cause the Buckeyes have had the upper hand recently, winn

Sky Sports Ian Holloway predicts the outcomes of the big games in the Football League, including Cardiff v Brighton, Brentford v Derby and Preston v Sheffield Wednesday.Cardiff v Brighton - Sky Sports 1, Saturday 12.30pm Im there for this one and I think it will be a draw because these are two good squads going quite well.Cardiff are there or thereabouts, still with a chance of getting in the top six, but they have to start winning more games after drawing with MK Dons and Charlton. Brighton will be in the top six at the end of the season and wont blow up. In Chris Hughton they have a manager who has won the division before so they have the experience. The teams with the advantage are the ones who have done it before.OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-1 (Sky Bet odds 9/2)Fulham v Charlton, Saturday 3pmFulham looked like world beaters against QPR then lost 3-0 to Blackburn in midweek. I cant get my head round that, the talent they have and how well they played on Saturday, then two days later they get absolutely whooped.Its got to be the players, they played so well at the weekend but they have to get some consistency. They cant string performances together. Its really weird and they need to have a good look themselves and say, We should be better than this with the talent we have. Fulham were beaten 3-0 by Blackburn on Tuesday evening Maybe they need a good start to a game and if they get that they keep their confidence, if they lose it then the game goes. But with the likes of Jamie OHara and Scott Parker you would think the group could be more consistent. They are good going forward, very exciting, but maybe they leave themselves a bit open. Its a puzzle for me.What on earth is happening with Charlton as well? They are still in the relegation zone and they need to start winning. They will be better under Jose Riga but the unrest with the crowd wanting the owner out is not good. I cant even give them a goal this weekend!OLLIE PREDICTS: 2-0 (Sky Bet odds 15/2)Huddersfield v Wolves - Saturday, 3pmHuddersfield got a fantastic result last week against Nottingham Forest, stopping their unbeaten run with a 2-0 win away from home.Wolves are struggling a bit and need a win. I feel for Kenny Jackett because he needed the owner to stick around and stay motivated, but now they need a new buyer as quick as they can if Kenny is going to have a chance to take that massive club higher up the table.Its a tough game to call and they might cancel each other out and it will be be a war of attrition.OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-1 (Sky Bet odds 5/1)MK Dons v Bristol City - Saturday, 3pmI wouldnt mind going to this one, it could be a belter. Bristol got a fantastic result last weekend against Ipswich and then MK Dons won at Derby - thats the joy of the Championship.But sometimes you get a good result away and then you get home and disappoint your fans because they become a bit more expectant. MK Dons won at Derby last time out This is a vital game for both sides and I dont think a point is great for either of them. You want to keep cracking on; they could really make a move up the table if they win. I am sure the teams below will want a draw but Im going for an away win.The good news for MK Dons is that if my prediction is as badly wrong as last weekend they will probably win!OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-2 (Sky Bet odds 17/2)Preston v Sheffield Wednesday - Saturday, 3pmPreston are having a fantastic season with 42 points and Sheffield Wednesday have been one of the surprises of the season - I cant separate them.I know Blackpool fans wont like it but I quite like Preston, particularly with Simon Grayson in charge and my old mate Steve Thompson as assistant. Ian Holloway is a big fan of Prestons Paul Gallagher I have always liked Paul Gallagher, I tried to sign him three times but never got him. I have always admired his play, he can cut in from wide, get a goal, he gets a run of form where he sets things up and he has a mean free-kick in his locker. He scored last week and is probably confident.Sheffield Wednesday have some beautiful players - Fernando Forestieri, Ross Wallace, Barry Bannan - and they have all sorts of stuff going on. I think they will keep going and make the play-offs.OLLIE PREDICTS: 2-2 (Sky Bet odds 14/1)Bolton v QPR, Saturday 3pmI feel for Bolton and Neil Lennon. Hes a born winner and hes had to put up with all this. I think he has handled himself with absolute dignity and they are improving.I dont know what Im going to get with QPR. I was really looking forward to last weekend but their back four capitulated against Fulham and they lost 3-1. I dont know what Im going to get with QPR. I was really looking forward to last weekend but their back four capitulated against Fulham. Ian Holloway I dont see either side keeping a clean sheet. It will be easier for QPR on the road rather than in front of the home crowd - they were very quiet the other day, you could have heard a pin drop. The Fulham supporters were singing, Is it a library?, but theyre not exactly noisy are they? They had to get handed out those clappers to get going, so thats a bit rich coming from them!OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-1 (Sky Bet odds 9/2)Brentford v Derby, Saturday 3pmWhere do you start with Derby? My advice to the chairman is: dont go in the dressing room and have a go at the players. They havent won since that. It was a draw at home to Reading, is that such a bad result?Brentford dont look the same this season. They have lost their