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As someone has started a promotion thread, I feel, unfortunately its necessary to have this as well. If we keep the same owner, playing squad minus are promising starlets, we will be in this situation again. On paper, teams in the championship might look worse than us, but they have one thing that we seem to continually lack. Fight. What are our chances of staying up I the question I'm asking...

Following on from the player of the season discussion in the Kodjia thread, I think it'd be good to have an individual thread running until the end of the season to discuss our player of the season contenders. For me, it's between Kodjia, Adomah, Jedinak, Chester, Baker and Hutton. As mentioned elsewhere, it's nice to have several contenders this year instead of not having a single player deserve it like in previous years. Your thoughts please...

Burton v Villa Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=1403918286 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- Name Result Points Score Points Total Points chappy 6 12 18 TheAuthority 9 9 18 rubberman 8 9 17 Daniel 9 6 15 Hornso 7 6 13 Villaphan04 6 6 12 Rodders 7 3 10 Demitri_C 6 3 9 andykeenan 6 3 9 imavillan 6 3 9 Czechlad 7 0 7 Chewie 6 0 6 That cheeky chappy tops the table with 18 points and an impressive 3 correct scores. TheAuthority joins him on 18 with rubberman, Daniel, Hornso, Villaphan04 and finally Rodders all on double digits. It's a bad bad week to have a bad bad week with all those decent scores, so a very poor showing from yours truly propping up the table. I will need to subtract 1 point from Villaphan04 next week because his N/A score for the first game ended up calculating as a draw giving him an extra point. Name Points from Correct Results Points from Correct Scores Total Points GWs Played Avg Points per GW rubberman 185 171 356 38 9.4 Daniel 208 147 355 38 9.3 TheAuthority 186 153 338 38 8.9 chappy 179 156 335 39 8.6 Demitri_C 203 132 335 39 8.6 andykeenan 204 123 327 39 8.4 Villaphan04 200 118 320 39 8.2 Chewie 214 105 319 39 8.2 Rodders 176 132 308 38 8.1 imavillan 158 123 281 36 7.8 Czechlad 155 117 272 30 9.1 Hornso 114 75 189 22 8.6 knoppy1987 102 78 180 21 8.6 villianusa 32 18 50 7 7.1 kurtsimonw 27 18 45 5 9.0 Newry_Villan 7 9 16 1 16.0 Nigel 8 6 14 1 14.0 meme 6 3 9 1 9.0 villalad21 5 3 8 1 8.0 ColonelBlimp 5 0 5 1 5.0 theboyangel 3 0 3 1 3.0 Richard 2 0 2 1 2.0 rubberman jumps back up to the top. TheAuthority moves into third, cheeky chappy moves into 4th which has seen Dem_C drop down 2 places. Villaphan04 moves in front of Chewie. -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Villa 2 1 QPR Villa Barnsley 1 1 Cardiff Draw Brentford 2 1 Leeds Brentford Brighton 3 1 Birmingham Brighton Derby 1 0 Fulham Derby Ipswich 2 1 Wigan Ipswich Preston 1 0 Bristol Preston Rotherham 0 2 Wednesday Wednesday Wolves 2 0 Forest Wolves Reading 1 0 Blackburn Reading Huddersfield 2 1 Norwich Huddersfield Newcastle 4 1 Burton Newcastle Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets with gameweeks coming thick and fast. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl Games are tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday. Gameweek 41 starts on Friday so the thread will be up on Thursday.

