S8M4: Galatians 6:7

I'll be honest, I'm not really one for the New Testament. I have a pristine copy sitting on my bookshelf that I got in Year 7 at school, sitting next to my pristine Koran (uni) and slightly less pristine Old Testament (Bar Mitzvah). I never really paid much attention to school assemblies where we were subjected to some sort of sermon about morality UNLESS it was from Winnie the Pooh. True story. Our school chaplain loved that  willy, nilly, silly old bear as much as he hated William Hague. This all means that I had to google the title to see where the relevant line came from relating to this episode:

We'll start on Monday. What an insufferable hypocrite he is? You all know I'll rarely give Spurs a public compliment but they deserved that win, and good on them. It's actually a little bit boring now - I had fun under Moyes, and have enjoyed the progressive mediocrity that's ensued - I'm certainly not looking for a United renaissance but the enjoyment of watching them suffer is being ruined by a total irritant. I was a big Mou fan in 2004. Something fresh. But it's an old and tired shtick now, and footballistically it's just dull. Chequebook managers can't succeed when their competitive advantage goes, and his tactics are dull and easy to overcome, whilst his man-management style has a natural expiry date. Nowadays. you need to also be a coach to be elite - the days of having your niche are long gone. I've been saying for about 4 years now - he's done as a top-level coach and is living off past glories. He has become, what you might term, a specialist in extraordinarily expensive failure.

Sunday's games were good fun. Late drama at St James' Park allowed Chelsea to maintain their 100% record, as did Watford at home to Palace. Liverpool the 4th member of that group won the night before. Fulham took advantage of a Europa-weary Burnley to thump them 4-2 for their first points of the season. Outrageous the squads that Fulham & Wolves have put together. See the above point about chequebook managers...

The shock of the weekend came when the aforementioned Black Country gems held City to a creditable draw by the thickness of a post. Bonus point for them frankly. Arsenal got their season on track with a win over West Ham (pointless) made to look more comfortable by a late Wele winner. I'm not saying Southgate should lose his job, but frankly, more Dat Guy in the summer would have literally seen it come home. Fact.

Leicester also won with a late winner from the summer's other hero. Harry Maguire crashing home from the other side of the world after Hojberg was sent off for being a little bit of a cheat. Them's the breaks.

Match of the weekend was the draw between Everton & Bournemouth. Early red for Everton before taking a 2 goal lead. Red for Bournmemouth before pulling level. Highly enjoyable stuff. Less can be said about the no-score draw at the John Smith, so we'll leave it there.

Let's get statty:

This week, 29 people played

Most popular predicted results: Man City & Liverpool WINS (29/29)

Most disputed predicted results: Southampton vs Leicester & Man Utd vs Spurs (12-8-9 splits)

Highest odds: Doron Salomon 13,311/1

Lowest odds: Josh Daniels 1583/1

Average odds: 5548/1

Best predictor: Eli Daniels (8/10)

Worst predictor: Joe Machta (3/10)

Average score: 5.52/10

Best predicted result: Liverpool WIN (29/29)

Worst predicted result: Wolves vs Man City DRAW (0/29)

Everyone's results:

And for the first time this season, the Impossibilitee leaderboard! To qualify, you have to have played in >2/3 of gameweeks - so that's 3/3 this week.

Feneley with the frankly outrageous early season form. The Kentish Man City. Dagmar wants her trophy back - there's clearly a space on her desk that neither love nor money can fill. Eli Daniels & er, Feneley's mother (average odds: >10000000/1) make up the rest of the top 4. Down at the bottom, Tarek (perennial) and Joe (novice) are holding up the considerable combined weight of the rest of the group, whlst reigning champ David Silverman is frankly suffering from his May hangover. If you will fill the coveted Impossibilittee trophy with Apple Sourz as your night-time beverage every day, it may impact on your predicting ability folks...

