"Reds limp to a point at the Palace".

Perfectly in keeping with an utterly dreadful 0-0 draw away at Crystal Palace toward the end of the 2022-2023 season, I ramble on other games within that weekend's Premier League, Test Match cricket from New Zealand and my memories of my numerous visits to Selhurst Park whereby I rarely actually watched the Reds playing the "Eagles" of Crystal Palace.

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"Watching the Reds insipid and rather dreadful 0–0 draw this evening with Crystal Palace was my third game of football on a Saturday that culminated with a late evening into a long early Sunday morning of Test Match cricket from New Zealand so all in all, I’ve had worse sporting days with the distraction of the bread and circus of life.

I began with the early game and the battle at Goodison Park with an eventually triumphant Aston Villa deservedly taking all 3 Premier League points from an Everton team destined once more to pray that another team will finish this season poorer than they.

It’s clear that, in footballing parlance, both Bournemouth and Southampton are “gone for all money” and destined for the dreaded drop into The Championship and arguably the toughest league from which to escape back from in a positive direction.

Aston Villa’s Merseyside win sees them climb to exactly mid-table with 31 points and a couple of further wins from assured safety and with Leeds United defeating a doomed Southampton and West Ham thumping Nottingham Forest 4–0, the Blues of Everton are once more in the relegation zone and in a fight with six other teams to decide who joins the south coast “Saints” and “Cherries”.

My second game of the day saw those overachieving yet seemingly relegation bound Cherries of Bournemouth take a 4–1 pounding from defending champions Manchester City amid a masterclass of midfield mastery from old and young, ancient and modern and German international İlkay Gündoğan and England under 18 starlet Rico Lewis. 14 years separate the grizzled bearded veteran and the frizzled mop top of youth from Bury. Lewis, as you’ll be unsurprised to hear considering he’s playing for Pep Guardiola and Manchester City, looks a damn fine player indeed with time aplenty on the ball, a cool head for one so young and not afraid to get down and dirty with a crucial tackle. Should the kid continue to hold down a regular place for the English champions I can’t see it taking too long for him to force a place in the older aged national under 21 team (should that still exist) if not the senior team. He just looks a Spanish type “pivote” player and with the luck and good grace to avoid injuries, will flourish and bloom under Guardiola.

The cricket? Oh what a treat! Tea, chocolate biscuits and with the lights out and wrapped with a hot water bottle for company to beat away the coldness of a bitter winter’s night, New Zealand, under the swashbuckling skills of their captain Tim Southee, crashed and banged their way back into a Test Match they were seemingly well and truly out of. Southee, a bowling all-rounder, batted his way to an astounding 73 runs in double quick time thus ensuring his team had a fighting chance in a Test Match that, by the end of the day, though they were still behind an epoch defining England team amid a cricketing revolution, are still competitive, with more than a mere puncher's chance, still very much in a game with two days still to play, and with a whole host of twists and cricketing turns still to come.
I’m predicting a close run England victory in the middle of the afternoon of the fifth and final day, perhaps by 4 or 5 wickets, but my predictions aren’t worth the paper they’re not written on and I wouldn’t believe a word I say.

I certainly don’t.

The Liverpool game, I hear you cry?

Bloody dreadful!".

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