StarkMallard

Huddersfield Town 2-1 Luton Town Lincoln City 2-1 Bradford City Plymouth Argyle 1-1 Mansfield Town Rotherham United 0-1 Northampton Town Barnet 2-0 Tranmere Rovers Cheltenham Town 0-2 Gillingham (joker) Colchester Unitd 2-1 Grimsby Town Walsall 2-0 Crawley Town

It was a snowy night here in Germ land, with about 7 cm of snow falling so I had to get the shovel out this morning. We've since reached the heady heights of 2 degrees. Yesterday we bade Lenny a final farewell on an Anglo-Saxon-style funeral pyre in the garden. It worked very well. I like to think that he's now wandering the kitchen floors of Valhalla, but he'll probably just live on in my lungs. We also have a successor, six-week-old Eddie (when a budgie dies, you replace them quickly to stop the others from pining for them). Mrs Sausage continued her habit of selecting the most gormless budgie possible, so no doubt we'll have lots of fun with him.

Rodders would be the perfect replacement for Rodders, but I can't quite see it. He'll end up at a mid-table team in the Portuguese top flight.

Time for a midweek round with a very League One/Two flavour, which are the only proper divisions anyway. Send in your predictions by 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday and don't forget your joker! Huddersfield Town v Luton Town Lincoln City v Bradford City Plymouth Argyle v Mansfield Town Rotherham United v Northampton Town Barnet v Tranmere Rovers Cheltenham Town v Gillingham Colchester Unitd v Grimsby Town Walsall v Crawley Town

The results: Birmingham City 1-1 Stoke City QPR 2-3 Wrexham Doncaster Rovers 3-3 Wigan Athletic Stevenage 1-1 Mansfield Town Barrow 0-1 Crawley Town Bromley 2-1 Swindon Town Eastleigh 2-3 Halifax Town Woking P-P Yeovil Town @ARLukomski and @Megan_Elizax win this round, congrats to you both! At the end of round 28, @Dan has overtaken @magpiejue to take the lead for the first time. It's looking like a close title race! And that's us for another round. But don't put your crystal balls (or ferrets) away yet - we have another round coming up on Tuesday, so the fixtures are going online now! Thanks for playing and see you on the next thread!

I only saw half the game, but I was very pleasantly surprised by Norburn (although he did flirt with a second red on a couple of occasions). He looked much more like the player I hoped we'd be getting in the summer. More of this please!

Interesting signing, I also remember him from his Boreham Wood days but he's only scored three in League Two so far (although admittedly some of those appearances were as a substitute). According to Transfermarkt he's averaged 400 minutes per goal, but a goal or two will send that average tumbling down. We needed another striker anyway as going into the run-in with just Jatta and Dennis would have been inviting trouble, and someone with a physical presence who can hold the ball up and play a bit sounds right up our street. Just hope he can up his scoring game while he's with us! I doubt he's here to replace AJ, although that goal celebration was unusually subdued yesterday...

Very good performance, we were completely on top in the second half I saw, embarrassingly so from a Crewe perspective. But we missed so many good chances (hello Dennis in the 90th minute) that you couldn't help but feel there would be a sting in the tail. Luckily there wasn't and we can save our clinical finishing for another day!

Birmingham City 2-1 Stoke City QPR 1-1 Wrexham Doncaster Rovers 0-1 Wigan Athletic Stevenage 0-2 Mansfield Town Barrow 2-1 Crawley Town Bromley 2-0 Swindon Town Eastleigh 1-1 Halifax Town Woking 2-0 Yeovil Town (joker)

The following games kick off at 3. Don't forget To use your joker! Birmingham City v Stoke City QPR v Wrexham Doncaster Rovers v Wigan Athletic Stevenage v Mansfield Town Barrow v Crawley Town Bromley v Swindon Town Eastleigh v Halifax Town Woking v Yeovil Town

The results: Charlton Athletic 1-0 Sheffield United Stoke City 0-0 QPR Northampton Town 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers Peterborough United 0-1 Plymouth Argyle Oldham Athletic 2-1 Cheltenham Town Shrewsbury Town 1-0 Harrogate Town Brackley Town 2-1 Yeovil Town Wealdstone 1-0 Woking @Garry Lee and @super_ram are top of the pops this round! Overall, @magpiejue still leads the way with @4everapie hot on her trail. This Saturday's fixtures will be posted in the next few minutes. Thanks for playing, see you all over there!

Brilliant, thanks for sharing @Mapperley Pie! It's always fascinating to see what the outside world makes of us. And he was pretty thrilled with the setup and atmosphere. Not sure that a Turkish meal and a Budweiser are typical English though ;) I just hit play to watch it, he's talking fast German except for the couple of interviews but the subtitles are OK if you can handle written German. But if you hit the YouTube button in the bottom right it'll take you to the YouTube site with an English AI voiceover.

Great poem @Michael D Pie.! And you're right, he didn't care about his lack of brain cells. He didn't care about much at all except grass seed. A lesson for us all. My health issues with the swollen mouth still haven't gone away. The doctors think it's an autoimmune reaction and I can't do much apart from wait. Got another hospital appointment on Friday. Since I've seen just about every other kind of doctor by now, I've started seeing a witchdoctor (ayurveda) who has done acupuncture on me and given me herbal pills that look suspiciously like rabbit droppings. It's an interesting experience and who knows, it might even help. If nothing else it gives me an excuse to see one of the nicer corners of Germany.

