Week 10: Going all out this week

Matchday 10 of the Premier League season is upon us - and we will have played 25% of the season already. Where the hell did that go?

I've gone for some long odds this weekend - I feel with some Halloween mischief there are upsets to be had. The question is, have I predicted them correctly!

I've gone for:

Everton vs Man Utd - DRAW

Chelsea vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Swansea vs Bolton - SWANSEA

Norwich vs Blackburn - NORWICH

Sunderland vs Aston Villa - SUNDERLAND

Man City vs Wolves - MAN CITY

Wigan vs Fulham - DRAW

WBA vs Liverpool - WBA

Spurs vs QPR - SPURS

Stoke vs Newcastle - DRAW

Total odds: 12,523/1 with PaddyPower

Can I ask that when you copy & paste the matches into the comments that you keep them in the same order....it's a pain when I realise halfway through that I've been mixing matches up!

Post your predos/bets in the comments below as usual, and feel free to spread the word! Still plenty of the season to go!

Good luck!

Week 9 Results: Trying so hard not to gloat....

So yeah.....pretty standard day of sport yesterday....Rugby World Cup Final (glad the All Blacks won....although they didn't half make life difficult for themselves), my first NFL game (awesomely OTT, definitely going back again), Arsenal beating the Troglodytes and...

some of the most mind-boggling results ever in the PL. Sunderland actually winning a game.....bloody hell!

Not wanting to dwell too much on Chelsea or the game at Old Trafford...suffice it to say that some poor team is going to be very upset to be playing Man Utd in the near future, and that I'm glad I backed City for the league in August.

No gloating over Utd fans from me (8-2....can't really go there) but my mouth was agape when I saw the scores come in.

This week was really interesting from a game perspective. Most people who posted had fairly short odds. I reckon that on an average week, the odds for a 10 match accumulator are around 3000/1 (£30 for 1p stake if maths make your eyes go funny).

This week, I was seeing odds of between 30-50% of this on average....and normally, when that happens, it's a reasonably high scoring week. Stands to reason....people are more confident as the games are easier to pick a result in, the bookies agree and so the odds are shorter.

We saw that this week....8/10 matches had more than 70% agreeing on the result, meaning that most of us thought roughly the same way about how the matches were going to play out this weekend.

To put it another way, there are (evil) multiple choice exams where you choose your answer (A-E) and then choose how confident of your answer you are (1-5). If you choose 3 - average confidence - then you score 1 mark if you get it right, but 0 if you get it wrong. If you choose 5 - very confident - then you get 3 marks if you get it right, but LOSE 3 marks if you get it wrong. If you aren't sure at all (ie are just guessing), then you can only score a maximum of 0.5 marks if you get it right.

This week, we were all very confident that we'd all do quite well. We'd all have done very poorly, scoring negative marks all over the place!

Enough waffle, stats time!

This week, 15 people played.

Most popular predicted result: Chelsea WIN (15/15 - 100% concordance)

Most disputed result: Fulham vs Everton ( 3-6-6 split)

Longest odds: Will O'Doherty 8068/1

Best predictor: Me!!!! First time ever! - 5/10

Worst predictors: Dan Davis & Dan Grabiner - 2/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN (14/15)

Worst predicted results: QPR & WBA WINS (0/15)

Interestingly, there were 3 games were only 1 player was right (Wolves/Swansea - Sam Ruback, Liverpool/Norwich - Will O'Doherty and Man Utd/Man City - Me) and only 3 games where we were "all" right - Newcastle, Arsenal & Spurs wins. (13, 14 & 11/15 respectively).

No villain of the week - we were all too poor for any single event to affect us.

Full breakdown below:

And now for the leaderboard. As per usual, you only qualify if you have played >2/3 weeks, so thats 7/9 this week. No change right at the top, but I've jumped into 2nd place, which is a season high for me. Nothing too exciting in midtable, although Dan Davis has a mini-collapse in dropping 3 places. Ryan Wain is still planted to the bottom, although by missing this week, he actually didn't do too badly. As we all did poorly, the gap between him and the rest has shrunk, although it's still a fair one. Next week, we should have a new addition to the board...something to look forward to!

Right, I think that's quite enough. Enjoy your weeks, and I'll be back here later in the week with the weekend's fixtures.

Week 9: Is this the week that Man City become favourites for the title?

A later blog than I'd planned to write this week - my appendix decided that it'd be an appropriate time to want to leave the warm, comfortable environment that I've been providing him with for the last 23 years and that he wanted to see the world.

Net result - few days under the care of the NHS (strange being the other side of the curtain) and a few holes in my stomach. Might have also scared a nurse when I punched the air as Rambo scored late on in Marseille just as he'd come to take my blood pressure....

Anyway, home now and time to stick up my bets!

Wolves vs Swansea - WOLVES

Aston Villa vs WBA - VILLA

Bolton vs Sunderland - DRAW

Newcastle vs Wigan - NEWCASTLE

Liverpool vs Norwich - LIVERPOOL

Fulham vs Everton - EVERTON

Arsenal vs Stoke - ARSENAL

Man Utd vs Man City - CITY

Blackburn vs Tottenham - SPURS

QPR vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Total odds: 1225/1 (Paddypower)

Might be some wishful thinking, might be the painkillers or it might be a genuine powershift, but I fancy City to pull away at the top this weekend!

