Matchday 20 & 21:Small Gains

So everyone survived then? Good stuff guys. Shame the tube drivers weren't all taken out. That'd be the best apocalypse ever.

The Christmas football period was a little strange this year I felt. Chelsea handing out a whopping to Villa, and the Man Utd/Newcastle game on Boxing day were the only 2 games that I really enjoyed. I suppose that watching as a "neutral" (which I was from about 2.30pm on the Saturday) isn't the most fun at this time of year, with plenty else to distract the attention.

Anyway, no real controversies either to discuss, though I'm glad van Persie didn't suffer a worse injury at the hands of that violent thug Williams. He could have died, you know. Or not. Deflective arse - Ferguson has a lot of apologising to do in 2013 - starting with Williams and the officials from the Boxing day game over the Evans og. I rarely link to other sites, but as this piece was (co)written by one of our own, I thought I'd include it as it brilliantly explains why the decision was a good 'un. Pinnacle of your career that, Doz....very few get published on these hallowed pages.

Let's get statty:

Matchday 18:
 This week, 16 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (16/16)
Most disputed result: WBA vs Norwich (8-5-3 split)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels, 34,179/1
Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 702/1
Average odds:6140/1 (1467/1 without the anomalous Josh above)

Best predictors: ECI, Jonathan Chernick, Sam Ruback & Yanik Joshi (7/10)
Worst predictors: Doron Salomon (2/10)
Average score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (16/16)
Worst predicted result: Sunderland WIN (0/16)

Villain of the week: Not applicable

Everyone's results:

Matchday 19:
 This week, 17 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Most disputed result: QPR vs WBA (7-5-5 split)

Longest odds: Doron 3185/1
Shortest odds: Feneley (& his mum) 562/1
Average odds: 1743/1

Best predictors: Richard Verber & WhoScored.com (7/9)
Worst predictors: Tarek Najm (2/9)
Average score: 4/9

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Worst predicted result: Sunderland WIN (0/17)

Villain of the week: still not applicable

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard sees a new entrant this week - having now played >2/3 of games (13 of 19). As we're now halfway through the season, it'd unlikely anyone else will join (potentially 2 more, although if they miss a few more weeks, they will be unable to qualify) so this looks like it'll be everyone. What order though?

Drama at the top as 1st & 4th swap places, whilst Yanik and Josh Gaon have poor Christmases, otherwise, fairly unremarkable. New entrant Menachem (from now on, MG) pops into midtable, with a decent cushion from those below.

This week's predictions:

Matchday 20:

Sunderland vs Spurs - DRAW

Aston Villa vs Wigan - ASTON VILLA

Fulham vs Swansea - DRAW

Man Utd vs WBA - MAN UTD

Norwich vs Man City - MAN CITY

Reading vs West Ham - WEST HAM

Stoke vs Southampton - STOKE

Arsenal vs Newcastle - ARSENAL

Everton vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

QPR vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Total odds: 1600/1 (Paddypower)

Matchday 21:

I'm going to try the tactic used by some of you and make the second set of predictions separately. If you want to do this, feel free, or copy & paste as usual and do both now. I can't guarantee that I'll chase you for the New Year's fixtures though, so if in doubt, do it now.

WBA vs Fulham - WBA

Man City vs Stoke - MAN CITY

Swansea vs Aston Villa - SWANSEA

Spurs vs Reading - SPURS

West Ham vs Norwich - NORWICH

Wigan vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Southampton vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Chelsea vs QPR - CHELSEA

Liverpool vs Sunderland - LIVERPOOL

Newcastle vs Everton - EVERTON

Total odds: 236/1 with Paddypower

Good luck everyone, have a great new year's eve, and hope all your predictions come true in 2013.

Matchdays 18 & 19: It's the end of the world as we know it

In 2009, I found myself on top of a pyramid in Tikal, Guatemala. The pyramid was built by the Mayans about 1500 years previously, and whilst impressive, it definitely wouldn't pass a health & safety assessment, London style.

