Mad World.........

[Totelfootball]

Chris Hughton's shocking sacking has been the big talking point of gameweek 16. Although the Toon were well beaten by West Brom, it is hard to fathom why Mike Ashley felt the need for a change, surely Hughton's reliable stewardship was exactly what the club needed. Newcastle have had 7 managers since the late Bobby Robson and Hughton has arguably been the most impressive, particularly given the imbecile he has had to work under! Apparently Mike Ashley used fantasy football predictions to determine where he expected his side to finish at the end of the season, our suggestion to him is to leave real football teams alone and concentrate on topping the TotelFootball leaderboard each weekend.

The big freeze claimed only one Premier League fixture and there weren't too many shocks in the remaining games. Chelsea stumbled to a draw at home to Everton; Liverpool were expected to beat Aston Villa even without Gerrard, Torres and Carragher, they did not let the Anfield crowd down as they cruised to a 3-0 victory. Manchester City seem intent on replicating Brad Pitt's Fight Club as one fall out follows another, on Friday Jerome Boateng and Mario Balotelli came to blows. After being substituted during City's laboured victory over Bolton, Carlos Tevez jostled and argued with his boss Mancini, at least it shows they care!

New Zealand international captain Ryan Nelsen was the star of the show this weekend, for a centre back he just about did the clean sweep as he scored, kept a clean sheet, assisted David Dunn's goal and won the man of the match award. We usually unearth a really interesting fact about the week's star performer, however we were unable to find anything non-football related to mention about Ryan Nelsen. The only thing we can confirm about him is that he is All White.

Gameweek 17 will be open for betting on Thursday morning at http://www.totelfootball.com/affiliate/fiso/index.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.