Bets/Predos in the comments as per usual - Good luck!

Week 8: All change at the top, No change at the bottom

A very strange week in the Premier League this weekend....

I'd thought that with my low odds, that it was going to be a reasonably high scoring week, but it was all over the place! The strange thing is that there were no real massive shocks, so those that scored below par should be disappointed.

Looking at some of the "betting slips" that you post, there were very few away wins predicted - just as well really as only Bolton won away.

To business then:

This week, 14 people played

Most popular predicted result: Arsenal WIN (13/14 93% concordance)

Most disputed result: Liverpool vs Man Utd (surprise surprise - 5-4-5 split) - A lot of "fan" predicting here

Longest odds: Ryan Wain 23811.80/1 (more on this later...)

Best predictor: Will O'Doherty & Feneley - 8/10

Worst Predictor: Ryan Wain - 2/10 (there's a reason his odds were so high....)

I scored a respectable 7/10 - a joint PB for me!

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN (13/14)

Worst predicted result: Bolton WIN (2/14)

No villain of the week this week, no great controversies of any importance to the result of a game (in my view - I'm sure Man Utd fans will disagree over the foul for Gerrard's goal...)

Full breakdown below:

Massive changes to the leaderboard this week. Remember, only those players who have played >2/3 of available games (currently 6/8) qualify for the leaderboard to be fair and show genuine consistency/talent - rather than one good score and refusing to play again. A new top 3 with Will O'Doherty and Feneley regaining their status at the top, and Dan Davis continuing his steady rise. I've jumped to midtable and Ryan Wain has stayed at the bottom, and actually gone backwards. The gap from top to bottom has expanded from ~1.5 to ~2 matches, but worryingly for Ryan, he's getting further away from the man above him. Still...30 games to go...anyone can still win it...(as all Gooners are still hoping....).

I'll be sticking the new set of matches up early this week as I've got a busy week, which gives loads of time for everyone to get involved next week, including those who've disappeared for a bit....if you know them, remind them to make this part of their weekly football regime! Have a great week, will be back in a few days!

Matchday 8: Predictions

After a break for English sport to embarass itself on the world stage again, the Premier league resumes its rightful place at the pinnacle of sport.

The standout match this week is at Anfield where Kenny gets another chance to beat Fergie. Nothing too exciting elsewhere, so there's a chance for some highscores this week!

My bets are as follows:

Liverpool vs Man Utd - DRAW
QPR vs Blackburn - QPR
Wigan vs Bolton - WIGAN
Stoke vs Fulham - DRAW
Norwich vs Swansea - NORWICH
Man City vs Aston Villa - MAN CITY
Chelsea vs Everton - CHELSEA
WBA vs Wolves - WBA
Arsenal vs Sunderland - ARSENAL
Newcastle vs Spurs - DRAW

My odds are 1624/1 (Paddypower)

Predos/bets in the comments as per usual. Good luck!

Matchday 7 Results: Better late than never...

Apologies for the lateness of this week's blog. It's been a bit of a manic week and I've taken advantage of the International break to put this stuff on the back burner!

Interesting set of results this week - a decent spread with the Arsenal fans solidly towards the lower half (mimicking real life....), probably due to us being unable to be rational over the North London Derby. Only 1 Arsenal fan bet against his own team - and he was punished by the footballing gods for this act of heresy with a terrible score. I'm not going to say who he was, but Moe Jiller should be ashamed of himself.

We had a new player this week, and the return of an original player - let's hope you both stick around and work your way onto the leaderboards!

Full breakdown as follows:

16 players this week

Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (100% concordance)

Most disputed result: Everton vs Liverpool (4-5-7 split)

Longest odds: Ryan Wain 19568/1

Best Predictor: Richard Verber (8/10)

Worst Predictor: Feneley, Dex & Joe Miller (4/10)

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (16/16)

Worst predicted result: Swansea WIN (2/16)

I scored a mediocre 5/10 - again totally failing with the Sunday games. Looking ahead to the next set of fixtures, I hope it won't be the same again!

Villain of the week: Martin Atkinson for having a colossal mare and getting the Rodwell red card totally wrong in the Merseyside derby. At 0-0, halfway through the 1st half, you'd have to be the most blinkered of Scousers to think that that decision didn't have a massive impact on the game and potentially deny the Verb a colossal 9/10.

Full results:

Big changes to the leaderboard this week. Josh Daniels joins after having played the required >2/3 of weeks (5/7) and slots in at joint 3rd place. Lawro makes a dash to the top and long term high-flier Feneley crashes down to near the bottom. Ryan Wain still props the table up, but the gap between top and bottom is down to ~1.5 from more than 2 last week.

So go enjoy the international break - I personally could give a monkey's about England tonight (although Montenegro was a lovely country - got 2 of the most delicious coffees I've ever had there for under 1.5 Euro!), and my sporting kicks this weekend will be of the egg-chasing variety.

Have a great weekend and I'll see you all next week with the new set of fixtures!