M18 Predos

Just the predos:

Results to follow in the new year

Hull vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace - ASTON VILLA
Cardiff vs Southampton - DRAW
Chelsea vs Swansea - CHELSEA
Everton vs Sunderland - EVERTON
Newcastle vs Stoke - NEWCASTLE
Norwich vs Fulham - NORWICH
Spurs vs WBA - DRAW
West Ham vs Arsenal - DRAW
Man City vs Liverpool - MAN CITY

Total odds: 1872/1 (Paddypower)

Good luck, and don't pig out too much

Matchday 16 Results & 17 Predos

Howdy peeps.

So last week was an interesting one, then.

I only caught (and have still only seen) the last 10 minutes of Man City vs Arsenal. What a redonculous 10 minutes that was. If the whole game was like that, then that must rate as one of the best value for money games in football history. Aside from the 3 goals I saw scored, Bendtner had a goal disallowed for offside (very close, probably correct), Walcott had a very good chance and City looked dangerous as well. Sure, the defending was mad, but the people want goals damnit!

If I'm totally honest, I didn't see another sausage of football all weekend, but if we fast-forward to Sunday, Spurs were spanked by the Scousers, which ultimately seems to have cost AVB his job. I have to say, I thought he was totally hard done by at Chelsea, and was worried when he took over from 'Arry at Spurs, but it's a real marmite issue - you can argue that he gave Spurs the highest points total they've ever had in the Premier League, whilst losing one of his star players, and that after losing the other star player, rebuilding 1/3 of a squad and rejecting a chance to manage Qatar FC in St Germain, he deserved time to consolidate on a decent start with new players and being in the running for CL football, in the QFs of the League cup and a good Europa League performance too.

On the other hand, he presided over several spankings, his football sometimes appeared dour if not strange, he clearly couldn't utilise Soldado, didn't trust Defoe and had no relationship with Adebayor. He'd lost the defensive stability of last year with Dawson and Lloris regressing and seemed unable to relocate it. Most crucially, he never won the press over, initally for not being 'Arry, and then latterly for singling out one of their own. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to survive once Fleet Street sets it's mind on unseating you.

For what it's worth, I think he's still unfortunate, although certainly more culpable than at Chelsea. The news that he didn't want 4 of the new signings also suggests that not all was well in the Kingdom of Chigwell. I'd welcome debate this week, along with predos. (I welcome debate all weeks, though it's rarely forthcoming).

In other news, Tan of Cardiff fame is a complete Wasteman.

Let's get statty:

This week, 24 people played
The most predicted results were Chelsea and Everton WINS (24/24)
The most disputed result was: Norwich vs Swansea (9-8-7 split)

Highest odds: er, Me, with a slightly audacious 16, 570/1
Lowest odds: Doron, 2228/1. It's apocalyptic.
Average odds: 5732/1

Best predictor: Gaj Thiru, with a storming 9/10. Bloody Cardiff.
Worst Predictors: er, Me (shocking, I know), Richard Verber and Tarek Najm (3/10)
Average score: 5.54/10

Best predicted results: Chelsea & Everton WINS (24/24)
Worst predicted result: Liverpool WIN (3/24)

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard:

The not-at-all-competitive Menachem Grunewald joins David Dinkin in being better than any of our statistical models. Gaj's great score puts him in a position to create a trinity of human success stories. Lawro for a second year running, puts many to shame. The usual suspects are located down the bottom, with no real major changes there. And yes, Nick, your score includes that other week.

There are a lot of games coming up in a short period, and I'm starting a batch of night shifts very shortly. So, I'll post the weekend fixtures now, followed by a new post on Monday for the Boxing Day fixtures, next weekend's fixtures & New Year's fixtures.

There will certainly not be any results posts in that time, but I'll catch up the first week of January. Speaking of which, there will be a cash FA Cup game again, as before. Details to follow, but it'd be great to have even more entrants than last year.

To this week's predos:

Liverpool vs Cardiff - LIVERPOOL

Crystal Palace vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

Fulham vs Man City - MAN CITY

Man Utd vs West Ham - MAN UTD

Stoke vs Aston Villa - DRAW

Sunderland vs Norwich - SUNDERLAND

WBA vs Hull - DRAW

Southampton vs Spurs - SOUTHAMPTON

Swansea vs Everton - EVERTON

Arsenal vs Chelsea - ARSENAL

Total odds: 1650/1 (PaddyPower)

Good luck all, and have a great festive footy season.