To this week's predos:

Leicester vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
Brighton vs Fulham - BRIGHTON
Crystal Palace vs Southmapton - DRAW
Chelsea vs Bournemouth - CHELSEA
Everton vs Huddersfield - EVERTON
West Ham vs Wolves - WOLVES
Man City vs Newcastle - MAN CITY
Cardiff vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Burnley vs Man Utd - MAN UTD (mini rally)
Watford vs Spurs - SPURS

Total odds: 229/1

Good luck guys

S8M3: Let me tell you a thing

August is the best month and that's irrefutable, so as the kids say, don't @ me.

However, at the Tower, we believe in things like science & logic  - recently did a personality test thing for work. You'll be shocked to hear where my strengths lay... - so I'll lay out proofs so weighty that your Giuliani-esque alternative truths will be crushed. You ready?

1) Hot > Cold. This leave us May - August. I have no truck with the southern hemisphere but this is Old World focused .

2) Football > No football. So it's either May or August.

3) The Many > The Few. Now, as some of you might know, I'm not all that into politics. Ok, I'm interested, but not all that vocal. Sure I might occasionally call out a certain antisemitic garden gnome on Twitter but Impossibilitee is avowedly apolitical until John Terry runs for office. We did make a campaign contribution to Sol Campbell's attempt to become Mayor of London but that was for 2 reasons. We wanted to see him head a journalist's question back over the halfway line and wanted to see him open the new Spurs stadium. Obviously, he ran 4 years too early for that one.

Anyway, our apolitically communist tendencies have not at all influenced the 3rd proof which is that in May, many clubs are done and looking forward to 2 weeks in Magaluf/a nice villa in LA/caravaning in Minehead. Sure, some have somethng to play for, maybe a bauble or two, but many of us have switched off by then. August is for The Many however. Previous sins are forgiven in the excitement of the new season. New kit, new signings, warm day (see point 1), gleaming pitch etc - the world is everyone's oyster until the whistle goes and you concede from the kick off.

4) The tiebreaker. Not required but it's also my birthday which means sometimes you get football on your (my) birthday which is a special feeling unless you lose in which case the day is ruined. Fortunately, this hasn't quite happened for me this year so I can enjoy my birthday AND the football this week (until we lose).

Now I don't expect cards and presents but you might consider it if you've had a slow start to the season and want to curry some favour with the notoriously typo-laden data entryist who does the back end  of this site, ifyaknowwaddamean. Yes I have people. I don't just refer to Impossibilitee Towers to aggrandise this blog.

Anyway, so yes. August is the best.

The deliberate grammar overload above has been deliberately engineered to irritate NJSPTC early in the morning. Pour over that one big boy.

There was also some football last week which I might talk about now I've written 1000 words on stuff.

Saturday saw Cardiff pick up their first point of the season with a bore draw at home to Newcastle. Rafa must be only weeks ago from meltdown. Him or Mou first? Everton beat Southampton in a game notable for 3 things - Richarlison making everyone keep talking about his transfer fee, Walcott scoring a non-instictive goal and Southampton scoring. At all.

Leicester and Spurs racked up comfortable wins, whilst the Harry Redknapp Memorial Derby saw a top top win for Bournemouth who have 2 from 2 already. Maradonna has been reincarnated in Callum Wilson's body.

The evening game was a bit mad and could have been any scoreline from 2-2 to 5-5, but wasn't. A late Alonso winner gave Chelsea maximum points in a game they could have been dead and buried by halftime in. Fun for the neutral, not one for fans of defending.

Sunday saw Burnley lose at home to Watford #Europaleaguehangover before Man City thumped Huddersfield, without half a team and in 2nd gear. Ominous. Regular readers will know I'm a huge Agüero fan and he bagged his customary Early-season-hat-trick-in-a-thrashing. I mentioned a few weeks ago on Twitter that in my opinion, he was the 4th best striker in PL history and if he stayed a little fitter, he'd join the top 3 (to make a top 4, he's just that rung below currently for me. Henry, Drogba, Shearer if you were wondering). 