Aston Villa have the look of a thoroughbred racehorse that is moving up swiftly and unnoticed on the rails as the tiring horses in front labour and stumble towards the finishing post. Their jockeys are casting worried glances behind them at the fast finishing claret and blue clad horse that had been written off as a no hoper too soon continues to make an increasingly strong finish and move through the field. Do you want to bet against us? A fifth consecutive home win and clean sheet last night brought Villa another point closer to a sixth-place finish. The gap between us and the final play-off place continues to shrink and is now down to single figures with six games remaining. The improbable dream continues to become less unlikely with each win that we achieve. This is the first time since 1983 that we have won 5 consecutive home games without conceding a goal. Kodjia’s winner was his 7th goal in 7 games for us and it takes him to 18 goals for the season. We have taken 21 points from our last 8 games. Our target which looks more realistic each week is now another 6 wins. That would bring us to 75 points and hopefully to sixth position which would give us a crack at the play-offs. Hitting the post and opening the scoring in the first 5 minutes often suggests there will be further goals to come but that was not to be last night and instead our visitors enjoyed more than their fair share of the possession. They looked a decent side last night other than when they reached the final third of the field where they posed us little threat. There always remained a worry that they might create a clear goal scoring opportunity before the end of the game and at times we were defending with our backs to the wall but their clear chance never quite came. Instead we kept another clean sheet and in truth looked the more likely team to score on those occasions that we got forward. At the end of the day Villa go marching on and add QPR to the list of teams who have left Villa Park feeling aggrieved at not coming away with at least a point. We have the means to win games like this one. It is not always pretty to watch but we can see out games and claim the points as we did last night so it is effective and battling performances such as this might just see us make a late run for promotion. My player ratings from a game that left our current promotion odds ranging from 66/1 to 200/1 today are: Sam Johnstone – 6 – Punched away a couple of balls that he might have been better catching but still looked confident and played his part in securing another clean sheet. Got down at his post in the 83rd minute to deny Luongo. Alan Hutton – 6 – Got forward more often than he could do at the weekend and was solid enough at the back. Made a terrific 81st minute run but his cross was misplaced just behind Hogan at the far post. James Chester - 7 – Another solid performance alongside Baker. These two are indispensable and are the central pillars on which our clean sheets are built. Nathan Baker – 7 – Tidy no nonsense defending again last night. Had a 56th minute effort that ran to him from a Lansbury corner deflected wide for a corner. Neil Taylor – 6 – Solid enough at the back but his 22nd minute attempted back pass was too risky and Johnstone did well to reach the ball first and put it out for a corner. Albert Adomah – 6 – Unlucky to see his 3rd minute shot from near the edge of the box strike the base of the post after he had picked up the ball from a Lansbury header. Hit a 51st minute effort well wide of the post having been found by a nice ball from Lansbury. Henri Lansbury – 7 – Had an 84th minute from outside of the box deflected just over the bar and worked ceaselessly. Mile Jedinak - 7 – Another solid display. Leandro Bacuna – 6 – An unexpectedly early return to first team action. He produced positives along with some negatives last night. Hit a low shot on the 39th minute that Smithies gathered at his near post having claimed an assist for the winner. Jordan Amavi – 6 – Not quite as effective as he was on Saturday but he looked good when going forward and gave us another defender when we were under pressure at the back. Was off target with an ambitious effort from wide of the goal when a cross might have been more likely to produce a better result on 81 minutes. Made a nice run on 71 minutes but his cross failed to reach the waiting Kodjia in the middle of the box. Jonathan Kodjia – 7 – MOTM – Hit our winner on the 5th minute. Exchanged passes with Bacuna before running into the area, leaving the defenders in his wake and hitting the ball sweetly past Smithies and into the centre of the net. His goals are vital for us. Substitutes: Scott Hogan – Replaced Adomah on 77 minutes. Nice to see him back so soon after leaving the field with a knock at the weekend. Scott was not on quite long enough to earn a rating. Andre Green – Replaced Amavi on 85 minutes. Made a run into the box on 89 minutes but his effort was blocked and ran out for a corner. Tommy Elphick – Replaced Kodjia on the 91st minute to strengthen our defence in the last couple of minutes but he was not on long enough to gather any rating. Up the Villa! John Lewis

Villa v QPR Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=402449245 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- Name Result Points Score Points Total Points chappy 7 6 13 andykeenan 4 6 10 Demitri_C 7 3 10 imavillan 7 3 10 Czechlad 6 3 9 rubberman 3 3 6 Chewie 5 0 5 Hornso 4 0 4 Daniel 4 0 4 TheAuthority 4 0 4 Rodders 3 0 3 Villaphan04 3 0 3 Great week for chappy, and the starts of a resurgence for andykeenan? Who Dem_C and imavillan join on 10 points. Name Points from Correct Results Points from Correct Scores Total Points GWs Played Avg Points per GW Daniel 199 141 340 37 9.2 rubberman 177 162 339 37 9.2 Demitri_C 197 129 326 38 8.6 TheAuthority 177 144 320 37 8.6 andykeenan 198 120 318 38 8.4 chappy 173 144 317 38 8.3 Chewie 208 105 313 38 8.2 Villaphan04 194 112 308 38 8.1 Rodders 169 129 298 37 8.1 imavillan 152 120 272 35 7.8 Czechlad 148 117 265 29 9.1 knoppy1987 102 78 180 21 8.6 Hornso 107 69 176 21 8.4 villianusa 32 18 50 7 7.1 kurtsimonw 27 18 45 5 9.0 Newry_Villan 7 9 16 1 16.0 Nigel 8 6 14 1 14.0 meme 6 3 9 1 9.0 villalad21 5 3 8 1 8.0 ColonelBlimp 5 0 5 1 5.0 theboyangel 3 0 3 1 3.0 Richard 2 0 2 1 2.0 No massive changes to the overall table, chappy does leapfrog myself. -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Derby 2 0 QPR Derby Barnsley 1 2 Wednesday Wednesday Villa 1 2 Norwich Norwich Brentford 2 1 Bristol Brentford Brighton 3 1 Blackburn Brighton Huddersfield 3 0 Burton Huddersfield Ipswich 1 0 Birmingham Ipswich Newcastle 4 0 Wigan Newcastle Preston 3 2 Forest Preston Rotherham 0 3 Fulham Fulham Wolves 1 0 Cardiff Wolves Reading 1 2 Leeds Leeds Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets with gameweeks coming thick and fast. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl Games aren't until Friday March 31st and Sat 1st April. GW40 games are then straight after on Tuesday 4th April, so thread for GW40 will be up on the Monday.