midfield security after selling Toumani Diagouraga. This time last year they had Jonathan Douglas and Diagouraga and now they have Josh McEachran from Chelsea and he doesnt provide the same protection. They have started to leak goals, which is not good. Darren Wassall has taken charge at Derby after Paul Clements sacking Surely Derby have to pick up now? Are they going to capitulate? They have to find the spirit. I am sick of players blaming managers - they have to find the spirit within the group and use decisions and goals that go against you to make you stronger. I dont see them doing that, so the jury is out on them.They have to start winning now but its a very tough fixture for them. I just cant see Derby getting anything.OLLIE PREDICTS: 2-1 (Sky Bet odds 9/1)Burnley v Rotherham, Saturday 3pmEven with Neil Warnock in charge I cant see Rotherham halting Burnleys charge towards promotion. He will have them well organised but its a tough game.Lloyd Dyer is a fantastic signing for Burnley. He might even guarantee them promotion. He is so enthusiastic, so quick and works so hard. I have always liked him and hes a typical Burnley player who will work his socks off, do what the team needs and never give up. Thats what I like about Burnley, they never give up. Former Leicester winger Lloyd Dyer has joined Burnley If Burnley were a boxer and you hit them youd think youd caught them with your best shot and theyd just shake it off and keep going. They have a tough chin, whereas Derbys chin at the minute looks like it is made out of glass.Neil Warnock will make a difference at Rotherham even though I didnt agree with getting rid of Neil Redfearn - what chance did he have of turning things around in such a short amount of time?Warnock has the experience, is he retired or not though? Hes having more comebacks than Muhammad Ali!OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-0 (Sky Bet odds 5/1)Walsall v Wigan - Saturday, 3pmWalsall third, Wigan fourth, two points behind. It doesnt get much tighter. Everybody is waiting for Burton to blow up but I cant see it and Gillingham keep going as well.Its a big game for Sean ODriscoll and I am not sure they will be separated. Walsall play some lovely stuff and will try to win on their own patch but Im going for a draw with Tom Bradshaw to score the first goal.Hes one of my favourite lower league players, a natural-born goalscorer and I am sure he wont be there for much longer.OLLIE PREDICTS: 1-1 (Sky Bet odds 5/1)Southend v Burton - Monday, 7.45pmBurton have an amazing group of players and amazing organisation from the chairman, who keeps getting good managers and now one has come back. All I can do is praise the chairman, he doesnt interfere or go into the dressing room, he must support his manager because they keep having success, so well done to him. They have lost Abdenasser El Khayati but they keep going so well done to the players and Cloughy as well. Burton won at Chesterfield in their last match Phil Brown is going to have a problem here. Southend are having a great season after coming up through the play-offs - that was one of my favourite things, watching him and Gareth Ainsworth stand next to each other for the penalties, that was class from both of them.They are just outside the play-offs in League One but Burton have something special going on. I dont think the bubble will burst.OLLIE PREDICTS: 0-1 (Sky Bet odds 15/2)Also See:Championship: Whos going up?FixturesTableLive on SkyCheap New York Giants Gear . Its 1987 and a Brazilian playmaker, known as Mirandinha, is being paraded around St James Park to the passionate Newcastle fans. Cheap Cincinnati Bengals Gear . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward Brandon Sutter said. http://www.nflauthenticcheapjerseys.com/kansas-city-chiefs-gear/ .H. -- Matt Kenseth made it 2 for 2 in the Chase, holding off teammate Kyle Busch to win Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Cheap Chicago Bears Gear .ca NBA Power Rankings, ahead of the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs. NFL Jerseys China .C. -- Chris Thorburn thinks one of the reasons the Winnipeg Jets have been successful under new coach Paul Maurice is that theyre playing together as a team.Zongguang Will Li is a Shanghai native who attended Ohio State because it ranks among the top 20 public U.S. universities for its academics. He had almost no knowledge of American football while growing up in China, but he became an enormous Buckeyes fan at Ohio State. So much of a fan, in fact, that after moving back to Shanghai after college, Li returned to Ohio in September 2014 for the express purpose of attending some Buckeyes football games.There was just one problem. Li says a U.S. border agent at OHare airport where his flight landed was skeptical about his reason for flying to America.I basically told him that I wanted to stay in the U.S. to watch the football games, Li says. He thought that I was joking with him, so thats why he took me to an inspection room, which we call a little black room. He took me to that room and for two hours, no one asked me any questions.And some people think they had a long time getting through airport security during Thanksgiving week?Li says there was suspicion that he was not coming to see Buckeyes football but rather was planning to illegally overstay his visa. It took time, but a more understanding agent eventually accepted that, yes, Li was indeed back for the football games. After all, hes an Ohio State alum! He was allowed in and was able to watch the Buckeyes beat Rutgers, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan in