Premier League clockwatch – as it happened | Nick Miller (2024)

That would appear to be your lot. If you're that way inclined, you can follow Hull v Stoke here, while all the match reports from today's games will appear on our football page, as if by magic. Thanks for reading.

Cardiff 1-0 West Brom, Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace, Everton 4-1 Fulham, Newcastle 1-1 Southampton, West Ham 0-0 Sunderland.

The Real Madrid game is over too - a 2-2 draw with Osasuna after Sergio Ramos was sent off for being a silly billy in the first half.

Cardiff 1-0 West Brom, Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace, Everton 4-1 Fulham, West Ham 0-0 Sunderland. We're just waiting on that scrap to die down at Newcastle now.

Disgraceful/hugely amusing scenes at Newcastle, as a right old ruckus breaks out on the touchline between the two bences. The bloodied Mike Jones has a job on to calm that lot down.

And that's a nice little bow popped on Everton's win over Fulham, as Kevin Mirallas ends things at Goodison with something of a flourish.

Chelsea go close after some terrific goalkeeping by the underrated Julian Speroni keeps both Ramires and Demba Ba out.

Claret has appeared at St James's Park after a rogue Mousa Sissoko arm catches referee Mike Jones right in his grill. Blood is now wazzing out of his face, but it was an accident, apparently.

Serge Nuffler writes in about Dimi Berba's reading matter:

Would B know that that paper is now the named the International New York Times? Would he care? Would he still choose port to go with such a misnamed paper? Or perhaps opt for a quiche?

Well hot damn - Gareth Barry has done a goal for Everton, sealing the points for Roberto Martinez's side against Fulham. Unless something extraordinary yet perfectly plausible like scoring two goals in the remaining time occurs.

Very much sounds like Crystal Palace are the better team at Stamford Bridge, with the Chelsea fans starting to voice their discontent. It's still 2-1 there, but Jose's boys seem keen to prove Jose Mourinho's point after he said they might not win anything this season.

Ooof - Pepe has equalised for Real Madrid against Osasuna.

Palace come uber-close to equalising with life-sized Energiser bunny Stuart O'Keefe having a fine effort saved well by Petr Cech.

By golly Seamus Coleman is a hugely impressive player, and he has put Everton back into the lead after thjat brief interlude when they were drawing with Fulham.

Stand by and wait for a tsunami of goals - Carlton Cole has come on for his big brother Joe for West Ham.

JV muses:

I enjoy the occasional quiche, is there something effeminate about that? If so, anything I can do to offset this?

Not at all sir. And even if there was, embrace it.

Oi vey - Loic Remy muffs a golden chance to put Newcastle back in front, after Paolo Gazzaniga has an attack of the Boruc by damn near handing the opposition a goal.

And Allan Castle e-mails in with his rapid reaction to that one:

Really novel dive by Kacaniklic, not sure I've ever seen that technique. Jumped, spinning, backwards into Gareth Barry.

Innovation is always welcome.

And that one had been coming. Another hilariously languid stroke in from 12 yards by Dimitar Berbatov, who you imagine was roused from a large burgundy leather armchair, putting down his copy of the International Herald Tribune and glass of port to take the penalty. Gareth Barry brought down Kacaniklic for the penner, apparently.

Bad news for Everton - Gerard Deulofeu has gone off after doing a bad thing to his hamstring. Which sounds like the worst rap of all time.

Oh well this is just silly now - I'm definitely taking the credit for this glut of goals. Jay Rodriguez puts Southampton level at St James's, finishing off a rapid counter-attack, and while the home defence claims offside, the goal doth stand.

Ah, we willed that one. Peter Whittingham has given Cardiff the lead with a header, and it sounds like he hurt himself in the process.

Wait - Steven Davis has just hit the post for Southampton at Newcastle.

Sounds like Fulham are getting back into the game at Everton. That's about the most interesting thing to report about the Premier League games in the last few minutes.

Sky's chap at the Nottingham Forest v Ipswich game solemnly reports that Billy Davies has been getting 'irritable'. Thanks for clearing that one up, big horse.

Ooof - Alex Kacaniklic has missed quite the sitter for Fulham at Everton, flunking a relatively simple rebound. Ye gads.

Paul Morris has taken all our advice on board...and it completely ignored it:

Thanks for your and Dan Lucas' advice. I think I am going to go with a mushroom risotto. Although I do admire the brass neck of your friend with the toastie. That might be the back-up plan if the risotto goes to pot.

