consolidate themselves in the league, but I feel it's only fair to focus on the team which is still in the Premier League for now.
Delia Smith is a brilliant cook, but even she can't put the right ingredients back into the club, and despite sitting rock bottom of the league, they do have some players who I think could be capable of bigger clubs.
Max Aarons, Todd Cantwell and Billy Gilmour, who is on-loan at Norwich from his parent club Chelsea, are all young players who are going to have good futures, but they know at one point or another that they are going to have to leave the 'Canaries'.
Teemu Pukki does the job for the side, but he's nothing compared to Christ Sutton who scored 25 goals for Norwich in the 1993/1994 season where they finished 12th under John Deehan and Mike Walker.
He's also no Ivan Toney, who's hit the ground running with Brentford, and I think unless they can work miracles in the January transfer window it's back down to the Championship for them.
Under starters orders
Onto the horse racing now, and some worrying news broke Monday evening about Grade 1 winning jump jockey Matt Griffiths who has been seriously injured in a fatal car accident.
Griffiths rode Dashel Drasher to victory around Ascot back in February and hopefully he can make a speedy recovery to link back up with his partner again at some point.
The Arc de Triomphe produced an 80/1 winner on Sunday afternoon, I do still keep a close eye on the flat as well you know!
Torquator Tasso won it for Germany, with Tarnawa in second for the Dermot Weld team and Hurricane Lane finishing with a late rattle to snatch third from his stablemate Adayar.
Back to the jumps though, and the previews for Chepstow will be out once the declarations have been made in what promises to be a great weekend of action from the Welsh track.
I have to admit the action from the last week will be nothing compared to that, but I did still manage to pick up on a few decent races and horses to keep an eye out for.
Nuts Well won a very competitive small field chase up at his beloved Kelso and still showed that he's still as good as ever, and also on Sunday we had a great novices' chase contest between Milkwood and Favoir who are both promising prospects.
Milkwood missed one too many in the home straight, and it seemed to knock the stuffing out of him and he's one to watch next time out because the experience over the larger obstacles would've done him a world of good.
Favoir was a horse over hurdles who always had potential for Dan Skelton, but he made hard work of it a lot of the time, especially when he almost got beat at Newbury at odds of 1/7.
He went through the race smoothly and was produced to lead at the second last by Bridget Andrews before going on to win by two and a half lengths.
On Monday there was a good novices' hurdle clash at Stratford between Too Friendly and Oceanline, with the Skelton horse Too Friendly getting the better of Alan King's horse.
These two should win a few more races this winter and both look like two to follow in the novice company.
Another horse to look out for his Impulsive One who won easily at Huntingdon on Tuesday for Daryl Jacob and Nicky Henderson and has plenty more to offer yet over hurdles.
'Get them onside'
Grand Final time this weekend, and it's St Helens versus Catalans as the curtain comes down on another exhilarating season.
I won't preview the game too much itself as you already know it has the potential to be an epic with young player of the year in Jack Welsby going up against the Man of Steel winner in Sam Tomkins in a fascinating clash.
It's great to see Liam Moore down to referee it after working hard all season and it should be a great game to watch on Saturday night.
Back to the Woodlands for Fylde
First of all on Saturday though I have a trip to the Woodlands to make to watch Fylde rugby union take on Wharfedale.
A defeat on the road to Rotherham last week ended their perfect start, but I'm sure they can respond and put that behind them and get back on track.
It'll be interesting to see how they fare, and it'll be great to get back to the ground again and watch some more brilliant rugby union, and also see if anyone can match Tom Carleton for his blistering pace!
Boxed up
I'll end the piece with a look towards the boxing but I'll keep it simple.
I think Fury has the edge over Wilder now after the last fight, but Wilder is still the most powerful puncher in the whole division, and if he detonates one of those big right hands Fury could once again be on the canvas struggling to beat the count.
The last fight showed though that Fury was faster and way more slicker than Wilder, and he would've no doubt done to Anthony Joshua what Usyk did to him but we'll save that for another time, and for now that's the end of this piece, and I'll see you all back in part three next week!
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