S8M18 & 19: Range

Let's start with the football, before we get onto the sad news.

A rather predictable weekend saw high scores for most. Man City won, as did Spurs. Watford  saw off Cardiff and Chelsea beat Brighton. Nothing too shocking there. Palace vs Leicester was a trickier one to call - home advantage did for a Leicester side who then were knocked out the League Cup to complete a miserable first half to the season for them. Wolves continued their renaissance against Bournemouth, as did Newcastle against a really poor Huddersfield side. West Ham, like Watford vacillate in performance and result, but had enough to put away Fulham, who haven't gained the new manager bounce apparent at Southampton who scored something like 80% of their goals in the last 3 years in once match. Obviously against Arsenal. Merry Xmas.

The biggy on Sunday came at Anfield and Mourinho's usual big game tactics came up short. Shorter than a little Swiss fella. See what I did there.

Anyway, it's come as no surprise to anyone that Mourinho was fired in the latest episode of "How can Man Utd screw things up" - in fairness, in this case, it's not the firing (that's been obvious since he was hired stupidly) but the handing out of a new contract last year was criminal and will cost them loads. Which they can pay. Along with the Glazer money. Which they can pay. And still spending stupid money on transfers and wages. Which they can pay. A financial juggernaut hampered not by FFP or then Home Office trying to prove a message to Putin, but by gross mismanagement on all levels footballistically. I'm not complaining, I'm just gutted that they've decided to try and get it right.

The other sad departure this week, is the Fink Tank. Confirmed by Impossibilitee Sources, the statistical model is no more, and so has been removed from the graphs, and will slink off the leaderboard in due course. Fink Tank was a long term contributor to the competition, joining in Season 3 with a 2nd place finish, to ECI, replicating the feat in Season 6, and finishing 3rd last season.

On a personal note, since I stopped having access to a paper copy of the Times, it's been a pain to collect the data, so I'm sorry to see you leave until you decide to reintroduce your website which made life a lot easier back in the day. You're welcome.

A moment's reflection if you please.

Au revoir FT

Let's get statty:

This week, 21 people played
Most popular predicted results: Man City & Spurs WINS (21/21)
Most disputed result: Crystal Palace vs Leicester (8-6-7 split)

Highest odds: Doron Salomon (503/1)
Lowest odds: Steven Daniels (391/1)
Average odds: 447/1

Best predictors: 5 of you (8/10)
Lowest predictors: Lawro, Sam Ruback & Doron (6/10 - feels a bit mean that - very compacted scores)
Average score: 7.1/10 - season high

Best predicted results: Man City & Spurs WINS (21/21)
Worst predicted result: Southampton WIN (0/21) - 20 of you thought that Arsenal would win so really I win for going DRAW because we're always rubbish at the Dell

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3; 12/17)

This week's predos: 

Wolves vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Arsenal vs Burnley - ARSENAL

Bournemouth vs Brighton - BOURNEMOUTH

Chelsea vs Leicester - CHELSEA

Huddersfield vs Southampton - SOUTHAMPTON

Man City vs Crystal Palace - MAN CITY

Newcastle vs Fulham - FULHAM

West Ham vs Watford - DRAW

Cardiff vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Everton vs Spurs - SPURS

Boxing Day predos:

Fulham vs Wolves - WOLVES

Burnley vs Everton - DRAW

Crystal Palace vs Cardiff - CRYSTAL PALACE

Leicester vs Man City - MAN CITY

Liverpool vs Newcastle - LIVERPOOL

Man Utd vs Huddersfield - MAN UTD

Spurs vs Bournemouth - SPURS

Brighton vs Arsenal - DRAW

Watford vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Southampton vs West Ham -DRAW

Good luck, and wishing everyone well over the festive break