English Football Results: Shock Wins, Braces and a Few Absolute Snoozers

Footipicks round up part one

Another weekend of English football is in the books, which means thousands of carefully considered predictions have been ruined by 22 men who apparently did not read the script.

Across the Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two, we had seven-goal thrillers, big away wins, surprise draws and enough 0-0s to remind us that football does not always feel obliged to entertain.

There were also a few performances that might have people quietly revisiting the predictions they made before the season started.

Funny how confident everyone sounds in August.

Let’s get into it.

Premier League: Nobody Told Ipswich, Hull or Fulham Their Place

The biggest Premier League talking points came from teams who were apparently meant to make life easier for the established names. Instead, Hull went to Stamford Bridge and came away with a 2-2 draw against Chelsea, with Mohamed Belloumi scoring twice for the visitors, while Liverpool could not find a way past Fulham at Anfield in a 0-0 draw.

Ipswich produced one of the results of the weekend by beating Crystal Palace 3-2 at Selhurst Park. Nottingham Forest also picked up an impressive away win, leaving Aston Villa with all three points after a 2-1 victory.

Elsewhere, Arsenal were rather less interested in creating drama. They beat Sunderland 2-0 and carried on with their business, Tottenham and Everton contributed another 0-0, and Bournemouth and Brentford shared four goals in a 2-2 draw.

Sunday brought an emphatic 5-0 Brighton win at Coventry and a 1-0 Manchester City victory at Old Trafford.

Then Leeds added a little more entertainment on Monday evening with a 4-1 win over Newcastle at Elland Road, extending their unbeaten start to four Premier League matches.

A fairly lively weekend, then.

Championship: Seven Goals at the Riverside Because Apparently Defending Is Optional

Anyone who picked Middlesbrough against Norwich probably expected three points, but they might not have expected quite such a ridiculous route to getting them. Norwich scored in the first minute before Middlesbrough responded with three goals of their own before half-time.

Norwich dragged themselves back into the contest after the break, but Ashley Phillips eventually scored Middlesbrough’s fourth in the 90th minute to seal a 4-3 win at the Riverside. Sebastian Berhalter scored twice for Boro in a match that seemed determined to keep everybody interested until the very end.

There were plenty of goals elsewhere too. Southampton beat Bristol City 4-1, with Cyle Larin scoring twice, while Blackburn defeated Millwall 3-1 thanks in part to a brace from Dapo Afolayan. Swansea recorded the same scoreline against Burnley.

Birmingham won 2-1 at Derby, Stoke picked up a 2-1 victory at Watford and Lincoln left Preston with a 1-0 win.

The Championship rarely needs much encouragement to become unpredictable, and this weekend certainly did nothing to change that.

League One and League Two Chose Chaos

Stockport and Leicester produced one of the matches of the weekend, with Leicester eventually winning 4-3 at Edgeley Park. Liam Cullen opened the scoring before Stockport levelled, then Emil Riis scored twice either side of half-time and John Lundstram made it four.

At that point, Leicester looked to be cruising.

Stockport had other ideas. Two goals in four minutes suddenly made things considerably less comfortable, but Leicester managed to hold on and take the points.

Elsewhere in League One, Plymouth beat Barnsley 3-0, Oxford scored three late goals against Burton and Wycombe came out on top in a five-goal match at Leyton Orient.

League Two was not interested in calming things down either. Rotherham and Salford shared six goals in a 3-3 draw, despite Salford leading 2-0 and later being reduced to ten men. Macaulay Langstaff eventually converted a penalty to complete the scoring, with Gary Neville and Paul Scholes among those watching from the away end.

Perfectly normal afternoon.

York had a rather more comfortable time, beating Swindon 4-0, while Cheltenham, Grimsby, Shrewsbury and Gillingham also collected victories..

Brace or More

A special mention for the players who decided one goal was insufficient this weekend.

Player	Club	Opponent	Goals
Mohamed Belloumi	Hull City	Chelsea	2
Sebastian Berhalter	Middlesbrough	Norwich City	2
Cyle Larin	Southampton	Bristol City	2
Dapo Afolayan	Blackburn Rovers	Millwall	2
Emil Riis	Leicester City	Stockport County	2
Alex Newby	York City	Swindon Town	2

Belloumi’s brace helped Hull take a point at Chelsea, while Larin continued his excellent start to the Championship season. Berhalter, Afolayan, Riis and Newby all played major parts in wins for their clubs.

Six players. Twelve goals.

Not bad for a weekend’s work.

Yawn… They Actually Did What We Expected

Sometimes football refuses to cooperate with the chaos agenda.

Arsenal went to Sunderland, won 2-0 and continued their perfect start, while Southampton put four past Bristol City. Plymouth also dealt comfortably with Barnsley, and York made light work of Swindon with a 4-0 home win.

These are the selections that briefly make you feel like you understand football.

You study the form, make the sensible choice, watch the result come in and start wondering whether professional recruitment might have missed your true calling.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Football has a habit of correcting people very quickly. Next week, a team sitting top will probably lose at home to somebody who has not won since Easter, and your carefully constructed predictions will be scattered across the floor.

Outstanding Play: The Results That Wrecked a Few Predictions

This is where football earns its keep.

Some results this weekend looked particularly good at ruining carefully considered predictions:

Hull 2-2 Chelsea: A point at Stamford Bridge for Hull.
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham: Fulham went to Anfield and kept Liverpool scoreless.
Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich: One of the standout away results of the weekend.
Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest: Another result capable of producing puzzled looks at phones around five o’clock.
Stockport 3-4 Leicester: Perhaps not the biggest upset, but certainly one of the most ridiculous matches.
Leeds 4-1 Newcastle: Four goals and another unbeaten Premier League game for Leeds.

Sometimes the outstanding result is not necessarily the biggest upset.

Sometimes it is simply the one that makes you look at the score and say:

“Hang on, it’s WHAT now?”

Starting to Regret Those Pre-Season Predictions Yet?

One of the best things about a new football season is how quickly August certainty starts to disappear. Teams expected to struggle suddenly look awkward to play against, while sides tipped to cruise discover that football matches are inconveniently played against opponents who would also quite like the points.

Hull are already making themselves difficult to ignore, while Leeds have started their Premier League campaign unbeaten through four matches. At the other end, Coventry’s opening four league games have produced four defeats and no goals, which is not exactly the start anyone there would have been hoping for.

The Championship is already tightly packed near the top, and League Two is proving just as difficult to read, with only three points separating first-placed Barnet from ninth-placed Swindon after this round.

That is why making football predictions this early in the season is such good fun. You know enough to have an opinion, but not quite enough to know how wrong that opinion might turn out to be.

Football Has a Habit of Making Experts Look Silly

Every weekend starts with confidence. Form has been checked, injuries considered and somebody in the group chat has already explained why their pick is “obvious”.

Then football starts.

A favourite fails to score, a newly promoted side wins away, and suddenly the person who picked the draw is acting like they knew all along.

That unpredictability is exactly why football predictions remain interesting.

The obvious result is only obvious until somebody forgets to tell the players.

Same Time Next Week?

Another round is done, and as usual some predictions survived while others were finished long before the final whistle.

Somewhere, somebody confidently backed Liverpool at home to Fulham and then spent 90 minutes wondering how such a sensible choice had gone so wrong.

That is exactly why picking football results stays interesting. No matter how obvious a result looks beforehand, football usually finds a way to make at least a few people look silly.

We will be back next week with another look across the four divisions, more standout performances, more braces and, almost certainly, another collection of results that nobody in the group chat saw coming.

Unless they tell you they did.

They always do.

See you next week.