Heights ain't exactly my bag at the best of times, but I was just about relaxed enough to listen to our guide talk about how on 21/12/2012, the world was going to end* (according to a people who ironically, weren't around to see it. Like me prophecising the date the Sun's gonna give out...). I'll be honest - I didn't take the threat all that seriously, but now, facing the impending doom that may come in a few short hours, I've realised, this is not how I want to go out.

Rock bloody bottom of the leaderboard.

I'm massively unimpressed - with my odds of ~500/1 last week, and that was hardly anomalous, I expected a nice big score to boost my average, but a combination of Twitchy at QPR, T'witterer at Liverpool & T'walrus at West Ham put paid to that. At least Twalcott (sorry, I'm finished now) managed to put a smile on my face on Monday night.

Basically, the situation needs to change. Either you lot need to do poorly, or I need to improve. Or else, I'm picking up my ball and going home**. I think that everyone should do their bit, and put in silly results, like an Arsenal win, this week, to give me a chance to catch up. Sound fair?

* I'm unsure if this is the 2nd or 3rd "end of the world" in my relatively short time on Earth. It's good to see that it's not just football predictions that are awful.
**not really.

Ah, enough wallowing in pity. If you're still alive, let's get statty:


This week, 17 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Most disputed result: QPR vs Fulham (7-4-6 split)

Longest odds: Doron with a rather anomalous 3760/1
Shortest odds: Feneley 200/1
Average odds: 939/1 (469/1 without Doron)

Best Predictors: Josh Daniels & Josh Gaon (7/10)
Worst Predictors: Me, Sam Ruback & Yanik Joshi (4/10)
Average Score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Worst predicted result: Aston Villa WIN (0/17)


Villain of the week: No-one scored highly enough

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, and as always, only for those who have played >2/3 of weeks or 12/17 in this instance. We're a couple of weeks off having another addition to the board, and then, I think that'll be that for this season - all those in play will be on the board.

Lots of little leaps: at the top, my old man has leapfrogged his co-former-moustache-wearer, Josh Gaon's good week combined with Sam's bad week allows them to swap places, and Mr Verber gains a place too. My poor week, Chernick's no show and Feneley's pretty good week, makes for loads of drama at the bottom. Exciting...but I'd far rather be sitting pretty about 8 places higher.

The comeback starts here folks, this week's predictions:

Matchday 18:

Wigan vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Newcastle vs QPR - DRAW

Southampton vs Sunderland - SOUTHAMPTON

Man City vs Reading - MAN CITY

Spurs vs Stoke - SPURS

West Ham vs Everton - DRAW

WBA vs Norwich - NORWICH

Liverpool vs Fulham - LIVERPOOL

Swansea vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Chelsea vs Aston Villa - CHELSEA

Total odds: 1009/1 with Paddypower

Matchday 19 (Boxing Day games):

Sunderland vs Man City - MAN CITY

Reading vs Swansea - SWANSEA

Everton vs Wigan - EVERTON

Fulham vs Southampton - DRAW

QPR vs WBA - QPR

Norwich vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Man Utd vs Newcastle - MAN UTD

Aston Villa vs Spurs - ASTON VILLA

Stoke vs Liverpool - STOKE

Total odds: 951/1 with PaddyPower (only 9 games, thanks Tube Drivers)

I'll be posting the games for next Saturday after Boxing Day, but if anyone is going away for Christmas/New Years and wants to send me their predictions early, then feel free and I'll add them in to the database. I'm contactable by email, text, twitter, facebook, or leave a comment below, making it clear that it's for a different week (and ideally, let me know that you've done so).

Good luck everyone, and may your festive period be as happy on the pitch and at the bookie as around the table.

Until next time

Matchday 17: Late goals ahoy

Well that was fun! Not from a betting perspective, where I was screwed, but there's very little more enjoyable than late drama in a football match. Except being 3-0 rapidly and then cruising the rest of the game, ideally in the Champions' League final. That said, in N5, I'd take the scrappiest of 1-0 wins at the minute.