Matchday 16 Predos & a Mega results Catch Up

UPDATED beginning:

No preamble. Apologies for the wait.

Matchday 13

This week, 25 people played
The most popular predicted result was Liverpool WIN (25/25)
The most disputed result was Norwich vs Palace & West Ham vs Fulham (10-12-3 & 12-10-3 respectively)

The highest odds were: 3165/1 (Tarek Najm)
The lowest odds were: 1025/1 (Steven Daniels)
Average odds: 1833/1

Best predictor:  David Dinkin & Nick Collins (8/10)
Worst predictor: A lot of people. Al on 5/10. See below
Average Score: 5.92/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (24/25)
Worst predicted result: Hull WIN (0/25)

Everyone's scores:

Matchday 14

This week, 23 people played
The most popular predicted results were Arsenal & Liverpool WINS (23/23)
The most disputed result was Stoke vs Cardiff (9-8-6 split)

The highest odds were: 5389/1 (Josh Daniels)
The lowest odds were: 1848/1 (Steven Daniels)
Average odds: 3131/1

Best predictor: Me, David Dinkin & Andrew Feneley (7/10)
Worst predictor: Will O'Doherty, Jonny Chernick, Eli Daniels, Steven Daniels and Doron Salomon (4/10)
Average Score: 5.43/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal & Liverpool WINS (23/23)
Worst predicted result: Palace & Villa WINS (1/23 - congrats to Charlie & Tarek there)

Everyone's scores:

Matchday 15

This week, 14 people played
The most popular predicted result was Liverpool (14/14)
The most disputed result was Fulham vs Aston Villa (6-5-3 split)

The highest odds were: Doron Salomon 3032/1
The lowest odds were: Will O'Doherty 1819/1
Average odds: 2352/1

Best predictor: David Dinkin (5/10 - 3/3 - chapeu monsieur)
Worst predictor: Me, Whoscored.com, Will O'Doherty, Josh Gaon, Sam Ruback & Doron Salomon (2/10)
Average Score: 3/10

Best predicted result: Liverpool WIN (14/14)
Worst predicted result: Newcastle & Stoke WINS (0/14)

Everyone's scores:

To the leaderboard, and vast changes as one would expect after 20% of games without a new one being produced.

So Dinkin's superb run of form, (potentially combined with FinkTank missing out on a week) sees him zoom to the top with a solid margin. What's striking about this season, compared to others, is the number of people scoring >5.00 as an average. Unfortunately, the group at the bottom are starting to be cut adrift from those in the middle, although, with more than half the season to still be played, there's a lot that can change.

To this week's predictions:

Man City vs Arsenal - DRAW
Cardiff vs WBA - WBA
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace - CHELSEA
Everton vs Fulham - EVERTON
Newcastle vs Southampton - NEWCASTLE
West Ham vs Sunderland - SUNDERLAND
Hull vs Stoke - DRAW
Aston Villa vs Man Utd - DRAW
Norwich vs Swansea - SWANSEA
Spurs vs Liverpool - DRAW

Total odds: 16, 570/1 (er....yeah)

Good luck guys

Matchday 15 Predos

So just the quick post from me, and I'll catch up results over the weekend.

Predos for this weekend:

Man Utd vs Newcastle - DRAW
Crystal Palace vs Cardiff - PALACE
Liverpool vs West Ham - LIVERPOOL
Southampton vs Man City - CITY
Stoke vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
WBA vs Norwich - WBA
Sunderland vs Spurs - DRAW
Fulham vs Aston Villa - VILLA
Arsenal vs Everton - ARSENAL
Swansea vs Hull - SWANSEA

Total odds: 2101/1 (PaddyPower)

Good Luck guys

Matchday 12 Results, a double blog and the season is 1/3 through

For the first time in 3 years, I've got writers' block. I've sat and written this first line, then deleted and rewritten it a fair few times now. Fortunately, I could always write about having writers' block since it's the first time, but then I figured I'd just babble on for a bit game by game.

