S6: The End + FA Cup 2017: The Final

And just like that, we're done.

All the blissful optimism of last summer that was crushed underfoot by the relentless disappointment of reality (unless you're a Chelsea, or maybe a Spurs fan, or a dishonest United fan who's moved their goalposts somewhat during the season) now starts to poke it's little head above ground once more, watered by the naivety that is inculcated in each of us from when football first bites; watered by the fetid stream of nonsense that comes out of the football media, that you know is utter tosh but your primal brain, addicted to optimism chooses to believe.

Of course we're gonna sign Griezmann/Mbappe/Aubemayang.

We just need a couple to compete.

No way [insert rival] can repeat their season with European football burden

Dreamers, all of us.

Very few shocks this weekend. Chelsea came from behind to end the season in style, thrashing a poor Sunderland who's only real contribution was to collude in an act of spotfixing that no-one seems particularly upset about. John Terry has shown his usual level of self-awareness, telling the media that he couldn't care less about the stir caused. Class act right to the end. The only silver lining was that the whole palaver took so long that he was actually subbed off in the 28th minute. ROFL.

Man City also handed out a spanking against lacklustre Watford, as did a Spurs side led by a Golden-boot chasing Kane who embarrassed Hull. Liverpool completed the top 4, with a comfortable win against Middlesborough. That meant no space for Arsenal in the top 4, for the 1st time since 1886 or something. Personally, not that unhappy about that - I've long held  candle for the UEFA (Europa) Cup - well since the 2000 run to be honest, and a shake up was needed. I'm frankly more upset about losing 2 centre backs for the cup final.

Man Utd finished 6th - and Mourinho pointed out that he had no other alternative. I've covered this before, so won't waste any more time on his nonsense.

Swansea finished strongly against a WBA side who long ago gave in. That graph showing Pulis' results after reaching 40 points in his PL career was very illuminating. Southampton also meandered to a defeat to Stoke, whilst West Ham can be reasonably happy with their 2nd half to the season, winning at "Fortress" Turf Moor. Bournemouth & Leicester played out a score draw to end in mid table.

Let's get statty:
This week, 22 people played
Most popular predicted results: Arsenal, Chelsea & Spurs WINS (22/22)
Most disputed result: Leicester vs Bournemouth (11-5-6 split)

Highest odds:  AFM 2100/1
Lowest odds: Josh Daniels 344/1
Average odds: 10971/1

Best predictors: Loads of 8/10
Worst predictors: Loads of 6/10 - very narrow range this week
Average score: 6.95/10

Best predicted results: Arsenal, Chelsea & Spurs WINS (22/22)
Worst predicted result: Stoke WIN (1/10 - Lawro)

Everyone's scores:

So to the leaderboard - for those who've played >2/3 of available matches:

EuroClub Index wins their 2nd Impossibilitee title, and also become the 1st player to average >6 for the season. They held the previous record which was 5.76, so a huge win. Last season, Dagmar won with 4.74 - enough for last place this season, so a massive change. Obviously, given the state of the real table, this is as much to do with the predictability of much of the league,

Will O'Doherty wins the best human award. Well, best human player in this game in any case. I'm sure he has a claim to be the best human too, but I'm too lazy to research the other 7 billion. Well done to Will.

A big gap at the bottom of the table sees Silverman wedged at the bottom. He'll be disappointed with that, and fans at Casa Silverman are already looking to ring the changes for next year.

A select table of those who played, but not enough:

Boo to Eli Daniels, Josh Gaon & Brad Allix who all fell out the leaderboard reasonably late into the season. Must try harder. Inaugural champ Joe Miller showing that was really just a massive fluke...Sophie & Jono Gaon showed brief promise before giving up - what could have been....

This year, behind the scenes, I've been looking at alternate scoring methods - as much for fun as anything else. Yes, I need better hobbies. The following is the simplest of these - a cumulative score table. Obviously this benefits regular play. 

Doron the big winner in terms of change from leaderboard position - FT & Will are the big losers. Will has only himself to blame, but the FinkTank might be slightly higher if they could predict for Friday & midweek games, and if I didn't occasionally forget to look for them

So congrats one and all, and looks like we'll have to look to 2019 before the next human champ gets their name on the famous trophy.

FA Cup Time:

Basically, no-one cares about the blurb. Let's catch up on the stats:

R6 (QF)

9/11 played

Most popular prediction: Arsenal WIN 9/9

Most disputed: Chelsea vs Man Utd (7-2 split)

Best predictor: Loads 4/4

Worst predictor: Steven Daniels 1/4

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN 9/9
Worst predicted result: Chelsea WIN 7/9

SF

7/11 played

Most popular prediction: Spurs WIN 5/7

Most disputed: Arsenal vs Man City (4-3 split)

Best predictor: Loads 1/2

Worst predictor: The rest. 0/2

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN 4/7
Worst predicted result: Chelsea WIN 2/7

Everyone's stats:

So Tarek on 45, Me, Josh & the  Feneleys on 44. All Gooners. All with a decision to go with - the heart or the heard.