No Arsenal rants from me though. I'm staying strictly positive. I say my prayers to Dennis every night, and I know that he'll sort it all out.

Let's get statty:

This week, 17 people played
Most popular predicted result: Southampton WIN (16/17)
Most disputed result: West Ham Vs Liverpool (6-7-4 split)

Longest odds: Doron 16,134/1
Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 4609/1
Average odds: 9545/1

Best Predictor: Tarek (8/10)
Worst Predictor: Ryan Wain (2/10)
Average Score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Southampton WIN (16/17)
Worst predicted result: Norwich WIN (0/17)

Villain of the week: Remember, this section only gets filled when someone scores 8 or more, and it's used to identify a 'villain' who potentially stopped them getting the full accumulator right. This week, Tarek got the Norwich & Everton wins wrong - but I'm struggling to think of a poor decision that cost him. I guess, SPURS get the award for throwing away the result with 1 minute to play.

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard (still taking offers...), for those who have played >2/3 of available weeks (11/16):

To quote Sir Stephen of Fry "Oh me, oh my". Tarek's scarcely-believable 8 marches him up the table, and new arrival Richard Verber parachutes comfortably into midtable. My father also has regained the place he lost to WhoScored.Com last week, as has Nick Collins, continuing his steady ascent. Nick ran out of time last season when trying to haul in Joe (who has yet to appear this season)...will it be second time lucky for him?

To this week's predictions:

Only the 9 matches this week as Chelsea are busy gorging themselves on sushi.

Newcastle vs Man City - MAN CITY

Liverpool vs Aston Villa - LIVERPOOL

Man Utd vs Sunderland - MAN UTD

Norwich vs Wigan - NORWICH

QPR vs Fulham - FULHAM

Stoke vs Everton - EVERTON

Spurs vs Swansea - DRAW

WBA vs West Ham - WBA

Reading vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Total odds: 505/1 (Paddypower)

Good luck guys

Matchday 16: You can't win if you're chasing the wrong problem

An appropriate quotation with which to start off this week's post, I feel. We are ~40% of the way through the season, and I think it's fair to say that very few clubs feel satisfied. WBA, Everton & Swansea are probably content with league position and are hoping to maintain form into 2013.West Ham too, at a push. But I'd argue that's it.

Fans of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool appear to be in perpetual turmoil (some to greater degrees than others) - either because they feel they should be doing better because of the state of their rivals, or because of issues with the players, managers, boards and anyone else who can be scapegoated. Stoke and Fulham are probably par for the course and everyone else is either underperforming relative to expectations, or is in the worrisome position they expected to be in.

All of that leads to a feeling of dissatisfaction with Premier League football at the minute - last season was a classic, with some amazing matches, fantastic sub plots and drama until (literally) the last kick. Maybe it's just me, but it all seems a bit flat so far - we're still waiting for that spark to ignite.

I read something this week (context being has Wenger lost his powers) and I think it's relevant to the whole league. The last 15 years have seen sports science and the development of the professional game take a hold, to the extent that there really are 'no easy games' anymore. Teams are much fitter, and much more disciplined. This has probably raised the average quality of the league, but makes for a less thrilling spectacle, as contests now become a lot more tactical, or decided by individual errors - part and parcel of the game, but less visceral. In due course, sporting evolution will occur - it always does - and whoever makes that first leap will have a competitive advantage, but I just wonder if for now, all the team are too close in ability to generate sustained excitement.

Irrelevant really - come 3pm on Saturday, any philosophising will be over as the nerves and the emotion take over. For that's what it's all about, those 90 minutes, and the rest of all this is just finding a way to bide the time.

*UPDATE* Just seen the UEFA announcement re EURO2020 being held across Europe. That's just bloody stupid. Logistical nightmare for the fans, and how are they going to a) create a sense of occasion and b) decide who gets the important games? As I asked on twitter, is a lobotomy a prerequisite to work for UEFA?

Metaphorical slap across the jowls, let's get statty.

This week, 17 people played.

