Season 6: This year's my year

Welcome back one and all.

Hope you've all had a lovely summer. Nice little break to whet the appetite before the Euros - then a glut of low-quality games before it settled into a regular diet of more meaningful football. Some great memories - the Icelandic thunderclap, the Will Grigg craze and of course, moths eating Ronaldo.

I was pretty upset at the final winners. I was watching the game at a BBQ with a bunch of French people, and obvs wanted the Arsenal boys to do well. I also can't stand Ronaldo and frankly, Quaresma and Nani also irritate me, so there's that. I think the overall feeling of wanting France to win in the Stade de France as some kind of cathartic episode for the year they've had after the attacks at the same stadium back in November was my primary driver though. Anyway, it wasn't to be and when Eder cracked one in from distance you knew there was no way back.

Transfers - Man Utd have gone contract crazy with a new manager and several big signings - still no Pogba which is a transfer that baffles me. He looks like a worldy, but also has games that completely pass him by. A transfer that's likely to surpass £150m when you factor in agent's fees, wages & bonuses just strikes me as a completely daft thing to do. You could easily buy 3 players for that money who might not reach the same peak, but would improve the squad and allow for a more consistent level of form. Think about that - 3 £50m players and what that'd buy! What if Pogba does his ACL in September? I know it's not my money but it just seems a bizarrely extravagant signing.

Managers & players aplenty have arrived in the UK - even with the £ dying and Brexit implications hovering darkly in the future. In particular, I'm excited by Middlesborough signing Negredo on loan (and Valdes!) and Gundogan coming to City, but the most outstanding transfer of the summer comes from Merseyside.

This man is back:



I know he's probably never going to play, but I'm as glad to see him back in the UK as I would be if we'd signed him ourselves. Eyal Berkovic & Samassi Abou probably disagree.

That's Alex Manninger for those who haven't followed the above - and that photo is about 18 years old so I'm just overjoyed that he's still playing!

One last order of business to attend to:

Congratulations to Dagmar for her maiden victory. Historical leaderboard etc now all updated.

To this season now, and a small change to the rules. To incorporate weeks with reduced schedules, the average points will be pro-rata to not penalise those who take part and reward those who tactically absent themselves. I will also be running a pilot of cumulative points (1 per correct prediction) throughout the season to see whether this correlates well with the current scoring system.

So, to the 1st week's predictions:

Hull vs Leicester
Burnley vs Swansea
Crystal Palace vs WBA
Everton vs Spurs
M'boro vs Stoke
Southampton vs Watford
Man City vs Sunderland
Bournemouth vs Man Utd
Arsenal vs Liverpool
Chelsea v West Ham

Total odds:

A reminder that reminders are available by Facebook, Twitter, Whats App & email. Yo has died. Sorry to all affected by this. I'll be continuing with preferences from last season, but if you have any further preferences, please let me know.

Not much to say other than spread the word far & wide and let's make this the biggest & best season yet. It's always better with a bit of real life competition so drag in friends, family, colleagues etc. If you're new to the game, welcome, thanks for playing and be in touch with any questions. See the tabs at the top for an explanation of what to do.

Good luck guys! Try not to eat my dust this season....