Crystal Palace v Southampton, Football League and more, live! | Football

Birmingham also beat Brentford 1-0 the first day of last season. Here’s a weird thing: the Blues didn’t win any of their last 15 league games last season, so they haven’t exactly been the best World Cups as of late, but in their last 10 games against teams whose names also start with the letter B have won seven and have lost none. Big fans of alliteration, they are Birmingham.

Final whistle! Birmingham City have beaten Brentford 1-0, their first competitive win since February.

There was a goal in the 92nd minute at Wycombe, and it was for Rotherham United, for whom Michael Ihiekwe has headed into a corner! The final whistle has quickly followed, and it’s all over!

League One

Bookmakers make Sunderland the favorite for the League One title, followed by Peterborough, who of course has to cope without last year’s top scorer Ivan Toney, who has gone to Brentford. Rochdale is likely to be relegated, with Wimbledon and Northampton next, making the match between the latter pair the first six relegation points of the season. These are all the starts from 3pm BST:

Accrington Stanley vs. Peterborough
Crewe vs. Charlton
Doncaster vs. Milton Keynes Dons
Fleetwood Town vs. Burton Albion
Gillingham vs. Hull
Lincoln City vs. Oxford Utd
Northampton vs. AFC Wimbledon
Plymouth vs Blackpool
Portsmouth vs. Shrewsbury
Sunderland vs. Bristol Rovers
Swindon vs. Rochdale

League Two

Bolton is the favorite to climb, closely followed by Salford City, with Exeter the best of the rest. And it so happens that Exeter is heading to Salford this afternoon for one of the key meetings of the day. It is considered that Oldham and Morecambe will likely meet at the wrong end of the table in May, but before that there is a lot of water to flow under many bridges.

Barrow vs. Stevenage
Bolton vs. Forest Green
Bradford vs. Colchester
Cambridge Utd vs. Carlisle
Cheltenham vs. Morecambe
Mansfield vs. Tranmere
Oldham vs. Leyton Orient
Port Vale vs. Crawley Town
Salford City vs. Exeter
Scunthorpe vs. Newport County
Southend vs. Harrogate Town
Walsall vs. Grimsby

Today’s calendar it looks like this (all kickoffs at 3pm BST unless noted). Initial starts have been light so far, but it looks like Birmingham could provide the first upset of the season, leading Brentford by a clean sheet with 12 minutes remaining. At Wycombe it’s decidedly goalless:

Bournemouth vs. Blackburn
Barnsley vs. Luton
Birmingham v. Brentford (KO 12.30)
Bristol City vs. Coventry
Cardiff v. Sheff Wed
Derby v. Reading
Huddersfield vs. Norwich
Millwall vs. Stoke
Preston North End vs. Swansea
QPR vs. Nottm Forest
Wycombe vs. Rotherham (KO 12.30)

Crystal Palace: Guaita, Ward, Dunn, Kouyate, Mitchell, Townsend, McArthur, McCarthy, Schlupp, Ayew, Zaha

Subs: Hennessy, Kelly, Woods, Milivojevic, Meyer, Eze, Batshuayi

Southampton: McCarthy, Bertrand, Bednarek, Stephens, Walker-Peters, Smallbone, Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Redmond, Adams, Ings.

Subs: Forster, Vokins, Tella, Long, Vestergaard, Djenepo, Obafemi

Good afternoon!

It may seem that the Premier League has never been out and the truth is that it has not. The opening day of the season is here and what better way to remind us of the English top flight than by watching the teams that finished 14th and 11th respectively last season?

Palace only scored 31 goals last season, so he will be desperate to improve on that. The arrivals from Batshuayi and Eze should help with that. Southampton, on the other hand, have reinforced their defense with the permanent arrival of Walker-Peters and Salisu from Real Valladolid.

Further down the pyramid, it’s a big day for Barrow and Harrogate, who call themselves soccer league clubs, so there’s a lot to watch out for.

Anyway, let’s all enjoy another year of the best football action.