Most popular predicted result: Arsenal WIN (17/17)

Most disputed result: QPR vs Aston Villa (5-8-4 split)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels 5794/1

Shortest odds: Me 937/1

Average odds: 2893/1

Best predictor: Yanik Joshi (7/10)

Worst predictor: Jonathan Chernick (2/10)

Average score: 4/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (16/17)

Worst predicted results:  West Ham & Swansea WINS (0/16)

Villain of the week: No scores high enough to count unfortunately. Ideas on how to change criterion gratefully accepted.

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard (which I have yet to receive any offers of sponsorship for...great opportunities for businesses, birthday presents etc...). The >2/3 of games rule means to qualify, you have to have played 11/15 weeks.

Statman's fall from grace continues as 2 of the 3 "professional" models now make up the top of the table. Yanik & I the big winners, with 3 strata beginning to form. Still plenty of weeks to change that, although I feel it unlikely that I'll finish above Lawro this season. A chilling thought.

My predictions for this week as as follows:

Arsenal vs WBA - ARSENAL

Aston Villa vs Stoke - ASTON VILLA

Southampton vs Reading - SOUTHAMPTON

Sunderland vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Swansea vs Norwich - SWANSEA

Wigan vs QPR - QPR

Man City vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Everton vs Spurs - DRAW

West Ham vs Liverpool - DRAW

Fulham vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

Total odds: 8901/1 (PaddyPower)

Good luck guys, see you next week with some results

Matchday 15: A lot of results and a few predictions

Too much to get through for any sort of attempt at witty preamble. It's my own fault really; if I'd done the graphs before, you'd have more time to read my ever interesting thoughts. As it stands, let's get resulty...

I've finally got the data off my old laptop, and so have got a completed set of results for MATCHDAY 11 (this one wasn't laziness, it was impossible to get the ECI data from that week without my old spreadsheet):

This week, 16 people played.

Most popular predicted results: Everton & Man Utd WINS (16/16)

Most disputed result: Southampton vs Swansea (6-3-7 split)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon 3813/1 

Shortest odds: Feneley 994/1

Average odds: 3156/1

Best predictor: Menachem with a decent 7/10

Worst predictors: Josh Daniels & Yanik Joshi (3/10)

Average score: 5/10

Best predicted results: Everton & Man Utd WINS (16/16)

Worst predicted results:  Arsenal vs Fulham DRAW (1/16 - well done Menachem)

Villain of the week: No scores high enough to count unfortunately.

Everyone's results:

MATCHDAY 12 (ok, this one was poor on my part):

This week, 14 people played.

Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (14/14)

Most disputed results: Newcastle vs Swansea & WBA vs Chelsea (6-7-1 & 1-6-7 splits respectively)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels 8181/1

Shortest odds: Doron 877/1

Average odds: 2567/1

Best predictor: Sam Ruback with an average 5/10

Worst predictors: Myself, Menachem, Will O'Doherty & Doron with rather pitiful 2/10s

Average score: 3/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (14/14)

Worst predicted results:  Norwich & Sunderland WINS (0/14 - ok, so maybe the Norwich one is acceptable, but really....no-one for Sunderland????)

Villain of the week: No scores high enough to count unfortunately.

Everyone's results:

MATCHDAY 13

This week, 14 people played.

Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (14/14)

Most disputed result: Chelsea vs Man City (5-4-5 split)

Longest odds: Me 17,189/1 

Shortest odds: Jonathan Chernick 1516/1

Average odds: 5434/1

Best predictors: Tarek Najm (turnaround) and Jonathan Chernick 7/10

Worst predictor: Yanik Joshi (2/10)

Average score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (14/14)

Worst predicted results:  Aston Villa vs Arsenal & Everton vs Norwich DRAWS (1/14 - pats on the back for Doron and me)

Villain of the week: Still no scores high enough to count. Might consider reviewing the criterion for this element. Gets boring pasting the same line in.  Alternatively, let's get better at predicting...

Everyone's results:

MATCHDAY 14

This week, 14 people played.