Columbus before he returned to Shanghai, where he works consulting with students and families on education. He has traveled back to the U.S. several times since and has had no trouble at customs, though he always brings those 2014 Ohio State tickets along with documentation of that border interview just in case.The first officer, I dont know where he graduated from, Li says. Maybe he didnt like Ohio State.Well, perhaps the agent simply was a Michigan fan.The Ohio State-Michigan rivalry is one of the most intense in college football, but it is not restricted to Columbus and Ann Arbor or their home states. Or the United States, for that matter. There are Ohio State and Michigan alumni around the globe. In addition to their vast alumni clubs in the U.S., Michigan has at least 50 clubs worldwide, ranging from Abu Dhabi to Vietnam. Ohio States alumni association doesnt list as many global clubs, but they exist everywhere from Argentina to Nigeria to Indonesia.So does Shanghai have a fan as passionate about the Wolverines as Li is about the Buckeyes? Alumni club member Ivan Pan responded that no, there isnt just one passionate Michigan fan in Shanghai -- We have a bunch, he says.Pan included a list of several who met at least one of the following criteria: One, flagged five times or more by bar owners for taunting at Ohio State-Michigan State or Notre Dame fans; two, rejected by blood donation centers due to wrong blood color (maize and blue); three, wear only khakis every day since 2015.Wees Abraham, who was born in Michigan (but grew up in Texas), is the founder of UMs Middle East alumni association in Dubai. Abraham is such a Wolverines fan that he once waved and planted a UM flag on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. He travels the world for his engineering job and always wears a Bo Schembechler-style Michigan cap. It sparks a lot of conversation, he says. I have, like, 15 hats in my closet, and when I travel I end up giving one away because its interesting to them. Its cool. They send you emails, and youre basically building more fans than you would expect.Abraham says there are at least a thousand Michigan alumni in the Middle East. Not that there arent Ohio States fans in that region as well.Spencer Schaffer is the Ohio State alumni ambassador in Kuwait. Because he also is a first lieutenant in the Marines, he is currently stationed in Iraq, where he has run into a few additional Buckeyes fans. While he tries to get back to a game each year, he couldnt swing it this season. Nonetheless, he says, I cant wait to take it to that team up north.Kelvin Day, who attended Michigan in 2008-09 as part of an overseas studies program at the University of Essex in his native England, says there are so many UM alumni in Britain that 80-100 fans will gather at a Belushis bar in London for Wolverines games. Meanwhile, Tony Holmes says the Michigan club is small in Paris, but enough Wolverines have carved out a space at the Au Caveau Montpensier pub near the Louvre that its a bit of a home away from home here.Living in South Korea to research the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Ohio State alumnus Nick Hill was wandering the Gangnam District of Seoul when he saw a Korean couple in Ohio State gear. He shouted O! H! to them, and they yelled back, I! O! Hill also was in Sokcho, near the border with North Korea, where he was learning about a section of the city with North Korean refugees. While there last month, he listened to Ohio State-Wisconsin game on internet radio. When Ohio State won in overtime, he danced in the street while pumping his arms. This drew the attention of the locals, one of whom was a woman wearing a Cleveland Indians shirt.They learned just how serious this American is about his Buckeye football as I frantically cheered our way through overtime, he says.Late nights and early morningsWherever the teams fans are -- Shanghai, London, Paris, Dubai, Iraq, Seoul or perhaps even Antarctica -- most of them will be watching Saturdays Michigan-Ohio State game, although the timing can be as inconvenient as an 8 a.m. class after pulling an all-nighter studying for a final.For instance, the scheduled noon kickoff in Columbus will be at 4 a.m. in Sydney, Australia, where Jeff Froster will be watching with two dozen or so fellow Michigan alumni at a casino bar. Froster, who will fly in from the other side of the country in Perth, has been setting up these annual gatherings throughout Australia to unite the alumni (he says there are more than 400 in the country). Last years meeting was in Melbourne. Next year theyll probably gather in Brisbane, and in Perth the year after that. Consider Froster Wolverine Dundee.Its our Thanksgiving, Froster says of the November get-togethers. And I want the alumni to watch the game together because I remember how lonely it was watching it just by myself.Not that the viewing is always as atmospheric as theyd like, such as with last years party at a Melbourne casino when the game was scheduleed to start at 4 a.ddddddddddddm.At that time of morning, heaps of people were watching European soccer, Froster says. We had 12 people, so they put us in a corner. And we watched the game without audio.Dubai is nine hours ahead of Michigans time zone, which means the game will start there at 9 p.m. That sounds much more convenient -- except for one thing. In the Middle East, the workweek starts on Sunday. That means this years game will start in prime time, but there will be no recovery time the next morning.People [on Saturdays] are either running errands at the last minute before the week starts, or theyre having