With the usual sprinkling of surprise results over the Christmas period, I was most pleased to secure a return on my suggested Boxing Day treble, as the postponement of all three selections resulted in one of my most successful December 26 accumulators of all time as my stake was refunded in full. The weather looks like it is relenting sufficiently to allow the vast majority of the New Year's Day programme to go ahead as planned, so here's a look at the Premier League matches due to take place this weekend:

Only one of last weekend's suggested treble survived the freezing conditions, and surprisingly in the circumstances it was the one played in Scotland, but nevertheless, a straightforward win for Dundee provided a profitable afternoon for us, and the means to enter battle with the bookies again on Boxing Day. This week's selections are detailed after a look at the festive season's offerings in the Premier League, which obviously depend on an improvement in the weather and our country's pathetic inability to cope with it:

In this age of 24 hour multi-media and social networking, leaks and insider information, we nearly always have a fair idea in advance of which players are about to move on, or which managers are likely to be sacked or poached by other clubs, but I have to say, the departure of Sam Allardyce from Blackburn on Monday came as a complete shock to me, and we were provided with little initial information as to whether there was a disagreement with the club's new owners, whether he has been offered a job elsewhere, or whether he will be retiring to Argentina as Carlos Tevez's personal assistant. By the time you read this, much more information will probably have come to light about the reasons behind his departure, but even speaking as someone who tries to avoid looking at Allardyce's face as much as physically possible, I have to admit that it is difficult to see how any other manager could have done a better job at the club given the same resources. I can only surmise that with the transfer window looming, there w

I know the matter has been done to death in the media, so I'll try to keep this brief, but I can't say I'm that bothered that England won't be hosting the 2018 World Cup. I'm not bothered that it will be held in Russia, either, as that is a country that plays football at a relatively high level and has regularly qualified for major tournaments over recent years. I'm not even that bothered by the FIFA executive and the murky way in which they conduct the business of choosing the venues for their month long gold-plated gravy train, as that is an issue that needs to be dealt with at a far higher level than us mere fans. But Qatar!!! Qatar bothers me. It bothers me greatly. It's all very well trying to expand the tournament into areas of the world that have not hosted it before. Nobody batted an eyelid when it was held in Japan, South Korea or South Africa as all of those nations had proved in the past that they could compete at a high level and qualify for the World Cup by rights without having to be given the f

ITV and football. Does anybody think the two are compatible? With each passing season, their cringeworthy attempts to give the game a wider audience only succeed in encouraging more and more fans to look for alternatives in their droves. The FA Cup third round draw is usually a highlight of the season for hundreds of thousands of us, but the embarrassing and stomach churning choices of "celebrities" to carry out the draw are turning the event into a complete nonsense. I'm not interested in the guy from Kasabian's one-word answers as to why he supports Leicester. Nor do I wish to hear his fawning over Noel Gallagher, or Jim Rosenthal's "embarrassing dad attempts to appear cool" act. I just want to know who my team are going to draw. I suppose it was at least a slight improvement on the second round draw, though, when complete non-entities Dan Lobb and Kate Garraway from ITV's disastrous ratings flop "Daybreak" were the choices with absolutely no relation to the game foisted upon us to carry out the draw. As my