L2 | S3 | W20: Bradford City put four past Chelsea as Division 4 deadlock holds

📰 Week 20 in Review – Season 3

Ten weeks to go and the European Elites is showing no signs of settling into predictability. Division 1 has a five-horse title race with the clubs separated by just six points. Division 4 has two sides who simply refuse to blink. And somewhere in Division 3, Bradford City travelled to Stamford Bridge and put four past Chelsea – the kind of result that makes you look twice at the scoreline before believing it.

There was League Cup action incoming too: the quarter-final draw is made, with four last-eight ties on the horizon. And in Division 2, Birmingham City keep doing what Birmingham City have done all season – winning, while everyone else argues over second place.

🏆 Division 1 – The race tightens at the top

Paul Lamming’s Rapid Vienna went into Week 20 with a two-point cushion and came out with a three-point one, a 2-0 win over Heart of Midlothian keeping them firmly in the driving seat with 37 points. Lineker and Bernacci were on target – both scored, both counted, and Hearts will be quietly frustrated after winning seven of their first ten home games only to come unstuck on the road again. That said, Phil McCracken’s side remain fifth on 31 points and are not yet out of the conversation.

Atletico Madrid’s jump to second will have raised a few eyebrows. Peter Shuttleworth’s side won at West Ham through a single Madueke goal, and with Sporting Lisbon slipping to a 1-0 defeat at home to Athletic Bilbao, Atletico have leapfrogged them into second. The standings now look like this:

💡 Five clubs covered by six points. Rapid Vienna have the cushion, but Atletico – who won two of their last five but took seven points overall, including back-to-back wins to finish the run – are finding form at the right time. Sporting Lisbon’s defeat by Bilbao was their fifth away loss from nine on the road this season, and they’ll need to fix that quickly if they’re going to mount a genuine title challenge.

The Athletic Bilbao story continues. Loz Newbold’s side have now taken 11 points from their last five and González – their striker in extraordinary form – added another goal against Sporting Lisbon to bring his season tally to 13. He sits at the very top of the league’s attacker form table with 100% Momentum Form. Athletic were 13th not long ago. They’re now 13th still, but the form curve is pointing somewhere else entirely.

⚠️ At the other end, Real Madrid are in serious trouble. Another defeat – Rangers held them 0-0 at Ibrox, and Madrid left Glasgow with nothing, again – leaves James Harman’s side bottom on 15 points after three consecutive losses. The fanbase hasn’t gone anywhere (nearly 80,000 through the gates this week), but the results have. With ten games left, survival is very much the conversation now.

💙 Division 2 – Birmingham march on as Liverpool hit the bottom

Birmingham City won again. Of course they did. Leigh Bailey’s side put Manchester United away 2-0 through a Fonte brace – both goals before half time – to extend their lead to eight points. They have been the best side in this league for the entirety of Season 3 and there is no credible reason to expect that to change. The title is not confirmed but it might as well be. Their home form over the last five is a perfect 15 points, 9 scored, 1 conceded.

Liverpool occupy the other extreme. They lost 1-2 at home to Brighton, conceding the winner through Bertolo in the 84th minute, and are now bottom on 10 points. What makes the Liverpool situation particularly grim is the consistency of it – they haven’t scored in five consecutive away games, and their away record over the last five is zero wins, zero draws, five losses. Gilbert burnett has a significant rebuild ahead.

🔍 The form table tells a different story to the league table in one notable case: Middlesbrough are the best-performing side in Division 2 over the last five (2.60 PPG, 4W 1D), ahead of Birmingham City on the same mark. Greg C’s side are finding a momentum that their overall position doesn’t yet fully reflect. If they can carry it through the back end of the season, promotion is a realistic target.

❤️ Division 3 – Bradford City put four past Chelsea

Bristol Rovers extended their lead at the top to nine points with a 1-0 win at Aston Villa – Thuram with the goal on 53 minutes – and David Griffiths’ side are now the runaway leaders of Division 3 on 46 points. Eleven home games, eleven wins. The away record (3 wins, 7 draws, no defeats) is quietly extraordinary. If there is a better team in this league right now, they are hiding it well.