family time because their kids are getting ready to go to school the next day, says Abraham, who is planning to host a gathering at his residence. Everyone is either recovering from partying the weekend or running last-minute errands. Because there is work the next day, not everyone is as ambitious to go out and have a tailgate party. ...Its definitely not like in the States. They dont want to get wasted because the next day they have to get to work and be up at 5:30.Daniel Leung is an Ohio State alumnus in Hong Kong, where the game will start at 1 a.m. He proposed to his wife near the goalpost by the south student section at Ohio Stadium before the kickoff to the 2004 Buckeyes-Wolverines game. It must have been a great day. She said yes, and the Buckeyes upset Michigan.Leung says his wife loves watching Ohio State play, but because of the time difference its very difficult to wake up in the middle of the night just for the game. ... Sometimes I went out to watch the game at a bar with other Buckeyes in Hong Kong, but for the Michigan game, my wife will make sure I wake her up for The Game.Bindi Dharia is a Michigan alum in Mumbai, India, which is 10? hours ahead of Columbus this time of year, so the game is scheduled for 10:30 p.m. there and will probably run past 2 a.m. Dharia, who often wears a Wolverines T-shirt, will be meeting with fans from both Michigan and Ohio State at a bar for Saturdays game. She expects there to be at least 40 people, with half from each school.Hopefully, things wont get out of hand.Its not as crazy as it would be happening on campus, where people are burning cars, she says humorously. Its more civilized. But Im sure there will be a lot of booing and screaming. Im hoping they dont break anything in the bar.The game also will be shown in India at Bangalores branch of the Arbor Brewing Company, a downtown Ann Arbor brewpub. ABC India was started by Gaurav Sikka, who grew to love craft beer while going to school at Michigan. His bar in Bangalore has some Michigan posters and a No. 1 jersey hanging up.Saturdays kickoff is convenient in London -- 5 p.m. -- but Day, the Englishman who studied for a year at Michigan, says that when the game time is much later, hell just stream a replay on his computer the following morning. To keep from learning the score, he says with a laugh, Ill avoid human contact -- or at least with Americans.Technology to the rescueDespite the time differences, at least now its possible to see the games from abroad. A quarter-century ago, it basically was impossible to watch games on another continent (and if you go back a bit further, games werent always available in the States, either). Even a decade ago it wasnt that easy. Froster, the Aussie Michigan man, recalls streaming the 2006 Michigan-Ohio State in Brisbane.The feed was spotty. I would see Michigan score and then lose the feed for 20 minutes. Then Ohio State would score -- bloody hell! Froster says, adding that the Buckeyes would score every time he lost the feed (which apparently was too often for the Wolverines, who lost 42-39 in a battle of unbeatens vying for a spot in the national championship game). I just remember that was the most depressing morning. Just leaving the office at 6 or 7, completely disheartened.Abraham says he used to have to watch in Dubai via a computer connection with a Slingbox that connected to a TV back in the States. Now he is able to watch via the internet through ESPN.Leong says that he could follow the game in Hong Kong only via the ESPN.com GameCast or a Buckeyes internet forum on which fans would provide updates. A local pay-TV network shows games on one channel, but Ohio State isnt always available.ESPN now has a relationship with Chinese internet provider Tencent, which allows easier access to games. Still, Li says only two or three college games are shown each weekend, so he often has to use a friends U.S. cable account and a VPN connection to access the ESPN app. It takes a long process and some really good computer skills to connect with the college football games, Li says.Michigan alum Nick Kabcenell is in Budapest, Hungary, where NCAA games arent available on TV. Fans can only stream games on their computers and tablets, which, Kabcenell says, is not very conducive to group watching. One of his best friends in Budapest is an Ohio State alum, and they will sometimes watch the annual game together, with me becoming increasingly sulky as the game progressed.Thats because the Buckeyes have had the upper hand recently, winning 11 of the past 12 matchups, including the last four. This year, Ohio State and Michigan were both unbeaten and ranked Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, in AP poll until the Buckeyes were upset by Penn State on Oct. 22. Its good that they lost, Abraham says, but at the same time its not good because theyre going to come at us with vengeance.And then the Wolverines were knocked off by Iowa three weeks later.The way things have turned out, however, the one-loss teams are back to Nos. 2 and 3 and are very much in the race for a spot in the College Football Playoff. Which means the stakes will be extra high at this years game, and the fans will be even more intense in their passion.Thus, not only will there be more than 100,000 fans crammed into The Horseshoe in Columbus on Saturday, but there will be many more fans just as excited and tuned to their screens all around the globe. As Hill says from South Korea, his fandom knows no borders, with the exception of one. That state up north of Ohio.Wolverines fans no doubt feel the same way about that state south of Michigan. ' ' '