Anyway, I was informed by a very strange Mancunian (Utd fan weirdly) on Twitter that I was wrong and he was actually better than Henry and set about trying to prove it with a curated selection of statistics that didn't really stand up to further questioning.

The take home is that only a weirdo would try and prove to strangers the truth of something patently subjective. 

The last 2 games saw the Mou Meltdown edge closer as they lost comfortably to Brighton - a late penalty giving the scoreline a gloss it did not deserve. They were abject. Then on the Monday, Liverpool banished their Crystanbul demons for another year, 2nd clean sheet of the season for them.

Long post this week. Taken my whole commute to write. Probably should have one hand on the steering wheel* now though.

Let's get statty.

This week, 26 people played

Most popular predicted results: Spurs, Man Utd & Man City WINS (26/26)

Most disputed result: Cardiff vs Newcastle (4-9-13 split)

Highest odds: Doron Salomon 1413/1

Lowest odds: Steven Daniels 788/1

Average odds: 1085/1

Best predictor: Josh Gaon (8/10)

Worst predictors: Me, Tarek & Silverman (4/10)

Average score: 5.58/10

Best predicted result: Spurs & Man City WINS (26/26)

Worst predicted result: Brighton WIN (0/26)

Everyone's results:

To this week's predos:

Wolves vs Man City - MAN CITY

Arsenal vs West Ham - ARSENAL

Bournemouth vs Everton - EVERTON

Huddersfield vs Cardiff - DRAW

Southampton vs Leicester - DRAW

Liverpool vs Brighton - LIVERPOOL

Watford vs Crystal Palace - WATFORD

Fulham vs Burnley - FULHAM

Newcastle vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Man Utd vs Spurs - SPURS

Good luck guys

*you don't take a toy steering wheel on the train with you?

S8M2: Spherical Release

As I get older, I lose track of what I've said in the  300-odd blogs I've written here, so forgive me if I'm occasionally repetitive. That said, I'm sure that there may only be one or two savants amongst you who can remember that anyway, so I'm probably safe.

In any case,  I really feel for those who don't like football. I felt like a little kid skipping to the sweet shop in an idyllic village in the Yorkshire Dales in 1953 with a thrupenny bit in my pocket on Friday. A different time, folks. A different time.

Anyway, great to be back. 

Man Utd got us off to a flying start with victory over Leicester. Then a corker in the North East saw 3 points get the train home to White Hart Lane.

Oh, no, sorry. Wembley. *went there*

Let's just take a minute to look at this farce. PL rules allow for 1 nominated home ground per season with a 4 point deduction if not adhered to. Somehow, a 1 game permission was granted for Spurs to use Wembley and then the fixtures were manipulated to allow a huge gap before the next home fixture, which STILL isn't enough, so it's now postponed indefinitely - potentially until the new year according to some sources. No punishment, just an extra payment to the FA for the use of Wembley.

Meanwhilst, fans are cast to the side as usually, Spurs fans overcharged and away fans may need to change travel arrangements if dates have to be moved. It's one rule for them, another for the rest and it's poor from Spurs & the FA. It's been pretty apparent to anyone who's followed it that the stadium was never going to be ready for the season, and frankly, if it was too ambitious a build project, then manage expectations and say we'll be out for 2 years like Chelsea were planning to do before Roman canned the project. Don't treat your fans like idiots and don't allow the club to get away with lies. Levy's gone for the builder who's promised the world for peanuts and been left holding a pile of monkey droppings, which to be honest, he'll probably feed Harry Kane. 

Fairness should be Spurs to play the rest of the season at Wembley (why should Fulham (and now Liverpool and maybe City) have the competitive advantage/disadvantage over the rest) and to be honest a points deduction wouldn't be unfair either, but is never going to happen. My full sympathies to Spurs fans over this, and obviously I'm not exactly neutral in this, but it's poor from the Premier League to allow this.