That's gratitude for you.

Mauricio Pochettino has been busy:

The dancers at half time in the Everton game are all wearing stewards' coats.

Absolutely no idea.

James Wood on the old e-mail rounds of the the '12 Days...' nicely with 'Alan Pardew in a pear tree.'

That'll do for now.

Here's how Sergio Ramos earned that red card. Harsh? Well, that just wouldn't be as fun, so...

Michael Owen's ma has been providing some construtive feedback for his commentary performance in the City v Arsenal game:

In defence of Wenger, from Paul Ewart:

I've no dog in this fight but is Wenger's post-match response really so 'interesting'? Could easily have finished 6-6 has a couple of key decisions gone Arsenal's way.

One quite a few have suggested is for the '12 Days...' is 'Nine false nines.'

Cardiff 0-0 West Brom, Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace, Everton 1-0 Fulham, Newcastle 1-0 Southampton, West Ham 0-0 Sunderland.

If you want to follow that game, here's the match centre.

That was Ramos' 18th red card of his career - have an appreciation of the previous 17.

Good lord - more from that Real Madrid game, and Sergio Ramos has somehow contrived to get two yellow cards and has been sent off, but now it's 2-1 as Isco pulls one back.

Holy hell - away from the Premier League, Osasuna are 2-0 up over Real Madrid.

See Also

Did Golden Bachelor Couple Gerry Turner and Theresa Nist Split?

According to assorted correspondents, Sunderland have been the better team against West Ham, which admittedly does have more than a whiff of a two bald men/comb scrap.

The romantic Dan Lucas e-mails from the other side of this desk, about the second date culinary question:

Get one of those Tesco shake & bake garlic roast chicken things. Put a couple of breasts (chicken) in there, shake it up. Pre-heat oven to 220 or so, heat up the oil. Put chicken in the tray, add a bayleaf, cover with foil and roast for 20mins. Meanwhile boil up some baby new potatoes and green beans, drain when soft, add mountains of butter with a little bit of salt and put the lid on for 10-15mins. Serve using the butter juice as a sauce. Hope my own girlfriend doesn't read this and realise how little effort I put into cooking dinner.

Whichever sourcery has got Chamakh scoring clearly hasn't spread to the rest of the Palace team, as they're now behind after Ramires spanked one in from the edge of the penalty area.

From Ava Ttoir:

8 official cautions

And again:

7 blooted belters

Gary Naylor:

Five Yellow Cards...

Kevin Moody:

How about '3 mis numbered right backs'?

And Darren Bell:

2 Andy Gorams?

Interesting point of view from Arsene Wenger on the early game:

Well spank my botty and call me Candy. Marouane Chamakh's reinvention as a goal machine continues apace, as he brings Palace level with a neat left-footed finish at Stamford Bridge. Who saw that coming?

Yoan Gouffran gives Newcastle the lead and it sounded like a mistake by Joos Hoiveld, but it was almost impossible to tell since he seems to be speaking a language all of his own.

A 12 Days Of Football Christmas suggestion from Mark Schmidt:

6 whinging wingers?

JV weighs in on the second date cooking question:

Make her shrimp with pasta. Super easy to cook but still seems classy. Get some white wine flowing and let the rest take care of itself!

West Ham have had a goal chalked off, after Guy Demel is penalised for a push on someone or other - some debate as to whether it was on Fabio Borini or Lee Cattermole.

Another potential goal-fest gets underway as Leon 'Russell' Osman pops the bubble that Fulham might have blown for themselves after that win over Villa last week.

Pedant Annie clarifies:

Hi Nick, you missed off my smiley face which was to show that I wasn't being perfectly serious. Sorry if I upset you. Feeling miffed that I have to work on a Saturday afternoon! Keep up the good work - reading the MBM keeps me going through this tedium. Cheers.

You didn't upset me Annie. I am contractually obliged to love all our readers.

The first Premier League goal of the 3pms goes in, as Willian fires a shot against the post, and Torres is there to mop up and pop the rebound into the net. Despite that Jerome nutmeg, it could be a long old afternoon for Palace.

Paul Morris has a life/love request:

I was wondering if you could help me out. I am going on a second date with a woman tomorrow night. On our first date, perhaps brash at how well the date was going, I casually mentioned that I would cook her dinner at my place. The only thing was the Vietnamese food at we had at the restaurant on our first date was nearly spectacular. Do you have any suggestions for a decent meal that won't seem like too far of a step-down from a creamy coconut chicken curry? I'd like the date to be more Man City vs. Arsenal than West Ham vs. Sunderland.