The Merseyside derby was a typically intense matchup for that part of the world. Lukaku could have had a hat-trick, Allen finished a gaping chance like I would and Mirallas got his revenge on Suarez. Artur Boruc then proceeded to show off his silkiest of silky skills (bit like I'd have done) and Palace showed a bit of fight as a parting gift to Millen. The Newcastle renaissance continues, whilst Chelsea had their first routine win for quite a while. Man City were irrepressible (whilst Spurs were rather poor) and Cardiff showed Utd-esque fighting spirit to gain a point at the death. Finally, I don't really know much about what happened at WBA, but by all accounts, Long scored a nice goal.

Easy. Opening paragraph waffled through, let's get statty.

This week, 23 people played

The most predicted result was Chelsea WIN (22/23)

The most disputed game was Everton vs Liverpool (7-7-9)

The highest odds were from me, 7157/1

The lowest odds were from Stevie D, 3500/1

Average odds: 4724/1

The best predictors were Dinkin, Chernick, Charlie and JT (7/10)

The worst predictors were Yanik & Adrian (3/10)

The average score was 5.22

The best predicted result was  Chelsea WIN (22/23)

The worst predicted result was Crystal Palace WIN (0/23)

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 of available weeks, or 9/12.

Without giving massive commentary, I'm astounded by just how consistent the Fink Tank model is. One 3, and every other week has been 5-7. Superb stuff from the Times pundit and his intepid band of statisticians.

To this week's predos:

Aston Villa vs Sunderland - DRAW

Cardiff vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Everton vs Stoke - EVERTON

Norwich vs Crystal Palace - DRAW

West Ham vs Fulham - FULHAM

Newcastle vs WBA - NEWCASTLE

Spurs vs Man Utd - DRAW

Hull vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Chelsea vs Southampton - CHELSEA

Man City vs Swansea - MAN CITY

Total odds: 2761/1 (PaddyPower)

and the midweek games:

Crystal Palace vs West Ham - WEST HAM

Arsenal vs Hull - ARSENAL

Liverpool vs Norwich - LIVERPOOL

Man Utd vs Everton - DRAW

Southampton vs Aston Villa - SOUTHAMPTON

Stoke vs Cardiff - DRAW

Sunderland vs Chelsea - CHE;SEA

Swansea vs Newcastle - SWANSEA

Fulham vs Spurs - SPURS

WBA vs Man City - MAN CITY

Total odds: To be updated when the predos are there after the weekend games.

Feel free to give me both sets of predos straight away if you'd rather. Good luck folks.

Matchday 11 Results & Matchday 12 Predos

Gonna jump straight into it this week with a phenomenal stat from last week.

5/22, or 23% went for a Man Utd home win.

I'm not sure that we've ever had a stat like that in the last 3 years (it'd be easy to check, but I don't want to ruin the Disney-like magic), including for games involving Chelsea or Man City. There was always a feeling that United at Old Trafford were always at least value for a draw, and more often than not, a win. It just jumped out at me as Impossibilitee's own way of showing the Moyes effect.

And yes, I'm more than aware that they did win. However, it's the perception that's interesting. I was working last weekend, so didn't see the game. I did however, discharge a patient who was a Man Utd fan on the grounds that if he was well enough to mock me after full time, he was well enough to go home. He hasn't returned, so I was either right, or very wrong.

(Career saving bit: If anyone from the GMC reads this blog, that last bit was a joke. Thanks for stopping by.)

It was actually a strange round of matches - I'd like to say one for the underdogs, except they were all strangely predictable. Man United are still Man United. Sunderland seem to have this hoodoo over Man City, WBA are in good nick (and would have won were it not for a horrific penalty decision) and Spurs' profligacy was punished by a keeper in sublime form. The only real shock for me was Palace holding Everton, and again, with absolutely zero in-depth knowledge of the game, I'm ascribing that to 'dead-cat bounce'.

What it did mean, however, was a round of low scores, and a happy bookmaker or two.

Let's get statty:

This week, 22 people played
The most predicted results were Liverpool and Chelsea WINS (22/22)
The most disputed result was Man United vs Arsenal (5-9-8 split)

The highest odds were from Steven Daniels (4075/1)
The lowest were from Doron Salomon (Madre mia, time to cash in the life insurance....428/1)

(Insurance premium saving bit: that last bit was a joke. Thanks for stopping by.)