Most popular predicted results: Man City & Man Utd WINS (14/14)

Most disputed results: Everton vs Arsenal, Southampton vs Norwich & Stoke vs Newcastle (5-3-6 & 6-3-5 (twice) splits respectively)

Longest odds: Me 5919/1 

Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 1663/1

Average odds: 3156/1

Best predictor: Lawro (7/10)

Worst predictors: Menachem, Richard Verber, Jonathan Chernick, Yanik Joshi & Doron Salomon (4/10)

Average score: 5/10

Best predicted results: Man City & Man Utd WINS (14/14)

Worst predicted result:  Chelsea vs Fulham DRAW (1/14 - Yanik was Yuniq (sorry....) with that one)

Villain of the week: *copy & paste*. Come on guys!

Everyone's results:

Now to a leaderboard that has jumped forward a few weeks in time. As ever, only those who have played >2/3 of weeks get the honour of appearing on the Leaderboard, so that's 10/14 weeks so far (as an aside, I've decided that in these times, to comply with FFP, I'm going to have to sell naming rights for the Leaderboard. I know the traditionalists will be upset, but I feel this will put us in a strong position to compete in the future. I'll accept bids from 1st Dec onwards....).

For the first time this season, the statistical juggernaut that is my primary paternal antecedent has been dislodged from top spot, with Lawro sneaking past by 0.02. Futher proof, were it needed, that the Mayans were right and the world is about to end. Little bit of moving and shaking in the midtable area, with Messrs Ruback and J.Daniels the winners there. Chernick overtakes me again, but the wooden spoon battle has sucked in Feneley, and the whole table has a much more compact look about it than that of a few weeks ago. Still lots of football to predict, so plenty of room for changes though!

To this week's predictions:

West Ham vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Arsenal vs Swansea - ARSENAL
Fulham vs Spurs - DRAW
Liverpool vs Southampton - LIVERPOOL
Man City vs Everton - MAN CITY
QPR vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA
WBA vs Stoke - WBA
Reading vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Norwich vs Sunderland - NORWICH
Newcastle vs Wigan - NEWCASTLE

Total odds: 937/1 with PaddyPower.

Bon chance mes amis, and normal service will (touch wood, fingers crossed and feed a bunny a 4-leaf clover shake) resume from this week onwards.

Matchdays 13 & 14: Some baptism to welcome back Rafa

Big story of the week, even bigger than Mertersacker's Messi-esque dribble, or Mexes' reedonculous overhead kick (seriously...when did centre backs learn to do these things?) is the utterly unsurprising news that Roberto DiMatteo has been sacked by Chelsea for not being Pep Guardiola. That's basically it, isn't it?

Abramovich couldn't not give him the job after he rather inconveniently went one better than Avram Grant (probably 'cos John Terry wasn't able to miss a penalty) but I think the world and his wife/civil partner knew full well that this would be hardly be the longest of relationships. That said....Chelsea are 4 points off top spot - they win on Sunday and that's 1 point, at the end of November! Whilst qualification in the CL is unlikely, it's by no means improbable that Shaktar and Juve will draw, and one would expect Chelsea to win at home against Nordsjaellend. If that's the case, has Abramovich sacked a guy for having a tiny wobble? At least AVB and Scolari got to perform poorly for a few months. He who pays the piper, calls the tune and all that, but you have to feel that this is poor PR for Roman.

What's that? PR is irrelevant when you can literally buy whoever you want? Ah well....to me footy then.

1st draft: NO RESULTS YET. Will be up this afternoon. Still no results from last week as I don't want to do them unless I can do them properly, and hopefully transferring all data across this week.

