Colchester United v Leeds United preview.

The trail for the culprits responsible for the body in the village canal has gone deathly quiet.  Police have launched appeals on TV in the far east in an attempt to rustle up a useful lead but it looks as if the speculation that the oriental gentleman found in the murky depths of the canal had fallen foul of the tight knit oriental community and their brutal method of justice appears to be the most likely explanation.  

So as village life returns to normal my attention has been diverted to the spectacular gathering of world leaders in London for the G20 summit.  Now I've got to admit to being quite a good example of a blunt straight speaking Yorkshireman and as such I have little if any aspiration to join our southern brethren in living and earning a crust in the metropolis.................but I can certainly sympathise with anyone trying to go about their normal duties in London this week with the massive disruption the summit has brought.  On one hand there's the massive security operation to protect the various leaders of the worlds top countries.........................I had to laugh when I saw President Obama's 100ft long limo pull into 10 Downing St followed by a cavalcade of his entourage's cars who couldn't all fit into the small cul-de-sac off Whitehall.  I'd love to have heard the stressed CIA bods in the last few cars when they realised they were separated from "No 1 target"And then there's the Anarchists leading every protest group known to man to besiege the city and bring the capital to a standstill..................I reckon there were nearly as many police on duty to control the crowds as when we visited Millwall..................At the end of the day the politicians will try and convince Joe Public that the summit has achieved something, nobody will know what, and the protesters will return home thinking they've "done something" to arrest globalisation, climate change, closure of Post Offices, 3rd world debt etc etc.  In practice all that will have happened is that the majority of people trying to work and go about their business in London will have been well pissed off...............at a cost to us who are lucky enough to be still paying tax of billions of pounds............and here's me thinking there was a credit crunch on.

Lots of football issues floated to the surface this week.  The pantomime at St James Park was resurrected for another run as the bar codes slipt into the relegation zone with the news that Mike Ashley was considering taking the club into administration! Next day we learn that he has asked the latest geordie hero, messiah, prodigal son, saviour, Mr Shearer to take over the reigns until the end of the season.  I'm looking forward to playing Newcastle next year.

The highly emotional Mr Cappello has had another good week as England secured another win to cement their place at the top of the qualifying group for next year's World Cup.  Wearing the latest new England strip, reminds a bit of the ones worn by Stanley Matthews, provided a workmanlike performance that confirmed the old adage "results matter"  John Terry provided further evidence that describing him as a world class defender should be restricted to those who live in his mansion as the reality of his true ability shone through as he looked uncomfortable for most of the game looking after the Liverpool reject Voronin.  Maybe he was put off by what was going on to his left as Ashley Cole played as if he had been instructed to give the ball away at every opportunity.

On the plus side the wasp chewing scouser Shrek lookalike that is Wayne Rooney had another outstanding game as he caused havoc in the Ukraine defence whenever he got the ball.  I think he goes to the same anger management class as Mr Beckford though.

I much prefer watching the mighty whites of course and our opponents on Saturday are Colchester, fresh from their win at Millwall, on a run of decent form.  They will present a stern test to Leeds' unbeaten run but with the end of the season fast approaching and the whites gaining momentum each week another win will keep alive the outside hope of automatic promotion.

			Home					Away
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Leicester City	40	12	7	1	36	12	11	6	3	35	22	+37	82
2	Peterborough	40	13	4	3	37	19	10	5	5	34	29	+23	78
3	Millwall	40	10	4	6	23	19	12	3	5	31	24	+11	73
4	MK Dons	39	10	4	6	38	23	10	5	4	36	22	+29	69
5	Leeds United	39	14	2	4	42	19	7	3	9	24	26	+21	68
6	Scunthorpe	39	12	4	3	39	20	8	3	9	30	32	+17	67
7	Tranmere	40	13	4	3	36	18	5	5	10	18	25	+11	63
8	Southend	40	12	2	6	27	16	6	5	9	24	38	-3	61
9	Oldham	40	9	7	4	32	20	6	7	7	27	36	+3	59
10	Colchester	40	7	4	9	21	21	9	5	6	32	32	0	57

We are still hoping for slip ups from Peterboro and Millwall, not forgetting the faltering Wimbledon, but with my optimistic head on, what else, and favourable results we could be right in the mix by the end of our game in hand next Tuesday at Orient with just 5 games to go.

Larry will have some selection issues to resolve before the trip to Essex as Robbo, Richardson and possibly Rui back in contention for starting places.  On past form Larry will stick with a winning team meaning bench warming duty for the trio.  

I just hope we can pick up from where we left off on Saturday with the confident type of the football that inspired Fabian Delph to reprise Eddie Gray's mazy dribble and goal against Burnley all those years ago instead of running the clock down.  That was symptematic of the new belief that is surging through the team and as long as we can keep 11 men on the pitch for the remaining games I can see us experiencing promotion celebrations for the first time since that Bank holiday weekend in Bournemouth sometime in the last century.  It is no coincidence that our rich vein of form is being driven by the young midfield quartet of Howson, Delph, Snoddy and the "veteran" 23 year old Kilkenny and assuming we can keep them together next season they should form an exciting bedrock for Larry's team to try and emulate the great Don Revie's crop of younsters who he brought in to drive Leeds to the summit of English football.  Can't wait.

MOT