Tuesday 18 August 2020

S9: Pre-season Predos Recap

 So, now the dust as settled (although the season STILL isn't over from a UEFA standpoint), let's have a recap of some of the predictions made about how the season was going to pan out.

These predictions were made 54 weeks ago. Blimey. Let's dig in...

Well 2/3 of us got that wrong eh? Standard optimistic Gooner got that VERY wrong. Emery to win a league sounds hilarious

This is more interesting. Nearly everyone saw the LFC/MCFC duopoly continuing. However, Chelsea certainly weren't favourites for top 4 - Arsenal & Spurs over represented (is that a function of most players coming from North London?) Man Utd got 4th eventually - 20% saw that, which is interesting given upcoming predictions....There was 1 vote for "other" too but I can't see who that was so nobody gets to claim Leicester prescience anyway.

More dreadful predicting. Norwich we all saw coming. Nobody saw Bournemouth nor Watford going down. 1 wag thought Spurs might. Or Fulham. Who weren't even in the correct division. 


So this was also the least sackingy season for yonks, but it doesn't affect this look at the first manager to go....Solksjaer was the favourite, even if some thought he'd get top 4. 2 people correctly predicted Pochettino who set off a little run of sackings before Xmas, with only Pearson then going later on.


Man City have a fearsome grasp on the League cup and most saw that continuing. Some thought Liverpool might want an early season taste, Spurs was an optimistic shout, whilst Arsenal, Everton and Chelsea were all hopeful punts with no real expectation. Bournemouth - er....well cool guys, cool cool



The Arsene Wenger Invitational was a much more realistic affair. Obviously everyone knew that the trophy belongs in N5, but some thought Liverpool might want their first proper trophy in 14 years, with a few straggly votes for no hopers like Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd and Spurs. Sorry lads. Mikel Knows (in the merry month of August)

Wide range of predictions here. Scores plotted from WhoScored.com and I'm happy to go with them and say Pulisic deserves the plaudits. Maguire, Haller & Pepe maybe scored surprisingly well, so maybe we should all ignore the headlines. Wag who called Rob Holding LANS will be regretting that, as will anyone who thought Moise Kean would do well...

...cos he didn't. He was also predicted to be the worst signing, and you can see just how bad he was. Gomes too....Everton had a good summer....

But another Italian wonderkid takes the plaudits - Patrick Cutrone lasted 5 minutes before going back to Serie A on loan. Milan was no Wolverhampton. Funny people also put in Saliba and any Spurs signings so I had a look at them too - Saliba did ok in Ligue Un in an injury hit campaign, and the Average Spurs Summer Signing Score (ASSSS) was 6.48, which was in fairness, rubbish. That ranged from Ndombele at 6.71 to Gedson Fernandes (remember him) at 6.12 which is woeful.

Finally to the Golden section:

We all thought Auba was class and he came pretty close. Aguero and Kane had slightly disappointing seasons, disrupted by injury, Salah regressed to the mean and Mane shared the spoils. You are all very funny now with your historic bantz there (Nick). Jamie Vardy didn't get a look in....

Alisson the clear favourite here. Brav-o was a Brav-e call, as was Kepa who showed nominative determinism isn't always a thing, keeping as many clean sheets as the geriatric Lehmann. In the end, it was Ederson this year, from Pope, so we all got that wrong.

FA Cup results blog to come and then we'll be set for the new season

Thursday 6 August 2020

S9: League Completion

It's been a while since the usual blogging routine.

Project Restart, Impossibilitee, work & personal lives are not compatible blog-fellows, and for that you all have my apologies. I know lots of you were in the same boat, and the numbers really tailed off - which was partially on me for reducing the reminders, but there was only so much to do.

Given the situation, I thought I'd do it like this - continue as normal, so matchday results below, one large graph and then tables as normal - >2/3 of games as usual. The trophy will go to the winner because the rules shouldn't change halfway through the season just because of a once in a century pandemic that causes life as we know it to come to a shuddering halt. Seems the fairest thing given that, ultimately, it's about predicting results and the matches went ahead, and we were all in the same boat with regard to information shared.

However, to reflect that ~25% of the season was disrupted, and this may have impacted on the leaderboard standings, I'll be asterisking the historical record tab and posting the pre-COVID leaderboard for perusal. Any other ideas, hit me up.

I'll post another blog with the FA Cup results and another blog looking at the predictions made last summer but this one will be plenty long enough so, let's just crack on...

Let's get statty - mega blog so done in table form!


And then everyone's results in a very big messy graph that irritates my DataViz part of my brain 



So, to the Leaderboards now. Firstly, a reminder of the Pre-COVID Leaderboard


And now the Final Leaderboard* for those who've played >2/3 of all matches


Eesh. Gavzey the big loser from Project Restart. Life mimicking the football club he purports to support? Nick's also had a bad time, but David & Joe have done well to leap into the top 2 and ensure the trophy returns to what I can only assume is the weekly Friday ritual of drinking from the trophy after close of play whilst singing "Campeones, Campeones, Ole Ole Ole"

EuroClubIndex the best modeller (again), some absolute dross in the middle but avoiding relegation on the final day of the season, is yours truly, which is fundamentally the real win here. Bottom 3 made up of Hillel, Doron and the cherry on the horror-week for Chelsea is Joseph, hamstrung by Frank Lampard eating his fixture list

Leaderboard for remaining participants who didn't meet the threshold for the above leaderboard. Silverman, Gaon & Ruback don't make the leaderboard because they didn't RESTART properly


So that brings the League season to a close. Congratulations to David, trophy will make its way to you shortly.

Prediction review blog & FA Cup blog to follow

Thanks for playing! See you in September...