BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

New Meadow clash set to showcase League Two

Players of Sky Sports bingo were in business again yesterday when Gary Neville declared midway through the Arsenal-Tottenham game that “this is the best league in the world”.

In terms of watching multi-millionaires defend like schoolboys in a three-legged race then the Premier League certainly is the best. But pound-for-pound the best league in the world this season has to be League Two.

Forget La Liga and Serie A – the fourth tier is where it’s at, as
we’ll hopefully see tonight when Shrewsbury take on Crawley.

A couple of weeks ago the top six were separated by about three points and, although Paolo Di Canio’s Swindon have romped clear since then, there’s still all to play for.

Cheltenham – 150-1 rags at the start of the season – are right in the mix and Paul Sturrock and Martin Ling are performing miracles at Southend and Torquay.

Ante-post favourites Crawley clearly got a bit bored of strolling to promotion so they’ve livened things up by selling their two best strikers, Matt Tubbs and Tyrone Barnett.

That lack of firepower could cost them dear at Shrewsbury tonight and I’ll be backing the Shrews to extend their awesome home record.

Sadly, I wouldn’t bet on the Sky pundits declaring: “Who needs El Clasico? Welcome to the New Meadow!”