Villa v Norwich Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

This poll will be open for the first week of the month.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=1630839373 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- Name Result Points Score Points Total Points Rodders 7 6 13 rubberman 4 9 13 Daniel 3 6 9 chappy 4 3 7 Villaphan04 4 3 7 Czechlad 3 3 6 Chewie 4 0 4 imavillan 1 3 4 Demitri_C 4 0 4 andykeenan 3 0 3 TheAuthority 2 0 2 Another low scoring week in terms of actual goals in the Championship, have we seen the back of the crazy 5-2's of earlier in the season? In our league though we see Rodders surprise everyone by topping the table with 13 points, but rubberman matches him. No one else gets double figures and TheAuthority props up the table, a position he will get used to very quickly if he doesn't stop putting an unneeded space between The and Authority in the sheet! Name Points from Correct Results Points from Correct Scores Total Points GWs Played Avg Points per GW Daniel 195 141 336 36 9.3 rubberman 174 159 333 36 9.3 Demitri_C 190 126 316 37 8.5 TheAuthority 173 144 316 36 8.8 andykeenan 194 114 308 37 8.3 Chewie 203 105 308 37 8.3 Villaphan04 191 112 305 37 8.2 chappy 166 138 304 37 8.2 Rodders 166 129 295 36 8.2 imavillan 145 117 262 34 7.7 Czechlad 142 114 256 28 9.1 knoppy1987 102 78 180 21 8.6 Hornso 103 69 172 20 8.6 villianusa 32 18 50 7 7.1 kurtsimonw 27 18 45 5 9.0 Newry_Villan 7 9 16 1 16.0 Nigel 8 6 14 1 14.0 meme 6 3 9 1 9.0 villalad21 5 3 8 1 8.0 ColonelBlimp 5 0 5 1 5.0 theboyangel 3 0 3 1 3.0 Richard 2 0 2 1 2.0 Daniel remains top of the table but with a decent week rubberman closes the gap back down to just 3 points. Dem_C swaps places with TheAuthority. Everything else looks about the same i think. -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Bristol 1 2 Huddersfield Huddersfield Wednesday 2 0 Reading Wednesday Blackburn 1 1 Preston Draw Forest 1 2 Derby Derby Birmingham 1 3 Newcastle Newcastle Burton 1 1 Brentford Draw Cardiff 2 0 Ipswich Cardiff Fulham 4 1 Wolves Fulham Norwich 4 1 Barnsley Norwich QPR 3 0 Rotherham QPR Wigan 1 2 Villa Villa Leeds 1 2 Brighton Brighton Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets with gameweeks coming thick and fast. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl Two games Friday night, rest on Saturday. GW39 games aren't until Friday so thread will be up Weds/Thurs next week.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