To my predictions this week:

Sunderland vs WBA - WBA
Everton vs Norwich - DRAW
Man Utd vs QPR - MAN UTD
Stoke vs Fulham - DRAW
Wigan vs Reading - WIGAN
Aston Villa vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Swansea vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
Southampton vs Newcastle - SOUTHAMPTON
Chelsea vs Man City - DRAW
Spurs vs West Ham - WEST HAM

Total odds: 17,189/1 with PaddyPower

and the second set of predictions:

Sunderland vs QPR - DRAW
Aston Villa vs Reading - DRAW
Chelsea vs Fulham - CHELSEA
Everton vs Arsenal - DRAW
Southampton vs Norwich - NORWICH
Stoke vs Newcastle - DRAW
Swansea vs WBA - SWANSEA
Spurs vs Liverpool - DRAW
Man Utd vs West Ham - MAN UTD
Wigan vs Man City - MAN CITY

Total odds: 5919/1 with PaddyPower

Good luck guys

Matchday 12:A second chance to live up to midweek football

Let's start with an apology. There are no results this week due to a perfect storm of a family bereavement and my laptop deciding that enough was enough too. Unfortunately, I hadn't yet stored this season's stats document anywhere else, and so have temporarily lost the data - I can recover everyone's except for WSC, and would rather publish them properly so I'll do that when I've recovered the contents of my hard drive - hopefully for next week.

A quick word about that Zlatan lad - good feet for a big man but he's no Peter Crouch, who scored loads of bicycle kicks and stuff. Crouchy literally is doing it on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke...whilst Zlatan gets to swan around on the Cote D'Azur. I know who I'd rather have in my 5-a-side game...

The chutzpah of goals 3 & 4 was remarkable, and by all accounts, drew applause from the England fans in Stockholm as well. Still reckon Hart should have saved the free kick, and probably the blasted 2nd goal - not mentioning his horrendous attempt at a clearing header. Is Sol Campbell doing his coaching badges? I swear he used to head the ball half the length of the pitch sometimes...

Anyway, not much else to mention so to this week's predictions:

Arsenal vs Spurs - ARSENAL
Liverpool vs Wigan - DRAW
Man City vs Aston Villa - MAN CITY
Newcastle vs Swansea - DRAW
QPR vs Southampton - QPR
Reading vs Everton - EVERTON
WBA vs Chelsea - CHELSEA (just)
Norwich vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Fulham vs Sunderland - FULHAM
West Ham vs Stoke - WEST HAM

Total odds: 1278/1 with PaddyPower

Y'all know what to do by now - good luck!

Matchday 11: Hopefully a better collective week than the last

I think we all knew that this weekend's football wouldn't live up to the last. Games between Manchester United and Arsenal haven't lived up to the Sky Sports hype for several years, especially those at Old Trafford. Most recognised that, with only the most belligerent, or foolhardy predicting anything but an United win. Unfortunately, due to my refusal to every put money on Arsenal to lose, I include myself in that group. Liverpool and Newcastle too have provided many classic games over the years, but neither side has really got going this season. I thought their match was rather damp, brightened only by 2 delicious goals. Liverpool will be disappointed not to have won though, with Shelvey missing the best of a host of chances for them.

If you were to pick a team most likely to stifle a free-flowing game, it'd be one managed by Sam Allardyce. West Ham did that, and took a point off Man City that they'll be very happy with. Us lot, less so, as most thought that over £200m of talent would find a way through, at least once. Chelsea and Everton both saw late equalisers deny them away wins and Spurs did what Spurs always do and disappoint. Everyone had Spurs to win. Norwich and WBA picked up vital wins, whilst QPR and Reading battled to a draw that satisfies noone. Finally, Villa won away against a Sunderland side that are looking to take the title of most turgid side in the league, showing Lambert may be starting to settle in nicely.

All in all, a low key weekend, which played out in the results here, with the 2nd lowest scoring week this season, and with 50% more players than the lowest week.

To the stats:

This week, 18 players were involved
Most popular predicted result: Tottenham WIN (18-0-0)
Most disputed result: Fulham vs Everton (4-8-6)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels with a ridiculous 256,166/1 (that would have won £2561.66 off a penny)
Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 1191/1
Average odds: 44,103/1 - although that's somewhat skewed. Ignoring the statistical outlier, the average was 13,808/1.

