S7M10: Kooey

Nearly a quarter of the way through the season and we're starting to see the usual stratification at the top. Man City are the only unbeaten side left and have opened a 5 point lead at the top after Man Utd stumbled, losing to Huddersfield. Must. Not. Laugh. Again.

Chelsea overcame Watford in a hard-fought game whilst North London battered Liverpool twice in 2 hours. On Friday night (grrrrr), Brighton got a great result, beating West Ham at the Taxpayer Arena, and their weekend got even better when Crystal Palace reverted to type, losing to Newcastle.

Leicester, Bournemouth & Southampton also won. Not much to add there.

Crystal Palace really are in trouble. The others  in the bottom few places all have mitigation, but I reckon Stoke are also in for a tough year.

Let's get statty:

This week, 25 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (25/25)
Most disputed result: Newcastle vs Crystal Palace (16-6-3 split)

Highest odds: Doron Salomon (3204/1)
Lowest odds: Josh Daniels (317/1)
Average odds: 1101/1

Best predictor: Joni Kleiman (7/10)
Worst predictor: Matt Abbott (3/10)
Average score: 4.72/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (25/25)
Worst predicted results: Brighton & Huddersfield WINS (0/25)

Everyone's scores:

Leaderboard (>2/3 weeks; 7/9)

Matchday 10 predos:

Man Utd vs Spurs - DRAW

Arsenal vs Swansea - ARSENAL

Crystal Palace vs West Ham - WEST HAM

Liverpool vs Huddersfield - LIVERPOOL

Watford vs Stoke - WATFORD

WBA vs Man City - MAN CITY

Bournemouth vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Brighton vs Southampton - BRIGHTON

Leicester vs Everton - DRAW

Burnley vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

Good luck guys!

S7M9: The ghost of George Past

I'm gonna start with something blindingly obvious. Man City are a bloody good football team. Guardiola is a bloody good coach. I love watching them play and given the utter disaster that is football in N5, I hope they win the league. Interesting fact: Arsenal's stadium is in N7, but the head office, literally 150m over the bridge is in N5. And you lot think I don't research the drivel that I put out...oh no...this is me prepared...

Anyway, Kevin de Bruyne makes me do funny things. In a not-at-all-clunky-segue, Klopp does funny things too. His Liverpool side were the better team against the most-predictable Mourinho performance of all time. So awfully negative so frequently, and it's barely defensible when it works. It's indefensible when you spend that much and it doesn't. Boo urns.

The Claret & blue derby ended all square as did the some sort of Midlands derby on the Monday & the longest geographical range match between Southampton & Newcastle. Fun fact guys: I ALWAYS go for a home win in this fixture (and it's inverse) because I figure the major travel cooped up in a coach the day before will impact on performance. I refuse to change this view knowing full well that they fly down in an hour or so of comparative luxury. To my detriment however...

Swansea won convincingly against a Huddersfield side regressing after a great start, Spurs won at Wembley which is a shame as that albatross would have been nice to have continued indefinitely. Crystal Palace finally recorded a goal, but it wasn't theirs, so they decided to double up, beating a Chelsea side who are looking a little lost this season. Maybe John Terry went all Bela Gutmann and cursed them when he left...

Brighton & Everton also drew. I have nothing else to add.

Finally to Arsenal arsenaling it up. Let's be clear. Watford deserved as little as we did. They were woeful for the vast majority of the game, and it all hinged on 90 seconds where Ozil missed a sitter and then Richarlison dived and won a penalty. The reaction on the pitch was indefensible and no qualms about that.

I am qualmful however about the ridiculous retrospective panel. It's a farce even if it did work, which it doesn't. How does a retrospective ban undo a huge in game swing? What if it was a last minute of the cup final situation?

Only one answer to this scenario - learn from every other bloody sport and use in-game video replay. Italy manage to use it in Serie A to great effect in the Juve-Lazio game on the same weekend and nobody complained. Get these decisions right at the time for the love of Dennis.

Let's get statty:

This week, 24 people played
Most popular predicted results: Chelsea, Man City & Spurs WINS (24/24)
Most disputed result: Brighton vs Everton (8-7-9 split)

Highest odds: Steven Daniels 8478/1
Lowest odds: Josh Daniels 795/1
Average odds: 2891/1

Best predictors: Loads of yous (6/10)
Worst predictors: Me & Tarek (2/10)
Average score: 4.08/10

Best predicted results: Man City & Spurs WINS (24/24)
Worst predicted result: Palace WIN (0/24)

Everyone's result:

Leaderboard (>2/3 weeks; 6/8)

Matchday 9 predictions:

West Ham vs Brighton - WEST HAM

Chelsea vs Watford - DRAW

Huddersfield vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Man City vs Burnley - MAN CITY

Newcastle vs Crystal Palace - NEWCASTLE

Stoke vs Bournemouth - STOKE

Swansea vs Leicester - SWANSEA

Southampton vs WBA - SOUTHAMPTON

Everton vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Spurs vs Liverpool - SPURS

Good luck guys!

S7M8: and it was all orange

Seasons haven't really been a thing this year. The summer was pretty meh, and so far September and October have continued the meh. Dry meh, which is good, but wet meh isn't really meh. It's a whole other sound.

However, I've noticed that the leaves are changing now, and the evenings are shorter and this means I might have to break out a coat soon. This is all very interesting to everyone I'm sure, but the thing is that I haven't watched a minute of international football and couldn't really tell you what's happened over the last week. Obviously some teams have qualified for the World Cup in Russia next summer (which will probably be colder) but I'm basically ignoring that tournament as much as possible, along with the Qatar effort 5 years hence. It's all I can do as a fan to register my disgust at how the whole episode has been conducted.

This is a crying shame as one of my earliest football memories is the USA World Cup in 1994, with a Gary Lineker wall chart - I've mentioned this before elsewhere. Now the Impossibilibaby is here, he needs brainwashing in all things football. Courtesy of his aunt, he's got his first kit (loves the Iwobes) and there's no doubt he'll be immersed in the Gooner world should the world continue to exist (both Gooner and literal Planet Earth), but the World Cup in 2022 would be perfect for a nearly 5 year old to start getting stuck in via the modern iteration of a Gary Lineker wall chart. And because of the sheer arseholery of FIFA, and in fairness, the world in general in putting mammon ahead of all else, I've been robbed of that, and whilst he doesn't know it yet, so has he.

As John Betjeman might now write, "Come friendly bombs, fall on Qatar..."

Come for the predictions, stay for the depressing blog...

Not going to recap the results from the last PL weekend.

Let's get statty:

24 people played
Most popular predicted results: Man Utd & Arsenal WINS (24/24)
Most disputed result: WBA vs Watford & Chelsea vs Man City (5-9-10 & 10-9-5 split respectively)

Highest odds: AFM 15,300/1
Lowest odds: Doron Salomon 1165/1
Average odds: 5185/1

Best predictors: Matt Abbott, AFM & Ben Knight (7/10)
Worst predictors: Loads, (4/10)
Average score: 5.38/10

Best predicted results: Man Utd & Arsenal WINS (24/24)
Worst predicted result: Burnley WIN (1/24 - AFM gets the gold star)

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3 weeks; 5/7)

To this week's predictions:

Liverpool vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Burnley vs West Ham - BURNLEY
Crystal Palace vs Cheslea - CHELSEA
Man City vs Stoke - MAN CITY
Swansea vs Huddersfield - DRAW
Spurs vs Bournemouth - SPURS
Watford vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Brighton vs Everton - BRIGHTON
Southampton vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE
Leicester vs WBA - LEICESTER

Total odds: 1831/1

Good luck guys