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!