The best predictors were Tarek Najm, EuroClubIndex and Fink Tank with 5/10
The worst predictors were (deep breath) Me, WhoScored.Com, Gaj Thiru, Adrian Daniels, Nick Collins, Steven Daniels & Josh Daniels (a proud weekend for my family).

The best predicted result was Liverpool WIN (22/22)
The worst predicted results were Sunderland and Newcastle WINS and the DRAW between Chelsea and WBA (0/22)

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, for those who have played 8/11 weeks.

This week's predos:

Everton vs Liverpool - EVERTON
Arsenal vs Southampton - ARSENAL
Fulham vs Swansea - SWANSEA
Hull vs Crystal Palace - DRAW
Newcastle vs Norwich - NEWCASTLE
Stoke vs Sunderland - DRAW
West Ham vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Man City vs Spurs - DRAW
Cardiff vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
WBA vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA

Total odds: 7157/1 (PaddyPower)

Good luck chaps, see you next week

The Big Results Post & Matchday 11 Predictions

As promised, a rather large post of results from the last 3 weeks. A fair amount to get through, and the lack of major talking points from last weekend allows me to crack straight on.

Let's get statty:

Matchday 8

This week, 26 people played.
The most popular predicted results were Arsenal & Chelsea WINS (26/26)
The most disputed result was Crystal Palace vs Fulham (9-8-9 split)

Highest odds: Doron Salomon (3330/1)
Lowest odds: Me (349/1)
Average odds: 1,243/1

Best predictor:  Adrian Daniels (8/10)
Worst predictor: Me, James Tobias, Josh Gaon and WhoScored.com (4/10)
Average score: 5.62/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal & Chelsea WINS (26/26)
Worst predicted result: Everton vs Hull DRAW (1/26 - well done Dr Feneley)

Everyone's scores:

Matchday 9

This week, 22 people played.
The most popular predicted results were Arsenal, Manchester United & Spurs WINS (22/22)
The most disputed result was Chelsea vs Man City (11-8-3 split)

Highest odds: Doron (obviously) 2102/1
Lowest odds: Sam Ruback, 357/1
Average odds: 912/1

Best predictor: Steven Daniels (9/10)
Worst predictor: Lawro (4/10)
Average score: 6.59/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal, Manchester United & Spurs WINS (22/22)
Worst predicted results: Sunderland WIN (1/22 - well done Doron)

Everyone's scores:

Matchday 10

This week, 23 people played.
The most popular predicted results were Chelsea, Man United & Man City WINS (22/23)
The most disputed result was Everton vs Spurs (10-8-5 split)

Highest odds: Sam Ruback, 3745/1
Lowest odds: Josh Daniels, 1700/1
Average odds: 2657/1

Best predictor: Me & Steven Daniels (7/10)
Worst predictor: Will O'Doherty, Jonny Chernick, Yanik Joshi and Charlie Rawson (3/10)
Average score: 5.04/10

Best predicted results: Manchesters United & City WINS (22/23)
Worst predicted results: Newcastle WIN (0/23)

Everyone's scores:

And now to an updated leaderboard, showing those who have played >2/3 of available weeks, or 7 of 10:

The first thing to note is that (albeit, with nearly 3/4 of the season to play), the scores are higher than in previous years across the board. Are we improving as a cohort, or is the league more predictable? Or have the vagaries of the fixture calendar produced a start to the season disproportionately easy to call?

The pros have the lead, along with our most 'tactile' player, Eli. Last year's biggest winners from a general perspective are sat near the bottom, with FA Cup champion Josh Gaon mimicking his real life counterparts in taking his eye off the league competition.

Still relatively early days however, and plenty of movement to occur; that much is certain.

To this week's predictions:

Aston Villa vs Cardiff - CARDIFF

Chelsea vs WBA -CHELSEA

Crystal Palace vs Everton - EVERTON

Liverpool vs Fulham - LIVERPOOL

Southampton vs Hull - SOUTHAMPTON

Norwich vs West Ham - DRAW

Spurs vs Newcastle - DRAW

Sunderland vs Man City - MAN CITY

Man Utd vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Swansea vs Stoke - SWANSEA

Total odds: 1722/1 (PaddyPower)

Good luck guys