In other news - it's going to be a hard year for Cardiff & Huddersfield, whilst Fulham will feel unlucky to have lost. Bournemouth & Watford started with solid wins as did Liverpool and a below-par-but-still-comfortably-better-than-everyone-else City. Southampton & Burnley provided the snorefest whilst Wolves & Everton was the all-action game. On that note, did everyone see the Wazza clip from the MLS? Rolled back the years to chase down a breakaway from a corner at 2-2 in injury time, tackled the fella on the halfway line with 60 yards of empty grass ahead of him, picked himself up, thumped a crossfield pass into the box for the leftback to head home and win the game 3-2. Haven't seen him do that for years. Worth a Google...

For the first time this season, let's get statty:

This week, 30 people played

Most popular predicted result: Liverpool WIN (27/30)

Most disputed result: Southampton vs Burnley (12-9-9 split)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels 10,998/1

Lowest odds: Doron Salomon 1168/1

Average odds: 5778/1

Best predictors: Dagmar, Andrew Feneley's Mother & Aron Kleiman (8/10)

Worst predictors: Adrian Daniels & David Silverman (3/10)

Average score: 5.63/10

Best predicted result: Liverpool WIN (27/30)

Worst predicted result: Wolves vs Everton DRAW (4/30)

Everyone's results: 

This week's predos:

Cardiff vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE
Everton vs Southampton - EVERTON
Leicester vs Wolves - DRAW
Spurs vs Fulham - SPURS
West Ham vs Bournemouth - WEST HAM
Chelsea vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Burnley vs Watford - BURNLEY
Man City vs Huddersfield - MAN CITY
Brighton vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Crystal Palace vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Total odds: 938/1

Good luck guys, and please share the blog far and wide - our record for a week is 35 participants - we can definitely beat that this year!

Season 8 M1: Smug as

Well hello again dear reader, and a huge welcome back to you all. An equally huge welcome to any new friends who've joined us for the latest edition of Impossibilitee.

I hope you've all had great summers without too much stress. It's flown by here at Impossibilitee Towers. A combination of work and play, with an added soupçon of newmanageritis for the first time in 22 years has condensed the summer big-time. Throw in a quite good World Cup (I cracked, more on that later) and frankly it's flown by. In fact, my other usual summer sporting pursuits have largely been ignored. Did they even have a Wimbledon this year? What is the cricket? Who actually likes Pimms? That's not a sporting question but equally important to answer. It's possibly the most underwhelming thing in the world and frankly I'd far rather have a cold beer, or a nice glass of wine or one of about a zillion other cocktails on a nice warm (scorching) day. That Aperol fella seems nice if he didn't sponsor Man Utd...

Welcome new readers to my ability to get sidetracked.

So the World Cup was quite good, wasn't it? Big teams had a shocker, Football Came Home, some great goals WITHOUT ANYONE MOANING ABOUT THE BALL BEING TOO ROUND and the best team winning. And obviously, a happy Giroud = a happy world. I don't care who pays his wages anymore, he's a gooner and I'm the captain of the Oli Giroud Fan Club (Impossibilitee edition). That Mbappe kid also looks quite good too and if he's interested in a glass of anything-but-Pimms, he's welcome to come round and have a drink/sign a 10 year deal for the Arsenal.

Oh, almost forgot...

The inaugral Impossibilitee World Cup tournament (7 leagues, 6 FA Cups and now 1 World Cup to date) and finally the first bit of silverware to grace my mantelpiece...

Now I'm a gracious winner but also it's important to note that I'm also the CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. Like Danny. There's no actually trophy 'cos I'm also not made of money but you can all feast upon this image and frankly it should be desktop/phone backgrounds for all of you, and maybe even a little framed effort in front of the wedding photo but *next to* the kids. I'm not a monster.

Those are really my arms by the way.

