S4M27: Introducing a new Swing

I figured that 2 years after retiring the Villain of the Week category, it was time to shake up the blog a little. Watching MoTD, it struck me when N'Doye scored that great winner for Hull late on that he'd screwed loads of people. I thought about it, and decided that in future, the single goal that alters the result affecting the most number of people would now be highlighted. In actuality, after all that, it was a different goal that claimed the inaugural honour...stay tuned to find out which one it was.

Where to start? Swansea doing the double over Man Utd for the first time ever? Ron Vlaar doing his best Arsenal audition? Joey Barton flicking a 6ft 3 man in the penis - and then trying to justify it in his half apology. Charlie Austin's response was spot on, and made me dislike his face slightly less. Are City back or are Newcastle just hopeless, regardless of who's in the Manager's seat on the team coach? Did Kane dive (Yes) or was Song an idiot (Yes)? Are Liverpool back or did they get a little lucky with some shocking refereeing?

And speaking of refereeing - what the flibbertygib was going on with Chelsea & Burnley? Comedy of errors isn't the right phrase 'cos it really wasn't funny.

Chelsea are frustrated because they are playing relatively poorly and dropped points. But let's be honest - the first Barnes foul was nothing more than that. Chelsea should have had 2 pens, but Burnley also should have had one for the Luis handball. You always can move your arm away from a dropping ball. The Barnes/Matic incident is ridiculous. Firstly, it wasn't a tackle. Barnes has the ball, but caught Matic with the follow through. Amazing how many pundits can't see that. Secondly, whilst intent is relevant in the laws of the game, it's also not the be all. It was a reckless error, and deserved red. Matic's reaction was understandable on a human level, but also a guaranteed 3 match ban. So what's happened next?

Mourinho jabbers on about a conspiracy. Deflection much?
Goals on Sunday then allow him to perpetuate this. Pathetic frankly.
Barnes is cleared from retrospective punishment as the ref saw it. Insane that this is how the system works - Atkinson should be allowed to renege his opinion on viewing a match tape after the game. Matic somehow gets a match off his ban - why? It's violent conduct and a straight red - regardless of context.

Also, the staggering hypocrisy of the Chelsea machine is nauseating. Didn't hear a peep from them when it was Ramires, Mikel or Cahill ruining people's anatomy. The fact is, all teams have players who can  make bad fouls. Some more than others, but no-one is whiter than white. To allow the perpetuation of this narrative is just staggeringly low brow.

In other news, Arsenal were a post away from a nightmare on Saturday, but ensured they played there part in a miserable week for British clubs in Europe. Well done all. And finally, in World Cup news, FIFA confirmed their arseholery with a fait accompli meeting of stakeholders. I have about as much interest in the next 2 World Cups as I do in Motocross. Less than passing.

On that grumpy note (and one I'm sure we'll return to), let's get statty:

Matchday 26:

This week, 20 people played

Most predicted results: Chelsea, Arsenal & Man City WINS (20/20)

Most disputed result: Sunderland vs WBA (6-8-6 split)

Highest odds: Sam Ruback (5957/1)

Lowest odds: Steven Daniels (1196/1)

Average odds: 3418/1

Best predictor: Sam Ruback (6/10)

Worst predictor: WhoScored.com, Eli Daniels, David Silverman & Tarek Najm (2/10)

Average score: 3.65/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal & Man City WINS (20/20)

Worst predicted result: Chelsea vs Burnley DRAW (0/20)

Goal-swing: Ben Mee's (I always call him Bertie) equaliser for Burnley (20/20)

Everyone's results:

  

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (18/26)

To this week's predos:

West Ham vs Crystal Palace - WEST HAM

Burnley vs Swansea  - DRAW

Man Utd vs Sunderland  - MAN UTD

Newcastle vs Aston Villa - DRAW

Stoke vs Hull - HULL

WBA vs Southampton - WBA

Liverpool vs Man City - MAN CITY

Arsenal vs Everton - ARSENAL

Total odds: 1601/1 (PaddyPower)

Midweek games to follow on Sunday.

Finally from me, a begrudging promo for a cause, that's probably good, although one could argue that they signed the contract with Satan and knew what they were getting themselves into...

An old friend and some of his mates have re-recorded another Chaz & Dave song from the one I'd already heard. Did they actually churn out crap after crap? Anyway - it's called HotShot Totteham 2015, and has been adopted by that backwards excuse for a club as their official song for the League Cup final.

It costs £0.59 from itunes, can be found on Spotify (or Shazam!) and all proceeds go the the Tottenham Tribute Trust who do good work in deprogramming brainwashed spuds helping people who've fallen on hard times who once played for the club.