Should've gone to Nandos on the first date. Dampen expectations.

Advice: keep it simple but classic, don't over-stretch yourself, and don't do as a friend of mine did and make a cheese toastie for a young lady. Actually, this friend and the young lady did make sweet love, so perhaps it wasn't such a bad move. But it would be a gamble.

Pedant Annie writes:

I'm spending Saturday afternoon marking my Y11 work so I'm alert to all kinds of errors. So can't help but notice that you would do well to use inverted commas around the word 'literally' to ensure that your sentences are clearer. Hope this helps.

No. Hope that helps.

Wolfman (either not his real name, or that bloke who did a song with Pete Doherty a few years back) asks:

Can we have some football themed 12 days of xmas please? That should pass some time at least.

More predictable is Chris Kamara struggling with saying 'Jussi Jaaskelainen.' He added at least three Ls in there.

The games are quite literally kicking off (in the original, literal sense of the word literally, rather than the new, non-literal sense of the word literally) all over the country. It's an exciting time to be alive.

If you have a thought, please do send it in to the e-mail above, or if you like you can tweet me here. Preferably about football (and specifically the football games happening today), but if you'd like some life advice about something or other, we'll do our best to help out.

Make note of this e-mail in case Everton lose today and we can all launch into a rousing chorus of 'Let's All Laugh At Gary Naylor' (even though that doesn't really scan):

Ooooh I like that Deulofeu for Mirallas change. The Catalan Conjuror isthe most naturally gifted player I haveever seen in an Everton shirt and must play. Sure he has a lot to learn especially his decision-making, but this lad is already a matchwinner, suchis his talent. I know it's tempting fate, but Everton are going to really hammer a team soon, and today may just be the day.

So Chelsea could move to within two points of Arsenal if they win today, and Liverpool will do likewise should they vanquish Spurs tomorrow. That means the top four will be separated by just three points. Dang.

My colleaegue Dan Lucas has organised the usual Saturday predictions sweepstake, but in an outrageous move has included a rugby game. I predicted a 1-0 scoreline in that one as an impotent and pathetic form of protest. Like that University Challenge team that answered every question with 'Marx' or Trotsky'.

And that's 6-3 in the City v Arsenal game. Sweep on there being more goals in that one than the five 3pm kick-offs?

I mentioned it in the preamble, but it really is worth taking another look at those quotes from David Sullivan, about Andy Carroll:

"Had we known he would be out for this long, we would not have signed him.

"We are not a rich enough club to deal with that. You know any player can get injured, but we can't buy a player knowing he is going to be out for half the season. When we signed him we were assured by the medical staff that the very, very latest he would be back was 1 September. That would have meant he would only miss two league games."

One does struggle to have sympathy for a club forgetting that Carroll is horrendously injury-prone before jazzing £17million on him.

So, points from the team news:

• Ashley Cole is sent back to the bench after getting the sympathy start for the meaningless Champions League game in the week, with Jose Mourinho preferring an out-of-position right-back in his stead.
• Gerard Deulofeu gets another chance to not pass to his teammates for 90 minutes, coming in for the knacked (but only a little bit) Kevin Mirallas, who is on the bench.
• West Ham play a strikerless system with Sam Allardyce choosing *glances side-to-side, grins smugly, puts on sunglasses* Madibo Maiga for their depress-o-thon against Sunderland.
• That Chelsea attacking line behind Fernando Torres looks pretty tasty.
• What are you doing reading this? The City v Arsenal game is a belter.

Cardiff v West Brom

Cardiff: Marshall; Theophile-Catherine, Turner, Caulker, Taylor; Whittingham, Medel, Mutch, Noone, Odemwingie; Campbell. Subs: Lewis, Hudson, Cornelius, Kim, Gunnarsson, Cowie, Maynard.

West Brom: Myhill, Jones, McAuley, Olsson, Ridgewell, Mulumbu, Yacob, Amalfitano, Sessegnon, Brunt, Long. Subs: Daniels, Gera, Vydra, Morrison, Berahino, Lugano, Sinclair.

Chelsea v Crystal Palace

Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Luiz, Terry, Azpilicueta, Essien, Ramires, Willian, Mata, Hazard, Torres. Subs: Schwarzer, Cole, Lampard, Oscar, Schurrle, Ba, Eto’o.

