S13M33-35: 500 up

Hello friends!

The good folks at Blogger tell me this is the 500th Impossibilipost. This seems absolutely ridicilous and my apologies to those of you who've read every single word I've put down here. No refunds, no backsies.

This also looks to be the week where it all sharpens in the PL. City made some daylight between Arsenal & Liverpool who both suffered disappointing home defeats, as did West Ham. Newcastle thumped Spurs, which also gave Villa a bit of space in 4th. Draws between Burnley & Brighton, Notts Forest & Wolves and Bournemouth & Man Utd, who were milimeteres away from conceding a last minute penalty. Brentford beat Sheff Utd comfortably.

Finally on the Monday, Chelsea - and specifically Cole Palmer - spanked Everton. Buggered up my FPL that - not 'cos I didn't have him - I did - but I also had a few Everton players and some of my near rivals lucked out on Foden not playing so got a battlefield promotion for Palmer as their vice captain. Fuming

S13M32: Gloves off

Right, quicky this week 

Last weekend feels a while away now. Been a busy busy week at Impossibilitee Towers

What happened? City unsurprisingly won easily at Palace. The Watkins reunion was a personal success but points shared. Everton ended the week +1 point after a win vs almost relegated Burnley. Newcastle, West Ham & Arsenal all got away wins, whilst Luton scored a last minute winner too to stay in touch with the pack for the 3rd relegation spot.

Almost guaranteed to go down Sheff Utd managed to get a point against $10bn assembled Chelsea, Spurs easily beat Forest and Man Utd got absolutely battered by Liverpool, but still came a few minutes and an Elliot dive away from the smashiest of smash & grabs. That Fernandes goal was a lil' bit cheeky....

S13M31: Seconds from Disaster

This period is going to test my organisation. Lots of games, not much time to do the stats and blogs. I will be playing with AI in the summer break...

So the weekend games first. One of the all time season great games at St James Park - for a few days anyway. Bournemouth got a late victory with an injury-time OG from Seamus Coleman. Everton really struggling to get the run together that would see them safe. Chelsea - clown club, managed to drop points at home to Burnley, whilst contrasting draws - standard at Notts Forest vs Palace, last minute excitement at Sheff Utd with a last minute equaliser from Malcom in the Middle's Frankie Muniz. What a career he's had. Spurs also got the late winner to avoid an awkward draw at home to Luton, Villa won the Bad Accents derby easily. Fun fact - was in Brum last week and there was a tram from outside my hotel all the way to Wolverhampton. It took over an hour and I did not take the opportunity. Maybe next time. Then, continuing the the theme -  a very late winner from clown club Man Utd, actually was then superseded by an even later equaliser from Brentford. On the Sunday, Liverpool came from behind to deservedly beat Brighton 2-1, and Arsenal & Man City played out a *NAIL BITER*, drawing 0-0. I don't know what the moans from the neutrals were, my heartrate was up all game.

Midweek was less exciting. Until it wasn't. 1-1 draws between Newcastle & Everton, West Ham & Spurs and Burnley & Wolves. Home wins for Bournemouth and crucially for Notts Forest to stay in touch with Everton and Brentford. Brentford & Brighton drew 0-0, Arsenal cruised to a 2-0 win and Man City came from behind to thump Villa 4-1. Liverpool also won comfortably, if later than planned but then the latest and most ridiculous game arrived. Clown Club derby. Chelsea 2-0 up and cruising to a first PL win against Man Utd in 7 years. Oh, it's 2-2. Oh, Utd are winning. Oh a 97th minute penalty. Oh a 100th minute winner. 2-3 down, 4-3 up deep into injury time. Erik Ten Hag's bald sodded head shining away as his face looks as frozen as *googles celebrity botox victim*

Car crash TV. Wonderful stuff.

S13M29-30: Unbroken

2 weeks' worth of stats to get through after an international break that I've paid about 3% attention to, so forgive me for skipping to it.

This is it folks. The home stretch. No further interruptions. Here. We. Go. 

Let's get statty:

S13M27: Wake Up Sheeple

Back to a full PL programme this week, after a staggeringly homogenoous set of predictions/low betting odds.

This was in part, caused by the LC final - Spurs/Chelsea would have no doubt been a more tricky fixture to predict.

As it stands, there was very little divergence as seen below.

Villa's win over Forest, Man City's win over Bournemouth, Arsenal's win over Newcastle and Wolves win over Sheff Utd all had >95% concordance.

As did Man Utd's win over Fulham (oops) and Brighton's win over Everton (oops x2) was also pretty high at 90%. That, in fairness, seems unusual. Neither club are consistent, and Everton are artificially low in the table. Palace's win over Burnley was 81%.

So the only really split game was West Ham vs Brentford...which didn't end up being close at all. Football eh?

S13M26: Scrap the League Cup

This weekend always feels a bit of a milestone. We know it's a pro-rated week, but it also marks the turn towards the run-in for me. There are different definitions - some feel the last 8 games, some the last 10, and maybe going for the last third is a bit early, but I sort of think this time of year focuses minds. There are fewer games to make up mistakes, no transfer chat and the games start flowing with Europe and the FA adding to the burden in a way that the League cup stopped doing pre-Xmas. 