Final:

Arsenal vs Chelsea

If you want to, comment below
If you want to keep your prediction secret for tactical reasons, then make sure I have it by 1730 on Saturday. Usual methods apply.

Finally, if you haven't yet paid - there are a couple, please do so. Contact me if you need my details. £5 - it's an extra thing for me to chase so help me out.

Good luck all, and thanks to everyone - PL & FA Cup for playing again this season.

COYG....WHAT DID SHE WEAR

S6M38: It's happened again

Ladies & Gentleman, boys & girls. Records have tumbled.

It's happened finally - a weekend of relatively predictable fixtures, no major shocks and we've set a new record high score as a weekly average. Bad times for all those who didn't participate.

Chelsea got the win needed to guarantee the title would return to Stamford Bridge, whilst Everton got the win to ensure Watford expedited their annual manager sacking. Man City, Arsenal & Liverpool all won comfortably - in City's case, a double touch penalty made them sweat momentarily, whilst "Lads, it's Tottenham" signed off the Lane with a thumping 2-1 win - as they go - against a poor United side with all of their gallian ova in one wicker receptacle.

Consider me your word of the day calendar.

Bournemouth & Southampton also had nice wins against disinterested sides in Burnley & Middlesborough, who have hopefully woken up for this weekend...

Allardici did the needful and consigned Hull to the drop - compounded by Swansea's win away at Sunderland and it's basically all done. City are more or less nailed on for CL football, and the 4th spot is likely to be Liverpool's - the only table movement of any note could be Arsenal pipping them. It's unlikely, and frankly, a little unwelcome too. A good kick in the derriere isn't the worst thing in the world now & then.

Let's get statty:
This week, 21 people played - although the FT was screwed by TWO games on Friday night!
Most popular predicted result: Arsenal WIN (20/21)
Most disputed result: Middlesborough vs Southampton & West Ham vs Liverpool (3-7-11 splits)

Highest odds: AFM (67,925/1)
2nd Highest odds: Josh Daniels (4891/1)
Lowest odds: Doron Salomon (537/1)

Best predictors: Joe Abbott, Euroclub Index & WhoScored.com - 10/10!!!!! TENS GALORE!!!!! 

Euro Club Index get their 2nd 10, Who Scored.com & Joe Abbott get their 1st - and Joe is the 1st human player to get a 10! Sam Ruback scoring 9 - desperately unlucky with the Hull train just running out of steam to scupper his maximum. FinkTank scored 8/8 for them - the Friday night games really do handicap them.

Congrats to them all - especially to Joe! There's no human player 10 trophy (yet), but I'll look into a commemorative T shirt or something. Feel free to contact me with sponsorship opportunities....

Worst predictor: AFM (5/10 even with the ridiculous outlier odds)
Average score: 7.52/10 - a new Impossibilitee record!

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN (20/21)
Worst predicted result: Liverpool & Southampton WIN (11/21)
All the most predicted results came in

Everyone's scores:

To the leaderboard (>2/3; 24/35*)

ECI pretty much wraps it up - they need only 2 correct results this weekend to secure their second Impossibilitee title - the first multiple winner. They have only failed to do this on 1 occasion this season. 

Will O'Doherty is also likely to end the season as the top human player, although in fairness, he may just be a Twitbot for all I know. Joe Abbott could overtake with consecutive 10s though...he's now overtaken Dagmar for office bragging rights...

Down the bottom of the table & Silverman's absence last week has really cost him, as a big gap has now opened up to Aron Kleiman. It's not quite official yet....

To this week's predos, for the final time this season:

Arsenal vs Everton - ARSENAL

Burnley vs West Ham - WEST HAM

Chelsea vs Sunderland - CHELSEA

Hull vs Spurs - SPURS

Leicester vs Bournemouth - BOURNEMOUTH

Liverpool vs Middlesborough - LIVERPOOL

Man Utd vs Crystal Palace - DRAW

Southampton vs Stoke - SOUTHAMPTON

Swansea vs WBA - SWANSEA
Watford vs Man City - MAN CITY

Good luck guys!

S6M37: v2. Bloody app

Boro Down.

Will it be Swansea or Hull to join them? In a wonderful twist of fate, the bottom 4 clubs all play each other this weekend, after Sunderland did the classic win when the pressure's off thing, and Swansea took advantage of an Everton side on the beach.