Crystal Palace:Speroni, Mariappa, Delaney, Gabbidon, Ward, Jedinak, Dikagoi, Bannan, Puncheon, Chamakh, Jerome. Subs:Price, Parr, O'Keefe, Williams, Gayle, Kebe, Bolasie.

Everton v Fulham

Everton: Howard, Oviedo, Distin, Jagielka, Coleman, Barry, Osman, Pienaar, Barkley, Deulofeu, Lukaku. Subs:Robles, Heitinga, Jelavic, Mirallas, Naismith, Stones, Alcaraz.

Fulham: Stekelenburg; Riether, Senderos, Hughes, Riise; Parker, Sidwell, Karagounis; Dejagah, Berbatov, Kacaniklic. Subs: Stockdale, Zverotic, Richardson, Kasami, Duff, Ruiz and Bent.

Newcastle v Southampton

Newcastle: Krul; Debuchy, Coloccini, Williamson, Santon; Sissoko, Anita, Tiote, Gouffran; Shola Ameobi, Remy. Subs:Elliot, Yanga-Mbiwa, Haidara, Obertan, Sammy Ameobi, Ben Arfa, Cisse.

Southampton: Gazzaniga, Chambers, Lovren, Hooiveld, Shaw, Cork, S. Davis, Ward-Prowse, Rodriguez, Lambert, Osvaldo. Subs:Cropper, Yoshida, Schneiderlin, Fonte, Ramírez, Lallana, Gallagher.

West Ham v Sunderland

West Ham: Jaaskelainen, McCartney, Tomkins, Jarvis, Maiga, Morrison, Noble, Collins, Demel, Diame, J.Cole. Subs:Adrian, Rat, Collison, Taylor, O'Brien, Diarra, C.Col.

Sunderland: Mannone, Celustka, Bardsley, Brown, O'Shea, Cattermole, Ki, Larsson, Giaccherini, Borini, Altidore. Subs: Dossena, Cabral, Gardner, Fletcher, Johnson, Pickford, Roberge.

While we wait for the team news, join Barry Glendenning over on the MBM of Manchester City v Arsenal, where (spoiler alert) Fernandinho has just put City 3-1 up.

Jose Mourinho is not a man one associates with pessimism. Normally a man who expels self-assurance through his pores like the rest of his expel sweat, the great be-coated one raised the possibility that Chelsea might not actually win anything this season. Well, he probably responded to a question posed to him by a journalist, although disappointingly not by remarking that of course it's possible that Chelsea could not win a trophy, just as it's theoretically possible that Mourinho could give it all up to become a preacher in Africa, or join the National Rifle Association to take over as their figurehead from Charlton Heston.

Anyway, they're playing Crystal Palace this afternoon.

Like some sort of number-vomiting robot, Roberto Martinez was firing out the stats at bewildered journalists this week like a large-headed mascot fires t-shirts into the crowd at American sporting events. Martinez was talking about Everton's draw with Arsenal, but one assumes they will have a slightly easier task at home to Fulham, who nonetheless got their first win under the curious Manc-Dutch hybrid of Rene Meulensteen last weekend.

The sadness. The overwhelming gloom. The black dog. The cloud of unhappiness hanging over large parts of the north east. Gus Poyet is apparently one of those sad cartoons with a small raincloud following him around all over the place, an unrealistic piece of localised meteorology for sure, but the Sunderland manager isn't exactly enjoying life at the moment.

But ahead of their game against West Ham, a club not short of woe themselves at present (not least because they have apparently belatedly realised that spending all that money on Andy Carroll was a colossal and embarrassing waste of time), he is at least keeping things in perspective: "We need to control the emotions, be realistic and accept the challenge. But at the same time not go over the line because, if so, somebody will die, will have a heart attack and it will be a shame."

If you factor things like 'the opposition might be nursing a powerful and debilitating hangover' into your betting calculations, it might be worth sticking a few quid on Cardiff, who host West Brom today. For the Baggies have been enjoying themselves in the notoriously quiet and relaxing city of Dublin this week. Not that Steve Clarke is especially worried about the effect that a massive amount of Guinness swishing around his players' systems might have on their footballing ability, mind.

And here's Alan Pardew taking some of the credit for Rickie Lambert, the Southampton striker who faces his Newcastle side today. Nice one Al.

Nick will be here shortly.