So where are we? 2 points separate the top 3. 5 points the next 3.  3 points the next 5. 5 points the next 5. Then 2 strata of relegation teams. It's all shaping up nicely. Everyone more or less still has something to play for. 

S13M25: Strata

This was doing the round this week on Twitter. 

It's basically a team rating measuring both attack & defence - you can tap Scott up directly for his specific methodology but it fits the eye test. Note - this isn't the league table because results don't equal performances - form can skew things based on sample size etc. But broadly speaking - it's about right. 3 exceptional teams - up there with any in world football. A cluster of 6 who will make up the rest of the european places and compete for cups. Mid-table solidity (including Everton who's league position is artificially low). Lower mid-table precariousness with a bad run or bad injury and then 3 weak teams - with Luton the least bad of these lot. What I like about this graphic is the spacings. Villa are as close to Wolves as they are to City. It speaks to the remarkable consistency of the 3 great teams over a prolonged period - and juxtaposed with Chelsea, Newcastle, Man Utd & Spurs who've all got (different) reasons to believe that they should be able to compete, it lays it all very stark. Special words for Brighton & Brentford, who...as ever....are punching well above their weight.

So no great shock this weekend then.  Easy wins for Man City, Arsenal & Liverpool. Man Utd beat Villa in a closer game, Chelsea overcome a poor Palace side after going behind. Spurs won at home against Brighton also from behind and Brentford won away at Wolves who've lost the flow they'd found before. Slightly upsetting this point was Sheffield United winning away at Luton - a good win for them, but both pretty poor sides, and Fulham beating Bournemouth at home is a likely success for consistency & home advantage. A high scoring week....

S13M24: Compression

Best League in the World TM delivers the drama again. Everton kicked us off with a late equaliser at home to Spurs. Without their 10 point deduction, they'd be solidly mid-table, but as is are still in the relegation mix, although you have to assume they'll pull clear at some point.  Brighton recovered from their recent thumping to hand out a thumping of their own to not-real-derby rivals Palace who's manager looks increasingly forlorn each week. He's actually incredible at pushing the boundaries of forlornness. Also, when he gets sacked, he needs to take over at Sheff Wed. Obvs. Also also, I'm a huge fan of Joao Pedro and think he's going to be a great signing for whoever he leaves Brighton for. I'd happily take him next summer.

Another late equaliser for relegation-threatened Burnley, alongside jsut a standard 4-4 at St James Park. Luton with just the casual 8 in 2 games now. Villa handed out another thumping to absolutely dreadful Sheff Utd. Not a great Saturday for home teams.

Bournemouth vs Forest was boring, but the drama continued at the Bridge where Wolves did a number of Chelsea - a highly self-inflicted defeat and the #PochOut mutterings are becoming louder. Bring back Frank Lampard I say. An easy home win for Man Utd against West Ham was followed by the Super Sunday game between Arsenal and Liverpool for the 3rd time in 6 weeks. Some dreadful errors handed a goal to each team, but Liverpool were dominated in a way that doesn't often happen, with Arsenal winning 3-1 quite comfortably.

The same scoreline greeted Haaland's return as City saw off Brentford easily enough after going behind. A hat-trick from Foden was well received by me, as he's in my fantasy team - this was then tempered by me seeing that he's in bloody everyone's team, so no advantage there.

S13M23: KlopPOW

There's only one place to start and that's with my take on the Klopp news.

My initial reaction, tbqhwy, was elation. Like when Fergie went, or when Spurs hired Mourinho. The schadenfreude runneth deep.

I'm not going to lie. I was wrong. I thought he'd burnt out at Dortmund and didn't think he'd have the energy to make Liverpool work - a very unhappy club at the time if you recall - before the fans got all sack-happy.

But yeah, hands held up. He built well, front-to back with a strong backroom and back-office staff, helped out by Barcelona offering stupid money for Coutinho. They grew, he grew and it all culminated in the emotional maelstrom that really only Liverpool can achieve - for better or for worse. It's no surprise that he's emptied the tanks. Trying to rebuild that side will be a challenge and he has nothing left to prove. 

I never really loved Klopp - I didn't go into for the fawning. He's as psychopathic and hypocritical as the rest of them, and his toothy grin can be viewed as charismatic or a shark about to eat you depending on perspective. But I hella respected him and there's no doubt that Liverpool will be worse off without him, at least in the short term, regardless of who (Xabi Alonso) they bring in to replace him.

What will it mean for this season? Will they use this to fuel them to a quadruple? I doubt it - I still think City will be too strong for them in the League, but wouldn't be surprised at a cup treble providing bodies stay fit.

S13M21: Drawn Out

 It's this time of the year where absolute tomfoolery kicks in. Post-festive fixture scheduling, we get a staggered winter break mixed with 2 continental championships. Why? Who does this? The latter thing is what it is, but why not just have a winter break? Between that and a 5 day 3rd round of the FA Cup, I'm just bamboozled as to what's going on, who's playing when and who's still around. Much as I scoff at the "Back in My Day" lot, you never had to worry about this nonsense in 1952.

In time honoured fashion, I will not be recapping the events of many weeks past, save to say that personally, harrumph.