Boro joined Sunderland in the Championship after being swatted away by a relentless Chelsea who smelt blood after West Ham's "shock" win over Spurs on the Friday night. I use the quotation marks because my colleague, who supports Spurs was adamant that they would lose because "West Ham always beat us".

Now we know that's not true, and we also know that the Olympic stadium hasn't been the kindest home to West Ham, which is fair enough because they should have to pay some sort of tax on being subsidised by the public so spectacularly, but you can't help but enjoy the protests from the Edmonton massive.

"only team to make Chelsea sweat..."
"...won 9 in a row..."
"if we're bottlers, what does that make everyone else?"

The facht is that you had a chance to extend the title "race" and you dropped it. You're absolutely right that you have done 2nd best. You're right that Chelsea were likely to win regardless. But you see, 1) you've been banging on about how you need to play first to close the gap & put pressure on Chelsea for a while....opportunity well and truly fumbled and 2) football is not a rational, logical pursuit. It's a tribal, schadenfreude-laden contest where most clubs will "lose" and so joy has to be taken where it comes.

And it comes from things being Spursy.

Liverpool fans though should maybe keep a little quiet given that they've basically Spurs'd up their season yet again, without any real reason other than Mane's absence. Again, squad management is part & parcel and y'all been lacking. Should still finish top 4, but it's much nervier than need be.

City & Leicester won handsomely against teams who are really not at the races anymore - both centre-backs scoring for City in a pleasing fashion. Bournemouth & Burnley drew with Stoke & WBA respectively. Dunno what happened there.

Finally to the Emirates and a first league win for Wenger over Mourinho who of course didn't care at all...*whistles*

I was working, so didn't watch the game, but from the highlights, it looked like we had a few more chances and that Rooney loves a shot over the bar. Maybe a new career as Quins scrum half now Evans has retired #banter

I'm also bored of the Man Utd excuses. No one forced Mourinho to compile/manage his squad the way he has. No one could have predicted that a club amongst preseason favourites for a few trophies would...ya know....play a lot of games. It's disingenous from the master of deflection, and we should call him out on it every single time instead of fawning over his nonsense. Injuries are bad luck - as an Arsenal fan, we should know - but it's never really the only reason why things fall apart.

Anyway, the end of a tiresome unbeaten run and we can now focus on how Mourinho can't win away from home against decent clubs. Except at Spurs this weekend.....

Let's get statty:

This week, 22 people played (except for Friday night games which caught a few out)
Most popular predicted results: Man City & Chelsea WINS (22/22)
Most disputed result: Arsenal vs Man Utd (12-5-5 split respectively)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels 4930/1
Lowest odds: Steven Daniel 240/1
Average odds: 1852/1

Best predictors: 5 of you (6/10)
Worst predictor: RDM (2/10)
Average score: 4.36/10

Best predicted results: Man City & Chelsea WINS (22/22)
Worst predicted results: West Ham WIN (Joe Abbott) & Sunderland WIN (Josh Daniels) 1/22

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3; 23/34)

This weekend's predos - FRIDAY NIGHT GAMES

Everton vs Watford - EVERTON

WBA vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Man City vs Leicester - MAN CITY

Bournemouth vs Burnley - BOURNEMOUTH 

Middlesborough vs Southampton - DRAW

Sunderland vs Swansea - DRAW

Stoke vs Arsenal - ARSENAL 

Crystal Palace vs Hull - CRYSTAL PALACE

West Ham vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL 

Spurs vs Man Utd - SPURS

Good luck guys!

S6M37: Let's make this official

Boro Down.

Will it be Swansea or Hull to join them? In a wonderful twist of fate, the bottom 4 clubs all play each other this weekend, after Sunderland did the classic win when the pressure's off thing, and Swansea took advantage of an Everton side on the beach.

Boro joined Sunderland in the Championship after being swatted away by a relentless Chelsea who smelt blood after West Ham's "shock" win over Spurs on the Friday night. I use the quotation marks because my colleague, who supports Spurs was adamant that they would lose because "West Ham always beat us".

Now we know that's not true, and we also know that the Olympic stadium hasn't been the kindest home to West Ham, which is fair enough because they should have to pay some sort of tax on being subsidised by the public so spectacularly, but you can't help but enjoy the protests from the Edmonton massive.

"only team to make Chelsea sweat..."
"...won 9 in a row..."
"if we're bottlers, what does that make everyone else?"

The facht is that you had a chance to extend the title "race" and you dropped it. You're absolutely right that you have done 2nd best. You're right that Chelsea were likely to win regardless. But you see, 1) you've been banging on about how you need to play first to close the gap & put pressure on Chelsea for a while....opportunity well and truly fumbled and 2) football is not a rational, logical pursuit. It's a tribal, schadenfreude-laden contest where most clubs will "lose" and so joy has to be taken where it comes.