Hope your antibiotics do the trick and you're fighting fit soon @Michael D Pie.. Concur with @Robbie, we're living in scary times and I hope the person/people responsible can climb down again before it starts costing people their jobs or worse. It's a bit melancholy here at Sausage Towers, one of our budgies Lenny - the Official Budgie of the PON Prediction League - died at the weekend. Lenny was intellectually challenged even for a budgie but had an excellent spirit of exploration, wandering into every room in our flat at some stage - always on the floor, on foot, like a little yellow human. I'm going to put a picture of him up in the kitchen, his favourite room.

Charlton Athletic 2-0 Sheffield United Stoke City 2-0 QPR Northampton Town 0-1 Wycombe Wanderers Peterborough United 3-1 Plymouth Argyle Oldham Athletic 2-0 Cheltenham Town (joker) Shrewsbury Town 0-0 Harrogate Town Brackley Town 1-0 Yeovil Town Wealdstone 0-2 Woking

I think Cotter's loan to us was supposed to be a precursor to a permanent move, like Jones a few years ago. Barnsley didn't loan him to us for him to regain his confidence or pick up experience, as far as they're concerned he's gone and he's not their problem. This puts him in a tricky spot as we're so overloaded with wing backs he probably won't get a look in, yet we can hardly loan him out ourselves. For the sake of BC and his career I hope Barnsley do pick up the phone and find him a club where he'll actually play before his contract expires in the summer.

Replacing Bass with Roos was a major mistake of the summer so I'm glad we've taken steps to correct it. Roos showed some good reaction saves, but too often he didn't do the basics in commanding his area and catching and punching the ball. I hope we've now got a calm presence between the sticks, and of course I hope Roos does well in Scotland.

Time for another go. All matches kick off at 3pm on Saturday, don't forget your joker! Charlton Athletic v Sheffield United Stoke City v QPR Northampton Town v Wycombe Wanderers Peterborough United v Plymouth Argyle Oldham Athletic v Cheltenham Town Shrewsbury Town v Harrogate Town Brackley Town v Yeovil Town Wealdstone v Woking

In that case there'd be nobody there 😅 I must have misheard Crawley then. But it did sound like he was expecting to play.

I think Belshaw already let the cat out of the bag @theAnticlough. During his interview he talked about what it will be like to walk out in front of the Kop for the first time against Crawley. He's either counted his chickens before they've hatched or he's been told he'll start. I'd wager the latter.

I'm happy too. It's great that he's a proper magpie, but the bottom line is that this signing strengthens us. He's been playing regularly and can hopefully slot straight into the team. And goalkeepers often reach their peak after 30. So this move makes perfect sense to me and gives us a bit of breathing space to find a younger goalkeeper for the longer term.

The results: Leyton Orient 1-1 Cardiff City Peterborough United 3-1 Bolton Wanderers Accrington Stanley v Barnet - POSTPONED Chesterfield v Colchester United - POSTPONED Tranmere Rovers 0-2 Bromley Aldershot 1-5 Solihull Moors Sutton United 1-2 York City Woking 4-0 Hartlepool United Drum roll for this round's winner @Megan_Elizax! And also a mention to @4everapie, who got 8 points despite only predicting five games, which is frankly showboating. No change in the top ten this week, @magpiejue still leads the way with @Dan banging on the door in second. The next round is on Saturday, so the prediction league pixies will post the fixtures on Wednesday. Thanks for playing!

We can, but it all depends on some smart business during this window. The spine of the team is lacking, from the goalkeeper through to the number 10 position, and if we don't bring in players who can improve us immediately it will catch up with us. Now the table. This is the table at this point last season: In terms of points there's little difference all in all, it's going to be close once again. Note that none of the top three teams eventually went up (two of them didn't even make the play-offs). We were above three of the four teams that eventually won promotion (and the other one was only above us on goal difference). We blew it in the second half of the season. Bradford eventually won automatic promotion on just 78 points, Vale got 80. We're currently on course for 75 despite our limitations. An injection of quality and flair could give us the push we need to get that to 80+. My other point in response to @theAnticlough is that it isn't always obvious who will be a promotion-level player. You mentioned Tsaroulla; Gordon came with him, who was also a promotion winner at Crawley yet has struggled to hold down a place for us. On the other hand, Dennis arrived to a lukewarm reception and Rodmac went under the radar. In the NL, Langstaff was a great prospect but it was by no means guaranteed he'd make the step up (I remember Sean Canham), while Rodders needed a fair amount of time to acclimatise. None of this is an exact science. Let's hope whoever comes in gives us a good shot and success and let's get behind them!

Welcome! Sounds a promising signing to me - maybe someone who can play behind the striker(s). A Hall replacement? It also looks like a return to the policy of signing promising young players on their way up.

What an incredible performance it was too. Sometimes in cup games we're told that the lower team was the "better side", and it's often an exaggeration. It was absolutely not an exaggeration yesterday. In a way, Palace scoring their free kick and setting up a tense finish was good for the game as it was starting to feel like an anticlimax. Macclesfield looked likelier to score for the majority of that match and deserved to go through. Well done them! Fun fact: the last time the cup holders were knocked out by a non-league side was in 1909. The non-league team in question? Crystal Palace!