Here's the song:

Now I feel dirty. But I justify it by knowing I'm doing my bit to make Mourinho sad, even if it makes the knuckledraggers yelp for a few weeks. 

Obviously Bane scenario is the ideal outcome...

Until next week, good luck guys!

S4M26: Foxed by the draws

It's been 10 days or so since my last post, but as ever post-FA Cup break, it's difficult to write something too relevant.

North London bragging rights were retained by the soon to be Milton Keynes dwellers, as uniquely correctly predicted by Doron Salomon. Merseyside shared the spoils however. Villa scored (!) but lost. Again. Manchesters Utd & City were held to 1-1 draws as were pithy underdogs Swansea and Southampton, pulse-racers WBA and Burnley and Newcastle and Stoke in the battle of the belligerent. QPR and Leicester lost as expected - and Pearson went full WWE. But this has all been discussed already.

As has midweek, where Balotelli smiled, on Twitter, after a game. Villa built on their success in scoring by losing both a match and a manager. QPR won away. Unseen by all, incredibly, against a poor Sunderland team. No other major shocks - and Pardew was unable to smug it up against his former patrons. 

Too long has passed I feel to comment more, so let's get statty:

Matchday 24:

This week, 22 people played

Most predicted result: Man City WIN (22/22)

Most disputed result: Burnley vs WBA (8-6-8 split)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels (8437/1)

Lowest odds: Feneley's Mum (867/1). Tickle me pink

Average odds: 3496/1

Best predictor: Doron Salomon (6/10)

Worst predictors: 6 of us (me included) (2/10)

Average score: 3.32/10

Best predicted result: Chelsea WIN (21/22)

Worst predicted result: Man City vs Hull DRAW (0/22)

Everyone's results:

Matchday 25:

This week, 20 people played

Most predicted results: Arsenal, Sunderland (a first!), Chelsea & Man Utd WINS (20/20)

Most disputed result: Hull vs Aston Villa (7-5-8 split)

Highest odds: Steven Daniels (3560/1)

Lowest odds: Sam Ruback (355/1)

Average odds: 1432/1

Best predictor: 7 of you (7/10)

Worst predictor: Verber, Eli & Me (great 2 games) (4/10)

Average score: 5.8/10

Best predicted results: Arsenal, Chelsea & Man Utd WINS(20/20)

Worst predicted result: QPR WIN (0/20)

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (17/25)

Frankly, I'm too upset with my catastrophic slide that I can't even look at this table to analyse it.

To this week's predos:

Aston Villa vs Stoke - DRAW

Chelsea vs Burnley - CHELSEA

Crystal Palace vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Hull vs QPR - DRAW

Sunderland vs WBA - WBA

Swansea vs Man Utd - SWANSEA

Man City vs Newcastle - MAN CITY

Spurs vs West Ham - SPURS

Everton vs Leicester - EVERTON

Southampton vs Liverpool - DRAW

Total odds: 3283/1 (PaddyPower)

Good luck folks

FA Cup 2.5: Well I never

So after bemoaning the lack of cupsets in R3, the old gal sprung back with a stormer of a 4th round. Southampton were the early casualties, before Chelsea and Man City both suffered shock losses. They'd had fair warning the night before when Man Utd had failed to see off Cambridge, but that didn't gird their steels. Liverpool were similarly unfocused against Bolton. Spurs too switched off early (ironic given their propensity for late wins in the league) to exit to a Leicester side looking for league distraction.

The Sunday was less shocking, as teams really knuckled down, and eventually, after replays, there was no more fun to be had.

To get statty:

10 of the 11 played this round, Tharshan is a muppet and will play this time after receiving several reminders yet again.

Most popular predicted results: Man Utd, Derby, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs & Man City, West Ham & Arsenal  WINS (12/13)

Most disputed: Preston North End vs Sheffield United (6-6 split)

Best predictor: Sam Ruback (11/16)
Worst predictor: Tharshan Thavagnanam (0/16)
Next worst: Aron Kleiman (7/16)

Everyone's results:

Pale bars are totals to date - Sam is in the lead after winning both rounds so far, just ahead of Yo Abbott. 

To Round 5:

Crystal Palace vs Liverpool	LIVERPOOL
Arsenal vs Middlesbrough	ARSENAL
Aston Villa vs Leicester	ASTON VILLA
WBA vs West Ham	WEST HAM
Bradford vs Sunderland	SUNDERLAND
Blackburn vs Stoke	STOKE
Derby vs Reading	DERBY
PNE vs Man Utd	MAN UTD

Can those who have yet to pay me please do so this round so I don't have to chase anyone any more! Thanks!

