S11M4: Time for an Undershirt

 I've previously written about the glory of a sunny August afternoon setting the scene for the return of football after a summer break. The warm glow setting the scene for a party atmosphere both on & off the pitch. Someone should invent a term for that sort of thing that you'll learn for GCSE English Literature and then never use again in real life, except to point out that you still remember a pretty pointless term from your English Literature GCSE which is now a scary amount of years ago.

Also 9/11 was 20 years ago. What the actual **** happened there? (for our younger players, ask your parents). I remember the day like it was yesterday. Arsenal were playing Real Mallorca in the Champions league and it was on ON DIGITAL (younger players, ask your parents) which we didn't have so I went to my friend Ben's house to watch it. I got there a bit early and we were just watching the now infamous clip of the planes hitting the tower over and over - no information was really coming out then, and even at that age, I couldn't believe that the game would go ahead. It was sort of a bit meaningless.

Oh, UEFA. How I should have realised then....

Arsenal lost 1-0 if you want to know, Ashley Cole was sent off. Battered them 3-1 in the return though with one of my favourite goals - Bergkamp heading in a bullet from a Gio van Bronckhorst cross, before Henry sealed progression in injury time with a classic Henry goal and a classic Henry celebration.

Ah nostalgia. I digress. Younger players - by season 31 of Impossibilitee, you too will do this. Older players - this must be how you feel about *checks notes* Stanley Matthews.

International break to qualify for a corrupt World Cup (oh FIFA....how I should have realised...) and some stuff happened but it's basically a 128 team tournament or something which nobody is not allowed to qualify for so I find it hard to care any more than my usual level of care about international football which is surprisingly little. I've been distracting myself with the cricket (oh) and the tennis, enjoying the meteoric rise of Emma Raducanu who wasn't even born when Arsenal lost 1-0 to Real Mallorca. Madness

Let's get statty:

This week 21 people played
Most popular predicted result: Spurs WIN (20/21)
Most disputed prediction: Brighton vs Everton (9-6-6 split)

Highest odds: Steven Daniels (851/1)
Lowest odds: Aron Kleiman (770/1)
Average odds: 811/1

Best Predictor: David Brickman (7/10
Worst Predictor: Zoe Daniels (1/10)
Average score (4.9/10)

Best predicted result: Spurs WIN (20/21)

Worst predicted results: Burnley vs Leeds, West Ham vs Crystal Palace & Aston Villa vs Brentford DRAWS (2/21)

Everyone's stats:

The leaderboard for the first time this season. Reminder that to qualify you have to play >2/3 of available weeks, which in this case is all 3 weeks so far)

Early days yet but David Brickman wants to be the first person to retain the trophy. I on the other hand love the Arsenal so much that I want to be just like them. Volatility will reign for several weeks yet so....yeah.

To this week's predictions:

Good luck all!