Wigan v Villa Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=1489696188 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- Name Result Points Score Points Total Points Villaphan04 7 12 19 TheAuthority 5 12 17 Newry_Villan 7 9 16 Czechlad 6 9 15 imavillan 4 9 13 Hornso 4 9 13 Rodders 4 9 13 Daniel 5 6 11 chappy 4 6 10 rubberman 3 6 9 Chewie 5 3 8 andykeenan 3 3 6 Demitri_C 3 3 6 From last to first for Villaphan04 with a Gameweek that saw the majority hit double digits. New boy Newry_Villan posts a respectable 16 on his first week, will he bother sticking around or do a Villa midfield and go missing? Name Points from Correct Results Points from Correct Scores Total Points GWs Played Avg Points per GW Daniel 192 135 327 35 9.3 rubberman 170 150 320 35 9.1 TheAuthority 171 144 314 35 9.0 Demitri_C 186 126 312 36 8.7 andykeenan 191 114 305 36 8.5 Chewie 199 105 304 36 8.4 Villaphan04 187 109 298 36 8.3 chappy 162 135 297 36 8.3 Rodders 159 123 282 35 8.1 imavillan 144 114 258 33 7.8 Czechlad 139 111 250 27 9.3 knoppy1987 102 78 180 21 8.6 Hornso 103 69 172 20 8.6 villianusa 32 18 50 7 7.1 kurtsimonw 27 18 45 5 9.0 Newry_Villan 7 9 16 1 16.0 Nigel 8 6 14 1 14.0 meme 6 3 9 1 9.0 villalad21 5 3 8 1 8.0 ColonelBlimp 5 0 5 1 5.0 theboyangel 3 0 3 1 3.0 Richard 2 0 2 1 2.0 Daniel remains top, TheAuthority jumps into third causing myself and andykeenan to drop down a place each. Villaphan04 leapfrogs chappy! -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Brighton 3 1 Derby Brighton Villa 1 1 Wednesday Draw Barnsley 2 1 Ipswich Barnsley Brentford 1 2 Huddersfield Huddersfield Burton 0 1 Forest Forest Cardiff 2 0 Birmingham Cardiff Leeds 2 1 QPR Leeds Newcastle 3 1 Fulham Newcastle Norwich 3 1 Blackburn Norwich Preston 1 0 Reading Preston Wigan 2 1 Bristol Wigan Wolves 3 0 Rotherham Wolves Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets at all whilst gameweeks span across like 5 days. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl One game tonight, rest on Saturday. There are a couple of faggoty fixtures midweek that we will ignore so GW38 will be Friday and Saturday games with the thread going up Weds or Thurs next week.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

