Nishibe is out for four weeks following his horrific collision last weekend. Should we make it through, will he be back in time for the cup final on New Year's Day? What am I, Mystic Meg?
Ex-scum striker Takahara is rumoured to be on the S-Pulse Christmas shopping list. Shizuoka lad born and bred, and Shimizu educated, it was always such a waste he got tempted to the dark side as a youth. We've all done things we regret. Will he find salvation in a bright orange t-shirt? Would certainly put some extra bums on seats and flog a few scarves.
I didn't go up to Chiba for this one, although our travelling army was out in force as ever. I also didn't see it, on account of being in Kansai for the weekend. I got back late last night, hence the late update to the site.
While I was over enjoying Universal Studios, the boys were doing the business grabbing another vital three away points. Okazaki and Johnsen demonstrated their increasingly deadly partnership to open the scoring. JEF levelled in the second half with a cracking goal from Fukai before Aoyama connected with a long free kick to grab a rare goal, and what turned out to be the winner.
With many teams above us dropping points, we could make up some ground on the top five. Next up is Urawa in the league cup before facing them again next Sunday in the league. They've lost their last two, away to bottom of the table Oita (who have lost 15 from their last 16) and they got spanked at home 3-0 by Nagoya on Saturday, so it's as good a time as ever to play them.
Click here for the full up to date league table. Our match with Albirex Niigata in a fortnight is going to be a huge yardstick as to how we can expect the second half of the season is going to go. Compared to last year, we're well placed and have it all to look forward to!
Line Up
GK K. Yamamoto
DF Ichikawa DF Iwashita DF Arata DF Ota
MF Fujimoto MF Ito MF Honda MF Edamura
FW Okazaki FW Johnsen
Subs used
Aoyama on for Fujimoto (HT) Hara on for Ota (60) Paulo on for Okazaki (89)
Videos
Full highlights:
And finally, a video of part of the excellent Hollywood Dreams rollercoaster at USJ.
Barry writes: