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!