Sunday 1st October
New Orleans Saints vs Miami Dolphins
@ Wembley Stadium 2:30pm
The 2nd of this seasons international games will again take place at Wembley and continues the four game series in London which will be shared between Wembley and Twickenham stadiums. Another sell out crowd is expected for these popular matches and kick off will be at 2.30pm.
Current season record
New Orleans Saints
- P3 W1 L2 F73 A78
Miami Dolphins
- P2 W1 L1 F25 A37
Another excellent match up for our second UK game with Miami playing a bit of catch up having only played two games due to the recent hurricanes that devastated large parts of the East Coast a few weeks back. Both sides need to bounce back after poor starts too, the Dolphins were knocked over 20-6 by the New York Jets last weekend while the Saints at least managed to win their first match by cruising to a 34-13 against Carolina having gone into that game 0-2. Drew Brees is their main man and keeps setting records, so if the Dolphins defence cannot keep him quiet this could be over quickly. While for Miami it's a case of "welcome home" to Jay Ajayi the running back who himself is beginning to break records in the NFL and the London born star will be looking to score heavily therefore I expect a high scoring game so will be backing the 'Overs' Half time and Total Points markets.
For those of you not coming to Wembley this Sunday afternoon it's a joy that this match will be screened live on the the BBC as it has been in recent years. They appear to only have two live games this year which is disappointing but it's better than nothing and there's always the excellent NFL Show with Jason Bell and Osi Umenyiora together with host Mark Chapman which is on all season twice a week.
Have a fun day.
1st Quarter;
After the anthems and the "protests" are over, with both sides lined up and some taking a knee again, the Saints kick us off and we are underway in London. The Dolphins opening drive sees Jay Ajayi run for a couple of first downs and they are up to the halfway line where they struggle to progress after a series of penalties, but a few plays later and this opening drive takes us to the 5yd line and we have first and goal but it's Intercepted by the Saints Ken Crawley in the end zone and that big drive ends in nothing. Saints take over for their opening drive and quickly get themselves across half way into Dolphins territory with wide receivers Michael Thomas and Alvin Kamara making significant gains into the Red Zone before the end of the first quarter with no score as yet.
2nd Quarter;
New Orleans starting off this period on the 30yd line looking to score on their second drive of the match, but they had to settle for a 41yd field goal attempt and that was missed by Will Lutz. So Dolphins take over again and we still to see a score, far too many penalties and missed opportunities during this opening half and so much for a high scoring game I guess. A single field goal from Will Lutz was all we have to show for the opening half.
H/T Score; New Orleans Saints 3 -- 0 Miami Dolphins.
3rd Quarter;
Finally a touchdown for New Orleans as Michael Thomas scores from 3yds to extend their lead to ten points, and while we had hoped that the floodgates might open it's a continuous series of three and out followed by a punt from each side and we're soon heading into the final quarter of the match that has basically never got going.
4th Quarter;
The final period and no real change, the Saints doing enough to keep on top and extend the lead with another Lutz field goal to go 13-0 and the final nail in the coffin for the Dolphins came when Drew Brees passed 12yds to Alvin Kamara for their second touchdown. The next two games are at Twickenham and I really hope we see more of a spectacle at the home of rugby.
F/T Score; New Orleans Saints 20 -- 0 Miami Dolphins.
On 1st October 2017 I will cease working for Wolters Kluwer after just over two years and will be moving over to a new company who will be known as Croner-i Limited. Will be based in the same office in Kingston upon Thames for the time being, but a move to our own offices in the near future is definitely on the cards. The "takeover" or divestment has been carried out by a company known as Peninsula but they seem to be an umbrella company who pick up other parts of businesses and make them more profitable. Something that they have already done this with another part of Wolters Kluwer - CGL (Croner Group Limited) in Hinckley and turned that around from a loss into a profit making concern in about a year. Initially I was worried this would put us in a bad position and possibly redundant but so far all I know about them is they want to grow the business and why not. If that's true then there's plenty of work to do, and I don't want to move again so fingers crossed it doesn't end up with loads of people leaving and life falling apart.
