Matchday 21 results & Matchday 22 Predictions

A decent weekend of footy I thought, removing my Arsenal hat (and scarf, and replica shirt, and tie, and...never mind). The big "shock" came at the Liberty Stadium, although it wasn't really a shock if I'm honest, and the surprising thing is that only Doron called it!

Torres looked interested for the first time in months, some ginger bloke wound up Wazza, some other ginger bloke "did a Thierry" and Liverpool are still dreadful. I can say that, some of my best mates are Scouse.

My favourite moment of the weekend came in the Monday night game at the DW. Figueroa's amazing handball brought back memories of my 1st year of Sunday league football playing for Pinner U10s. We weren't a great team (thought we weren't bad either) and it was basically run for the co-managers' sons to have a run about. Anyway, one game I was in defence and we were getting beat. We had a corner and I was the last man back - needless to say, when you play junior football on large pitches, corners rarely come to much and this was no exception. They cleared the ball, and inexplicably, on the halfway line, I punched the ball back (at a comfortable heading height). The ref gave the free kick (durrrr) and asked me why I'd done it - totally lied and just told him I'd tried to head it and missed. Apparently it was better to be malcoordinated than to be a cheat. Didn't even get a booking - I don't recall if the opposition manager was waving an imaginary card. I'd love to know if Ol' Maynor gave the same excuse...

Anyway, to the stats:

A better week this week - the average score was 4, so we're moving in the right direction. A welcome too, to a new player, Jonathan Chernick. No beginners' luck for him, with a score of 3, but think of it like a January signing - the lad has until May to acclimatise to the world of English predictions and will be expected to be firing on all cylinders come the new season.

This week, 18 people played

Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (18/18 or 100% concordance)

Most disputed result: Aston Villa vs Everton (6-6-6 split)

Longest odds: Ryan Wain 4800.2/1

Shortest odds: Will O'Doherty 303/1

Best predictors: Yanik Joshi, Sam Ruback and Doron Salomon (6/10)

Worst predictors: Will O'Doherty, Jonathan Chernick, JT, Josh Benson and Dan Davis (3/10)

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (18/18)

Worst predicted results: Spurs vs Wolves DRAW & Swansea WIN (1/18 - Well done Yanik & Doron)

Villain of the week: No-one scored highly enough for there to be a true villain, but I'm going with Arsene Wenger for his glaring oversight on Sunday. He's not a trainers kind-of-guy. It looks a bit like my dad in exercise gear - stick to the suits in future, son.

Everyone's scores:

To the leaderboard:

Just as a reminder, you need to have played >2/3 of weeks to get on the leaderboard (or 15/21). All those Xmas no shows have cost Ryan and Doron places here - and they'll have to wait a few weeks to get on - next week, Yanik should join too. No massive movers - you could argue that there are 2 distinct mid-table packs forming, but the margins are so small that could all change in one week. Joe Miller still way out ahead, but will that be the case when the 3 above get on the board...

To this week's predictions:

Norwich vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Everton vs Blackburn - DRAW

Fulham vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

QPR vs Wigan - WIGAN

Sunderland vs Swansea - DRAW

Stoke vs WBA - STOKE

Wolves vs Aston Villa - WOLVES

Bolton vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Man City vs Spurs - MAN CITY

Arsenal vs Man Utd - DRAW (not really but I'll never bet on a defeat)

Total odds:12769/1 (Paddypower) - pretty pretty please come in this week...

Predictions in the comments below as per usual, good luck!