Good luck guys!

S4M24: February made me shiver

You know who doesn't get enough airtime? Don McLean, that's who. Did he even do any other songs? I know that, if it had been me, I'd have looked at that piece of work and thought, "Never gonna beat that" and promptly retired. I'd then have spent all my money on useless kitchen gadgets before having to do comeback tours to sustain my awesome way of life.

Back on this side of the Atlantic, there was some football played. In said football, John Carver decided to win a game, courtesy of a couple of pearlers, and further edging Steve Bruce towards 'Arry's orthopaedic surgeon. That's now the thing to say right? Everton proved they can defend, after taking an early lead against the previously unvanquished Pardew Mk2 - regression to the mean for the Chamakh/Sanogo partnership. Dan(ny)(iel) Sturridge made his extremely long-awaited comeback, and scored within seconds to beat West Ham, replacing the figurative battery in the Scouse renta-a-gob who now "knows" that Rodgers is a Dalglishian figure, and next year, they'll romp the league. Man Utd decided to kill the clown and failed to lose from 3-0 up again to Leicester. Hondenlulen!

QPR continued their piece of astounding performance art by losing away yet again, and Sunderland ramped up their game to beat a Burnley side looking to have run out of puff. Burnley, QPR and 1 more to go down for me, with 3 1/2 months left. Comfortable wins for Spurs and Arsenal to maintain form going into the North London Derby, whilst Mourinho parked his massive hypocritical bus after half-time against Man City. In fairness, I wasn't expecting Chelsea to even try and have any shots on target, so fair play for trying for a bit. Shock of the weekend came from out of form Swansea as Jonjo Shelvey rolled back the years (as much as a young man can do) with a brilliant 15 minutes capped with a cracking goal to beat Southampton at St Mary's. It's literally true to say no-one saw that coming.

TDD came and went as well. Lots happened. Chelsea exchanged one winger who doesn't like to track back for another with worse hair. Man Utd signed a defender from Bolton who was previously playing for Plymouth on loan this season. West Ham dodged a lanky Togolese bullet, whilst Newcastle, well Mike Ashley, certainly pulled off the dodgiest deal - loaning 5 players to Rangers in their bid to return to the SPL. Most teams had already done their business before the end of the window, so for all the hype (bugger off Savage), it really was quite normal.

2 final points: 1) booooooooo Man U for being efficient in beating Cambridge eventually and 2) yaaaaayyyyyy Tiny Tactics Timmy looks like he may return!

Let's get statty:

Matchday 23:20 

This week, people played

Most predicted results: Arsenal & Southampton WINS (20/20)

Most disputed results:Crystal Palace vs Everton & WBA vs Spurs (8-8-4 & 4-8-8 splits respectively)

Highest odds: AFM (21008/1) - quite sedate that

Highest odds excluding AFM: Me (3820/1)

Lowest odds: Josh Daniels (1269/1)

Average odds: 5055/1 (2397/1 excluding Feneley's Mum)

Best predictors: ECI & FinkTank (8/10)

Worst predictor: Me, Steven Daniels & David Silverman (3/10)

Average score: 5.05/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN (20/20)

Worst predicted result: Swansea WIN (0/20)

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard, for those who have played >2/3 available weeks (16/23)

To this week's predos: (Updated 5/2/14 1349)

Spurs vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Aston Villa vs Chelsea -CHELSEA

Leicester vs Crystal Palace - DRAW

Man City vs Hull - MAN CITY

QPR vs Southampton - SOUTHAMPTON

Swansea vs Sunderland - SWANSEA

Everton vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Burnley vs WBA- WBA

Newcastle vs Stoke - NEWCASTLE

West Ham vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Total odds: 1121/1 (Paddypower)

Total odds to be sorted when I update on Friday.

I'll also write out the fixtures for the midweek fixtures next week, as I'm working a lot in the next few days. I'll try and remind everyone too before Tuesday.

Arsenal vs Leicester - ARSENAL

Hull vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA (!!!)

Sunderland vs QPR - SUNDERLAND

Liverpool vs Spurs - SPURS

Chelsea vs Everton - CHELSEA

Man Utd vs Burnley - MAN UTD

Southampton vs West Ham - SOUTHAMPTON

Stoke vs Man City - MAN CITY

Crystal Palace vs Newcastle - CRYSTAL PALACE

WBA vs Swansea - DRAW

Total odds: 1255/1 (Paddypower)

(Updated 10/02/15 1036)

Good luck guys! And for any new readers, post your predos in the comments below! Just copy/paste from the main text and alter to your own predos/odds.