Of course, we should also pay tribute to our domestic champion, David Silverman who managed to go from bottom in Season 6 to victory in Season 7. There's a life lesson there for everyone, and as soon as I've done a few other things, I'll be writing a kids book about this inspirational tale. Should be out in time for Christmas and will make a great stocking filler for everyone you know. Heads up.

Here's David looking like a champ:

Those are really his arms by the way.

So to the season ahead, lots to look forward to...

• Can City improve on a frankly outrageous season?
• Will Liverpool fix their defence whilst maintaining the same output from Salah?
• How many weeks will Mourinho last before exploding?
• Spurs - new stadium, no money. Attendent problems. Could this be their last year to prove to Kane, Eriksen, Alli etc that their project is worth sticking around for? Looks like Alderweireld has already decided "no" - the first of many?
• Chelsea could be brilliant under Sarri or frankly could be a huge adjustment ending in chaos. Plus...what's going on with Abramovich's commitment?
• Emery
• Burnley have to compete on 2 fronts for a little longer - can their squad cope?
• Everton, Palace & Leicester - 5th to 18th on the cards for any of them..
• Newcastle - what are they?
• Which promoted club will have success?
• Will West Ham finally live up to their potential?

and I'm sure many more...

A quick recap of how it all works for any new players:

Each matchday, I'll post the fixtures here and you have to chose the result (not the score)

ie: Man City vs Chelsea - MAN CITY (win), Leicester vs Burnley - DRAW

The best (and easiest for me) way to give your scores is via the comments on the blog and each prediction has to be in before kick off in that game. Ie, If you post at 1300 on Saturday, then the early game will be ignored but the rest of the weekend will be valid. I do also accept predos by any other means (it's just a pain to keep track of) or even after the fact if a valid timestamp is there (ie a betting slip).

1 point per correct prediction. If there are <7 games on a matchday (ie FA Cup quarters/semis or League cup final), we don't play. If there are 7-9 games, the score is pro-rata'd out of 10. Results are published weekly, a league table using mean score is compiled after 3 matchdays for those who play >2/3 weeks (no 1 week high score and never play again stuff here) and that's it really...

I try to publish the blog 2 days before matchdays and use Facebook, Twitter, email and Whatsapp to send reminders. If you want to use any of those options, please let me know.

We started out as an accumulator accumulator so *if* you place a 10 match (or however many matches are in the matchday) accumulator bet, let me know your odds and I'll include them. It's entirely optional and only adds a layer of data to my database for statisticians to pour through in later years. 

The game is free to play and the more who play the better so if you have friends, family, colleagues, neighbours, pets or anyone else who'd like to play, get them involved and spread the word.

We'll do a cash game for the FA Cup as usual from January but more about that later in the year

I don't have much more to add, but feel free to be in touch with any questions. 

To the Matchday 1 predos:

Man Utd vs Leicester - MAN UTD

Newcastle vs Spurs - DRAW

Bournemouth vs Cardiff - BOURNEMOUTH

Fulham vs Crystal Palace - FULHAM

Huddersfield vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Watford vs Brighton - BRIGHTON

Wolves vs Everton - EVERTON

Liverpool vs West Ham - LIVERPOOL

Southampton vs Burnley - DRAW

Arsenal vs Man City - DRAW

10 match acca odds: 3824/1

BONUS Predictions (no points, feel free to share, will praise/shame at end of season)

League Champions: Man City

2-3-4: Liverpool - Arsenal - Chelsea

Relegated: Wolves, Cardiff & Huddersfield

League Cup: Man City

FA Cup: Liverpool

1st manager to go: Hodgson (Gracia & Benitez soon after)

Best new signing: Jorginho (that Chelsea midfield *could* be delicious - Kante-Jorginho + 1 (Cesc, RLC etc)

Wadda-waste-of-money: Deulofeu (3 early highlights before nothing all season resulting in bugger all game time from Feb)

Top Scorer: Aubameyang

Golden Gloves: Ederson

Will Harry Kane score in August: Yes

Good luck guys!