And it comes from things being Spursy.

Liverpool fans though should maybe keep a little quiet given that they've basically Spurs'd up their season yet again, without any real reason other than Mane's absence. Again, squad management is part & parcel and y'all been lacking. Should still finish top 4, but it's much nervier than need be.

City & Leicester won handsomely against teams who are really not at the races anymore - both centre-backs scoring for City in a pleasing fashion. Bournemouth & Burnley drew with Stoke & WBA respectively. Dunno what happened there.

Finally to the Emirates and a first league win for Wenger over Mourinho who of course didn't care at all...*whistles*

I was working, so didn't watch the game, but from the highlights, it looked like we had a few more chances and that Rooney loves a shot over the bar. Maybe a new career as Quins scrum half now Evans has retired #banter

I'm also bored of the Man Utd excuses. No one forced Mourinho to compile/manage his squad the way he has. No one could have predicted that a club amongst preseason favourites for a few trophies would...ya know....play a lot of games. It's disingenous from the master of deflection, and we should call him out on it every single time instead of fawning over his nonsense. Injuries are bad luck - as an Arsenal fan, we should know - but it's never really the only reason why things fall apart.

Anyway, the end of a tiresome unbeaten run and we can now focus on how Mourinho can't win away from home against decent clubs. Except at Spurs this weekend.....

Let's get statty:

This week, 22 people played (except for Friday night games which caught a few out)
Most popular predicted results: Man City & Chelsea WINS (22/22)
Most disputed result: Arsenal vs Man Utd (12-5-5 split respectively)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels 4930/1
Lowest odds: Steven Daniel 240/1
Average odds: 1852/1

Best predictors: 5 of you (6/10)
Worst predictor: RDM (2/10)
Average score: 4.36/10

Best predicted results: Man City & Chelsea WINS (22/22)
Worst predicted results: West Ham WIN (Joe Abbott) & Sunderland WIN (Josh Daniels) 1/22

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3; 23/34)

This weekend's predos - FRIDAY NIGHT GAMES

Everton vs Watford

WBA vs Chelsea

Man City vs Leicester

Bournemouth vs Burnley

Middlesborough vs Southampton

Sunderland vs Swansea

Stoke vs Arsenal

Crystal Palace vs Hull

West Ham vs Liverpool

Spurs vs Man Utd

Good luck guys!

S6M36: Get the warbling going

Sunderland = Down.
Middlesborough & Swansea still hanging on. Just - good draws for them but another win for Hull relegates 'Boro (all but mathematically). Can Suonnderland do them a favour this weekend?

Swansea have a tough game against an Everton side who didn't really turn up for much of Sunday. They are of course guaranteed European football now, so will they be motivated for the rest of the season?

Palace were rudely shocked by Burnley at Selhurst Park last week - they still need results to be safe and have the opportunity for another famous away win under Allardyce this weekend. City also need maximum points, as with someone dropping points at the Emirates too, that could knock 4 clubs chasing 2 spots down to 3.

Liverpool's win on Monday means Spurs aren't quite confirmed top-2 yet - but another point will do that for them. Unbelievable goal from Can though - Scorpion kicks are so 2016.

Spurs thrashed Arsenal in the last NLD at White Hart Lane. 2-0 misleads somewhat the gulf between a team on the up and rabble lost in a deep funk. Our future is not looking good. At least North London will remain ours when the mob decamp to Brent for a season.

Saturday football all looked rather dull and frankly, I didn't watch MOTD so can't comment but we all did quite badly this weekend as a group so let's skate on through to happier times.

Let's get statty:

This week, 23 people played
Most popular predicted results: Palace & City WINS (23/23)
Most disputed result: WBA vs Leicester (7-9-7 split)

Highest odds: RDM 18,617/1
Lowest odds: Steven Daniels 723/1
Average odds: 5618/1

Best predictors: Doron & Sam (6/10)
Worst predictors: Feneley, Joe Abbott & Lawro (2/10)
Average score: 3.91/10

Best predicted result: Liverpool WIN (20/23)
Worst predicted results: Burnley WIN, Man Utd vs Swansea & Middlesborough vs Man City DRAWS (0/23)

Everyone's scores:

Leaderboard (>2/3 weeks, 23/33*)

This week's predos:

West Ham vs Spurs - SPURS

Man City vs Crystal Palace - MAN CITY

Bournemouth vs Stoke - BOURNEMOUTH

Burnley vs WBA - BURNLEY

Hull vs Sunderland - HULL

Leicester vs Watford - LEICESTER

Swansea vs Everton - SWANSEA

Liverpool vs Southampton - LIVERPOOL

Arsenal vs Man Utd - DRAW

Chelsea vs Middlesborough - CHELSEA

Good luck guys!