At some point we will move offices, but I don't expect that to happen this year, maybe in the coming year perhaps and we will cross that bridge when we know the details. For the time being we will be simply relocating to another floor within the same building so for the coming few months we will have to see how things go and also how the atmosphere is "under new management" so to speak. I have other issues to deal with so keeping fingers crossed that we are ok here now.
I loved my last job as QA with Saadian Technologies and miss the working environment plus of course the people I met there. Am in no state to move on again at this time so please Lord let this work out for the better and I am going to work at it in return.
Farewell WK
Welcome Croner-i Limited
Welcome to The Cherry Red Records Fans Stadium (Kingsmeadow) home to the mighty AFC Wimbledon.
This weekend AFC Wimbledon host Rochdale at Kingsmeadow in League One, it's far to early to call games a "must win" but our form is poor, and results matter just ask the ex Palace manager Frank de Boer, so Neal Ardley knows that things need to improve and soon. This will be our sixth HOME League fixture of this season and we've only won one of them so far.
Although we are not conceding that many goals it's the struggle to put the ball in the net the other end that worries me and the lack of shots on target needs to improve quickly. Lyle Taylor is not a winger and it would appear better to play him in his best role down the middle with support provided as necessary. The Dons currently sit in 20th place just above the bottom four relegation zone and three points would be a big lift for both fans and the squad.
Rochdale arrive here only a couple of points above us in the table in 17th positing so are hardly pulling up trees themselves and a win will certainly help to calm the nerves since having played the first 10 games in the league and to only have 8 points and a -6 goal difference is not great. I don't want the manager to go but things do need to start picking up. Thankfully there appear to be 4 worse teams than us at this stage, but a team that only has 5 goals in it's FOR column can't realistically survive in this competition. Our opponents form also looks fairly patchy and we hope that they don't arrive on one of their going days.
We shall update on Saturday afternoon before kick off with the confirmed starting XI for both sides and any further news as it comes available.
Line Ups (Confirmed);
AFC WIMBLEDON
Odds -- 19/10 (William Hill)
Long (Gk), Oshilaja, Kennedy, Fuller (c), Nightingale, Barcham, Trotter, Francomb, McDonald, Parrett, Taylor
Subs – McDonnell (Gk), Robinson, Abdou, Forrester, Kaja, Charles, Hartigan
ROCHDALE
Odds -- 6/4 (William Hill)
Lillis (Gk), Daniels, Bunney, McGahey, McNulty (c), Williams, Rathbone, Camps, Andrew, Henderson, Inman
Subs – Moore (Gk), Rafferty, Ntlhe, Slew, Williams, Done, Davies
H/T Score – 0 - 0.
First Half Comment;
Rochdale kicked off to get us going in the first half, and it's not a surprise that it starts a bit scrappy. Few corners for the Dons but unable to force a decent effort early on, in fact it is nearly 16 minutes before we see the first shot on target and it's from Andy Barcham is saved and almost immediately Rochdale have a chance from Calvin Andrew saved by Long.
And then it settles down to another bore fest for the rest of the half with only a Yellow Card to Rochdale's Jordan Williams giving us anything of note, apart from a few wasteful shots off target, honestly I can't remember when I was so bored at a senior game and I just hope the second half is more exciting.
F/T Score – 0 - 0.
Match Summary;
Bore draw and only 3 shots on target in 90 mins is quite frankly piss poor. One of our lowest home gates of the season too [under 4,000] and you know there are other things people would want to do than watch this dire effort. Still struggling to score, ok we don't concede many either but this is so poor. Maybe if we were getting humped 3 or 4 each week things might change quickly, so will someone please tell Mr Ardley to play a forward who can shoot.
My Man of the Match – Lyle Taylor - at least he tries.
Referee -- Our Referee for this fixture will be Christopher Sarginson who hails from Staffordshire and has been taking charge of games in the lower two divisions for a little while now without seemingly getting a reputation good or bad.
Attendance – 3,861.
Next match:
vs OXFORD UNITED (Away) -- Saturday 7th October.
