Matchday 3: I feel so out of touch

Last Sunday marked my first 90 mins of the season. The 20th match played by my calculations. In a sports mad country that shows 7-8 PL games a week, this is a very poor show. Unfortunately, its not going to change for the next few weeks, and this has left me feeling like I am very out of touch with what's going on!

Apologies if it seems like I'm phoning it in at the minute....WiFi is hard to come by but I promise that there will be a results post (for all weeks) in the next 2 weeks. For now, its just the predictions.

West Ham vs Fulham - Fulham
Swansea vs Sunderland - Draw
Spurs vs Norwich - Spurs
WBA vs Everton - Everton
Wigan vs Stoke - Wigan
Man City vs QPR - Man City
Liverpool vs Arsenal - Draw
Newcastle vs Aston Villa - Newcastle
Southampton vs Man Utd - Southampton (6-3 anyone?)

No odds this week as Paddypower website wouldn't load before my internet timed out!

Sorry this is a bit rubbish atm guys, bear with me for just a few weeks more. When I'm back in Blighty, I'll make it up.

Good luck

Matchday 2: Hopefully this week I'll catch some football

The trouble with having 12GB of internet for a month between 15 people is that it doesn't leave streaming football matches as a realistic option. Consequently, the only football I've seen so far this season was the last 10 minutes of Chelsea vs Reading on Wednesday. Therefore, I can't comment on anything that's happened other than Torres being offside and the whole goalie going up for the corner thing - it works so rarely....what exactly is the point? Jimmy Glass moments are few and far between.

Anyway, I also haven't done any stats from last week because 1) it's tedious through this internet connection and I need to copy and paste it all, 2) I've been busy with trying to find somewhere to live next month last minute in my free time and 3) the numbers have swollen to the extent that I don't know who everyone who played is! That's brilliant, but if possible, could you identify your predictions from last week and use a unique handle in future weeks - either first name & surname or your twitter names - that makes my life so much easier!

Anyway - onto this weeks predictions:

Swansea vs West Ham - DRAW
Aston Villa vs Everton - EVERTON
Man Utd vs Fulham - DRAW
Norwich vs QPR - NORWICH
Southampton vs Wigan - SOUTHAMPTON
Sunderland vs Reading - DRAW
Spurs vs WBA - SPURS
Chelsea vs Newcastle - CHELSEA
Stoke vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Liverpool vs Man City - MAN CITY

Total odds: 8177/1 with PaddyPower.

Sorry for it being short and sweet, but its 2am and I've just got off a 10 hour shift. I'll try to do a stats post before the 3rd set of predictions.

Good luck!

Back for the new season

Welcome back old friends, and hopefully welcome for the first time to some new players too!

After a summer break to take in the Euros and the Olympics (and from my perspective, to try a pass a bloody difficult set of exams), it's time to get those virtual accumulator forms dusted off and try to show that after a year's practice, this is the year where we, collectively, hit the bookies where it hurts. Failing  that, let's just have some fun!

Quick recap of the rules of the game for those with poor memories/never played before. Before each round of PL games, I'll post a blog up here with the matches and my predictions - either which team I think will win or a draw if that's how I see it going. I'll then put the odds I got for an accumulator bet from a bookie. You do the same in the comments section (without the odds if you're not a gambler) and then I'll do my stats wizardry after the round is completed. 1 point for calling a match correctly, and the weekly scores are accumulated into a league table so you can see how you do against everyone else. I'll also be incorporating the predictions from Mark Lawrenson on the BBC Sport website, and a couple of statistical predictors to see if they're better than our intuitive approach.

Words can be confusing, so to explain above, I'll do my predictions for this opening set of fixtures.

Arsenal vs Sunderland - ARSENAL
Fulham vs Norwich - DRAW
QPR vs Swansea - QPR
Reading vs Stoke - READING
WBA vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
West Ham vs Aston Villa - DRAW
Newcastle vs Tottenham - DRAW
Wigan vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Man City vs Southampton - MAN CITY
Everton vs Man Utd - DRAW

Total odds with PaddyPower: 3309/1

So copy and paste that into the comments section and change the results for what you think will happen.

I'm abroad until the end of September, and have patchy internet access at best so I'm not going to be able to remind/harass you guys like I did last year so if we could foster a "Club Impossibilitee" mentality and remind one another that'd be awesome! Those of you who have each other on Facebook/Twitter, please give everyone a nudge and if you have any friends who'd be interested, then please invite them along. I also can't guarantee that I'll do a stats post every week, but I promise that the predictions will be up, at least 2 days before the matches take place. If you add your twitter names to your predictions this week, then it makes it easier for others to find you and remind you. You'll also get new followers.....and most of you are worth following!

The new season starts here - I'm excited and hoping to pick up where we all left off last year. Good luck guys!