The result of the week, though, was at Stamford Bridge. Bradford City – eighth coming into the match – beat Chelsea 4-3 in a game that went 1-1 at half time before Bradford ran away with it in the second half. Roldán, Ponce (twice) and Frei did the damage. Chelsea’s Miglierina scored a hat-trick and still ended up on the losing side. Andy Sillars’ Bradford have now won two on the bounce and moved up to eighth – but more importantly, that win over a promotion-chasing side carries weight.

💡 Everton moved up to third with a comfortable 2-0 win over Watford, A’Beka with both goals. Amo K. Ferguson’s side have six away wins this season – more than any other side in Division 3 – and are quietly building a case for promotion. Worth watching.

⚠️ Chelsea are sliding. Mark’s side are bottom of Division 3 on 13 points after conceding four at home – four defeats in their last five matches. A side with a rating of 560 and experience of 129 should not be collecting one point from the last fifteen available. The dugout at Stamford Bridge will be a tense place right now.

💛 Division 4 – Cardiff blink first but the gap stays zero

Cardiff City and Borussia Dortmund went into Week 20 level on 37 points and separated only by goal difference. Cardiff lost – Newcastle United’s Shearer struck in the 80th minute to settle it – and Dortmund also lost, going down 2-0 at home to AC Milan. Both dropped three points. After all that tension, they are still level. Cardiff lead on goal difference, but only just: +12 to Dortmund’s +10.

The bigger beneficiaries were Leeds United and Newcastle United, who both moved to 35 points. Newcastle’s win at Cardiff was particularly significant – Matthew’s side have now won three of their last five and are very much in the promotion picture. The Division 4 table is congested at the top in a way that could produce an extraordinary finale.

🔍 AC Milan had a week that is hard to argue with: 2-0 home win over Borussia Dortmund, with Balotelli and Essien on target. G.Haining’s side have now won four of their last five and moved up to fifth. The form table in Division 4 has Milan as the standout performers over recent weeks (2.40 PPG). They look like they’re warming up at exactly the right time.

🏆 League Cup – Quarter-Finals incoming

The League Cup quarter-finals are on the horizon, with four ties scheduled for next week. The quarter-final prize money is £140,000 for the clubs who fall at this stage, with the semi-final places worth £220,000 and the final prizes reaching £330,000 (runners-up) and £550,000 (winners). The four ties are:

Charlton Athletic are strong favourites at Ajax. Sporting Lisbon are the heaviest favourites of the four ties at home to Barcelona. The bookies give Brighton a slight edge over Nottingham Forest, while Walsall are favoured at home against Portsmouth. Each tie can take a bet of up to £20,000 – mark your turnsheet accordingly.

🗞️ Around the league

Five managers guessed correctly in the score draw pool this week and each collected £160,000. Congratulations to Nonno Coia (Cardiff City), David Griffiths (Bristol Rovers), Wob (Juventus), WRobbo9 (Aston Villa) and El_Diablo (Tottenham Hotspur).

Welcome to Andrew Burton, the new manager of Bayern Munich in Division 2. The club have been without a manager for several weeks and sit 14th on 18 points, so there is work to do – but they’re not without resources, and there are ten games to play.

The unmanaged clubs board currently shows Crystal Palace in Division 3 (15th, 13 points) and Austria Vienna in Division 4 (9th, 26 points). Both are in positions where a manager joining now could still make a real difference to the season’s outcome. The dugout at Selhurst Park in particular is one the league will hope is filled soon.

There were crowd trouble incidents at three league matches. The worst was at the Lazio vs Portsmouth clash – 56 arrests, 8 officers injured and £80,598 of stadium damage. Bayer Leverkusen vs Southend United and Nottingham Forest vs Ajax both saw significant disorder too, with 49 and 53 arrests respectively. A costly week for several clubs’ damage repair bills.

Three clubs reached the Rival Awareness milestone this week: Bayer Leverkusen, FC Porto and Celtic. They will all now be formally tracking their top rival’s results. The next threshold – Official Rivalry status – requires 200 rival score points.

On the form tables, goalkeeper Jan Oblak is running at 100% Momentum Form this week – the standout keeper in the league. Among outfield players, the attacker form table is headed by González of Athletic Bilbao (100%, 4.94 Form score) with an extraordinary season impact rating. Midfielder Paul Gascoigne of Lazio sits second in the midfield table at 99.61% – a Season Defining impact rating over twenty appearances.