This turned out to be something other than the result that our visitors had hoped for when arriving at Villa Park yesterday. They lost 2-0 to dent their promotion hopes and had both a player and their manager sent off. We claimed a third successive home win yesterday and by doing so moved into the top half of the table. We were informed “you can only win by cheating” on exiting the ground by a couple of unhappy visiting fans who must have mistaken us for the match officials. We must have been cheating on a regular basis of late given we have now won 4 of our last 5 games! This win has brought Sheffield Wednesday’s advantage over us down to 14 points with 9 games left to play and with a maximum of 27 points achievable for us. They will now begin to look increasingly anxiously over their shoulders at Fulham if not quite far enough down the table to us as the race for the play-off places goes down to the wire. There was not a lot between the teams yesterday and given we had lost Lansbury in the warm-up and Baker on 25 minutes due to injury that was quite an achievement for our injury hit side. Things changed when Sasso deservedly took an early bath after a wild 48th minute lunging challenge in the middle of the field on Hourihane in which he left his foot dangerously high. There was no cause for complaint at his dismissal although Carlos Carvalhal found plenty and his histrionics earned him a place in the stands rather than the place on our bench that he had tried to occupy before he made his increasingly amusing exit. Kodjia put the result beyond any reasonable doubt with his second goal in the 79th minute. We had again dropped too deep and invited 10-man Wednesday to make a late comeback either side of that decisive goal. Nevertheless, our defence stood firm to achieve another welcome clean sheet and we may yet find ourselves finishing surprisingly close to sixth place at the end of this season. My player ratings from a game during which Barry Bannan gave a solid performance before warmly applauding the Holte End at the end of it are: Sam Johnstone – 6 – Not too busy an afternoon for Sam who got down well to hold an 89th minute shot from Hunt having earlier done well to block a 17th minute effort from Winnall following a rare Chester error. James Bree – 6 – Took a few minutes to fully appreciate what his role was on Hutton’s introduction but soon looked comfortable. He looked very promising yesterday. Got on the end of a 27th minute cross from Amavi hitting the side netting at the far post. James Chester - 7 – Inexplicably passed the ball directly to Reach who ran on gratefully before feeding Winnall inside the box whose 17th minute shot was kept out well by the outstretched right leg of Johnstone. Other than that, his defending was impeccable as usual. Nathan Baker – 6 – Substituted on 25 minutes following a clash of heads after being all too readily booked by referee Lee Probert in the 4th minute. Neil Taylor – 7 – Got forward more than he has done in a Villa shirt so far and this was his best performance for us to date. Albert Adomah – 7 – Made a nice run into the box on 51 minutes before finding Hutton who hit the ball wide of the post applying a defender’s finish when a goal had looked on. His good run gave him an assist for our second. Gary Gardner – 5 – Got an unexpected start when Lansbury picked up an injury during the warm-up. Kept busy but was unable to put his stamp on the game in a midfield supplemented by full backs. Conor Hourihane - 7 – Held the makeshift midfield together as well as could be hoped for from his central role. Placed a ball that had run on to him inside of the box just wide of the post on 69 minutes. Claimed an assist for our opener with his well hit cross. Mile Jedinak – 8 – MOTM – Mile had strong claims to being our best midfield player as well as our best defender yesterday. Adapted very well in central defence when we lost Baker mid-way through the first half and looked both comfortable as well as untroubled. Got on the end of a ball into the box from Hourihane on 19 minutes but his header flew over the bar. Won everything in the air and kept Rhodes in check. Narrowly beat two goal hero Kodjia to the MOTM award in my opinion. Jordan Amavi – 6 – For me Jordan possesses the ability to play further up front than in his more familiar full or wing back roles but he does not quite seem to appreciate that himself at the moment. Hunt went down very easily inside the box claiming a penalty having felt Amavi’s arm on his shoulder but fortunately the referee gave the decision our way. Did a decent job. Jonathan Kodjia – 8 – Scored the two goals that gave us our welcome win and held the ball up well at times. Tried to turn in a bouncing ball from wide of the goal but his effort was gathered by Westwood on the 17th minute. Failed to quite get a touch to the ball on the 65th minute when a shooting opportunity would have been there for the taking had he been able to do so as had also been the case some minutes earlier. Jonathan made no mistake on the 34th minute when Hourihane played a one-two with Bree from a corner before hitting a pinpoint cross that Johnathan climbed above Hunt and headed sweetly past Westwood into the net to finish a move that came from the training ground at either Barnsley or Bodymoor Heath. Scored his second after Adomah had found him nicely following a good run into the box on 79 minutes. Jonathan took the ball past Westwood and hit the ball into the net for his 15th goal of the season job done. Substitutes: Alan Hutton – 7 – Surprisingly Alan was the player chosen to replace Baker on 25 minutes rather than central defender Elphick. Gave a very solid performance. Alan spent a fair bit of time waving that he was free for a pass that might give him a goal-scoring opportunity but having had such an opportunity and having screwed the ball wide on 51 minutes it was perhaps not unsurprising that players mostly looked for other options. Did very well in an unfamiliar role yesterday and could yet land another contract for next season given his present form, determination and work rate. Tommy Elphick – Replaced Adomah on 82 minutes and was not on long enough to earn a rating. Keinan Davis – Replaced match-winner Kodjia on the 86th minute so he was also not on long enough to gather a rating. Up the Villa! John Lewis

Villa v Sheff W Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=247594838 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- Name Result Points Score Points Total Points Rodders 7 12 19 chappy 7 9 16 Daniel 6 3 9 Demitri_C 6 3 9 rubberman 5 3 8 TheAuthority 5 3 8 Hornso 3 3 6 imavillan 5 0 5 Chewie 4 0 4 andykeenan 3 0 3 Czechlad 2 0 2 Villaphan04 2 0 2 Name Result Points Score Points Total Points Hornso 8 9 17 TheAuthority 8 9 17 Daniel 8 6 14 andykeenan 7 6 13 chappy 7 6 13 Chewie 9 3 12 rubberman 6 6 12 Rodders 7 3 10 Demitri_C 7 3 10 Czechlad 6 3 9 imavillan 5 3 8 Villaphan04 5 3 8 Name Points from Correct Results Points from Correct Scores Total Points GWs Played Avg Points per GW Daniel 187 129 316 34 9.3 rubberman 167 144 311 34 9.1 Demitri_C 183 123 306 35 8.7 andykeenan 188 111 299 35 8.5 TheAuthority 166 132 297 34 8.7 Chewie 194 102 296 35 8.5 chappy 158 129 287 35 8.2 Villaphan04 180 97 279 35 8.0 Rodders 155 114 269 34 7.9 imavillan 140 105 245 32 7.7 Czechlad 133 102 235 26 9.0 knoppy1987 102 78 180 21 8.6 Hornso 99 60 159 19 8.4 villianusa 32 18 50 7 7.1 kurtsimonw 27 18 45 5 9.0 Nigel 8 6 14 1 14.0 meme 6 3 9 1 9.0 villalad21 5 3 8 1 8.0 ColonelBlimp 5 0 5 1 5.0 theboyangel 3 0 3 1 3.0 Richard 2 0 2 1 2.0 -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Birmingham 2 1 Wigan Birmingham Blackburn 1 1 Cardiff Draw Bristol 2 3 Norwich Norwich Derby 2 0 Preston Derby Fulham 1 2 Leeds Leeds Huddersfield 3 1 Villa Huddersfield Ipswich 1 1 Wolves Draw Forest 2 2 Brentford Draw QPR 1 0 Barnsley QPR Rotherham 0 4 Brighton Brighton Wednesday 3 1 Burton Wednesday Reading 1 3 Newcastle Newcastle Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets at all whilst gameweeks span across like 5 days. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl All games tomorrow. GW36 starts Friday with thread going up Weds or Thurs.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

