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  • Writer's pictureElliot Burrow

Burrows Babblings - Part 5, Ole's struggling, Fylde victorious over Bournville and jumps round-up.

Updated: Feb 1, 2023

Things aren't looking bright for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Manchester United fans for that matter, but there was still plenty of performances from last week that were, and they will all be getting mentioned in this blog at some point.


Manchester United are the team for the in-depth focus this week, and rightly so after that 5-0 defeat against Liverpool at home, I pick out some stand-out performers from the jumps racing results, and Fylde picked up an important win over Bournville to move up to 4th in the league.


Also at the end I've come up with a little quiz, only five questions of course but for any of you lot that read the posts want to play along then feel free to have a go at answering them, the answers will be in the next part of this blog of course.


For now though, let's round-up all things football first shall we?


Premier League round-up


Chelsea are still top of the Premier League, and they kept it in style with a dominant 7-0 win over struggling Norwich.


Mason Mount scored a hat-trick to send them on their way, and like I've said previously, they look more and more like they are the real deal each time they play, they only beat Norwich though who already look destined for a trip back to the Championship.


Leeds fought back from 1-0 to rescue a well deserved one point against Wolves, Hwang Hee-Chan scoring for the visitors, before Rodrigo slotted home a stoppage time penalty after Nelson Semedo had fouled Joe Gelhardt in the penalty area.


Crystal Palace drew 1-1 with Newcastle and Watford shocked Everton with a 5-2 win at Goodison Park, former Everton man from last season Josh King scoring a hat-trick to give Claudio Ranieri a first win as Watford boss.


Arsenal managed to beat Aston Villa 3-1 on the Friday night football as well, while back on the Saturday action, Southampton and Burnley drew and Manchester City put four past Brighton to move up to 2nd in the table.


Their city rivals had another bad day at the office on Sunday to mount more pressure on Ole, a 5 nil defeat at home to Liverpool putting itself alongside the 6-1 drumming by Manchester City all those years ago but we'll look at that a bit more in depth later.


West Ham picked up another big three points at home against Tottenham, and Leicester also put in a good performance to beat Brentford 2-1.


Ole's under pressure - Manchester United under the microscope


A problem which has just appeared to get bigger and bigger as the season as progressed, a Manchester United legend who's struggling to deliver as a manager at the club, and a whole host of fans who want him gone, it's been a rough spell in charge for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.


His win percentage at the club is 54.9% and I don't always usually go on about statistics but when you compare it to other managers that have been at the club since Sir Alex Ferguson, he's second on the list behind Jose Mourinho who had a 58.3% percentage.


The difference of course here is that Solskjaer is working with a far stronger squad than the one that Mourinho worked with.


Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane are three players who came in through the summer, and that people across the world of football are familiar with, mix that with Bruno Fernandes, Paul Pogba, Harry Maguire and Marcus Rashford and you have a squad that should be very dangerous indeed.


The warning signs before Liverpool have already been there though this season, the 1-1 draw with Everton, the 1-0 loss to Aston Villa, and the fact they were trailing to Atlanta 2-0 last week showed that there was problems.


They did come back to give them credit, but the fans have already started to make their minds up and reckon that he can't do much more as a manager at the club.


He started off really well though in that caretaking season, winning 14 out of the 19 games he was in charge of for that 2018/19 campaign, and becoming the first Manchester United manager since Sir Matt Busby in 1946 to win his first five league games in charge.


There's been plenty of positives to his time in charge, but this seems to be pivotal point in his tenure at the club, and if results don't improve then there's only one way this whole situation goes.


The best way of looking at United this season I think is that they have the squad there to compete, it's just that they either need time to get used to each other, which could mean Solskjaer is sacked in the process, or it's that the Manchester United fans are right and a a managerial change may be needed again.


Skelton's superstars - A good weekend at Cheltenham and Aintree for the Skelton brothers


Onto horse racing now, and we had a brilliant weekend with some high quality performances.


Things got going on Friday at Cheltenham, with Third Time Lucki putting in the performance of the day to saunter home in the Class 2 Novices' Chase to win by eight lengths without breaking a sweat.


Dan and Harry Skelton had always felt confident about this horse from his bumper days, and despite not reaching the heights they thought he'd reach last season, being over raced maybe being a possibility, he soared over the larger obstacles around Cheltenham with ease and confirmed himself as a horse to watch for the season.


We don't know if that race had any form to it really but on bare evidence it was a smart display.


Before Midnight and I Like To Move It put in good displays on Saturday to give Sam Twiston-Davies a double, before Allmankind stole the show on Sunday at Aintree.


Sent off the 9/4 favourite, having to carry top weight of 11st 10lbs, Allmankind was aiming to do something both Kauto Star and the horse the race is now named after Monet's Garden have done before and win with top weight.


Now in his more settled racing style, he still led from start to finish, and when it looked like Midnight Shadow was ranging up with Itchy Feet on the turn in to have a go and try and go past him, Harry Skelton kicked him on again and galloped his heart to the line to rack up Grade 2 success.


This week we have Wetherby's Charlie Hall meeting over two days and previews will be out for them as well later on, where hopefully we'll see some more good winter horses, with Cyrname being an early entry for Saturday.


Fylde thrash the 'Choccies'


There's good performances, and then there's superb performances, and that's exactly what Fylde produced on Saturday to beat Bournville.


From start to finish they looked on their game, and it was all done and dusted at half-time when they went in with a 40 - 0 lead.


It was nice to see Sam Fisher make his first team debut for the club, alongside seeing David Fairbrother returning to the squad after missing the last six weeks of action through injury.


A final score line of 73 - 7 I think was a fair reflection of how the game went, and the team can now take that into their away trips against Blaydon and Sheffield before returning back to The Woodlands on the 20th November for a bumper clash against Hull Ionians who currently sit 2nd in the table.


Five quick questions


A new bit to round off the blog and keep things interesting, five quick questions from a host of sports for you to have a go at...


  1. Which former Super League winning coach has been announced as the new Featherstone Rovers Head Coach?

  2. Who has been standing in as England Women's captain while regular skipper Steph Houghton is out injured?

  3. Name the jockey who was crowned Champion Flat Jockey was the 2020/21 season.

  4. How many times have current Premiership rugby union side Leicester Tigers won the Championship?

  5. Who did Afghanistan beat by 120 runs at the T20 cricket World Cup?

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