Huddersfield v Villa Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.

Welcome to the Championship 2016/17 VT prediction league, you can join in at any time during the tournament but please make sure you follow the instructions carefully. However, if you are just thinking about just playing for a single week, or are going to lose interest after a couple of weeks, then do us all a time saving favour and don't bother playing. -- Making a Prediction -- Head on over to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJHBdYRs_tzHsVDF1lpSoNIvr6E0nthT6nE47V_UQ44/edit#gid=592384432 Make sure you are selecting the right sheet for the Gameweek (inactive sheets will be fully locked) Find the first 'blank' entry with all scores set as '0-0' and 'ENTER YOUR NAME HERE' as the name Green Cells are for you to enter stuff into, all other cells are not! Fill in your predicted scores for each game When entering your name, make sure it is EXACTLY the same as your VT name and that it doesn't have any erroneous spaces and is CaSe SeNsEtIvE Incorrectly entered names, even if it is just a space at the start or a capital letter, will result in tracking errors throughout the tournament Once your prediction is complete, copy the cells within the dotted line and post them into this VT thread If you do not post the results correctly into this thread then your prediction will be ignored Thread banter is encouraged! Gameweek already started? No problem you can still play, just put the score for the games you have missed as N/A, e.g Fulham N/A - N/A Villa -- When will prediction threads be posted up? -- Generally I will try and post threads on Tuesday or Wednesday of each week, but this may slip at times. Just keep an eye on the forum and it'll be there before the games start. Gameweek matches will follow those as laid out on the BBC Championship fixtures page, let me know if I miss something due to a game being moved or postponed etc. -- Previous Gameweek Results -- To be calculated and included in next game week. -- My (Chewie's) Prediction for this Gameweek -- Name Home Team Away Team Guess Birmingham 1 2 Leeds Leeds Blackburn 2 1 Wigan Blackburn Bristol 3 1 Burton Bristol Derby 2 0 Barnsley Derby Fulham 3 0 Preston Fulham Ipswich 1 0 Brentford Ipswich Forest 2 0 Brighton Forest QPR 1 1 Cardiff Draw Reading 2 1 Wolves Reading Rotherham 1 2 Villa Villa Wednesday 3 2 Norwich Wednesday Huddersfield 2 4 Newcastle Newcastle Chewie When pasting your prediction table you might want to hit enter a couple of times before you post your prediction in. The editor makes life difficult to create a new line after you paste the table in if you haven't 'entered' a couple of times first. -- Bets -- In each Gameweek I will aim to select two predictions of my choosing, one for correct results and one for Both Teams to score (Yes/No). I shall then place a £1 accumulator on each of those bets, should they win I will give the predictor 20% of the winnings to be paid via Paypal. Likely to be no bets at all whilst gameweeks span across like 5 days. -- Good Luck -- Good luck to everyone for the week, and please don't be a bitch and mess with other people's predictions in the Google Sheet, there's a good girl Games start Friday through to Saturday. Next gameweek is on Tuesday.

Rotherham v Villa Please do not mention streams or streaming in this thread. Please note that there is no distinction between legal or illegal, video or audio. If you aren't sure, it doesn't go in this thread. You will receive warning points if you ignore this.

Your ratings and reactions please. Keep it respectful even if you know everyone else is wrong. The players' names will be added to the poll when a mod gets chance.