Best predictor: Doron Salomon (6/10)
Worst predictor: Andrew Feneley (1/10)
Average score: 4/10

Best predicted result: WBA WIN (16/18)
Worst predicted result: Wigan WIN (0/18)

Villain of the week: No-one even got close to a score high enough to discuss villains this week.

Everyone's results:

After the highs of last week, this seems a little disappointing, but it has had interesting implications for the leaderboard. Most people maintained their position, with only 2 position swaps, but the differences are decreasing. That said, the range across the table has grown by 0.13, so in Tarek's case, it's not entirely true that a rising tide raises all ships.

Just a reminder that only those who have played >2/3 of weeks are eligible for the leaderboard, so that's those who have played 7+ weeks.

Right, to this week's predictions:

Arsenal vs Fulham - ARSENAL
Everton vs Sunderland - EVERTON
Reading vs Norwich - NORWICH
Southampton vs Swansea - SWANSEA
Stoke vs QPR - DRAW
Wigan vs WBA - WBA
Aston Villa vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Man City vs Spurs - MAN CITY
Newcastle vs West Ham - DRAW
Chelsea vs Liverpool - CHELSEA

Total odds: 2947/1 (PaddyPower)


And I didn't win Euromillions either. Gutted. Good luck guys, until next week

Matchday 10: Probably won't live up to midweek's games

Right, here we go with an updated start. Apologies to those who saw the first draft without any results...

Bit of a mental week this one eh? Let's start with the major contentious decisions of the week:

• Mbia's red card - blatantly obvious red and not, as was suggested to me on Twitter, that he was just trying to play the ball.
• Arteta's goal - offside, no doubt. Thought as much when it went in, but don't really care 'cos Mark Hughes was unhappy which makes me happy. I can only assume that the lino didn't feel that the touch came off Ramsey in the tackle that sent the ball towards Arteta.
• Suarez's tackle on Distin - yellow card about right for me. "Striker's tackle", not a deliberate attempt to hurt Distin.
• Suarez's offside goal - yes, Coates (Coh-ah-tees by the way....I've been calling him Coats for ages) was all over Jagielka. That's not why the goal was disallowed though, and it was a terrible call to give offside there. Zero mitigation.
• Ivanovic red - fair enough I thought. Young would have been through and there was contact. Even if he didn't need to go over, he certainly would have been put out of his stride enough to have potentially lost the chance to score. That's the foul - and that's the red.
• Torres red - exactly the same as above - I felt that the contact from Evans was a foul. After that, the fact Torres fell was irrelevant. Fergie and Evans talk out their rears when they suggest it was Torres' own fault. Evans missed the ball, got some of the man and that's the foul . Torres was under no obligation to try and stay on his feet. I'd have given the booking to Evans, not a red as it was further out and there was enough cover. The obvious joke at Torres' expense is that there is no such thing as an obvious goalscoring opportunity for him either...
• Hernandez goal - Totally offside, and another poor call. I don't buy the excuse that the linesman has to look through players so it was more difficult. That's frequently the case, and they are trained for those situations. For a playing coming back from an offside position, you have to give the benefit of doubt to the defence in my opinion.
• Clattenberg accusations - I don't think it's appropriate to comment until more information is known. Suffice it to state the obvious - if he used racist language, then he never will, nor should ref again. If he used offensive language, then a ban is fair, but I don't blame him. If he's innocent, then I'd hope an apology would come his way from Mikel & Chelsea for marking his reputation.

Those were the controversies - but there were also some mental matches. Mainly involving Reading. A last minute goal to draw with Fulham wasn't enough.....oh no. They had to lose a 4-0 lead in one of the most ridiculous matches I've ever seen in my life. Chamakh with 2 from outside the area?!?!?! Arshavin playing 120 minutes?!?!?! Theo looking like a child when Jenkinson claimed the goal in the post-match interview (What happened there by the way? Who got the goal officially?) Utterly mad - and whilst yes, it's only the league cup....it's just fun to sit back and enjoy football and its most crazy.

Then, Stamford Bridge decided to get in on the action again. Firstly - the "Chelsea: Standing up to racism since Sunday" banner was one of the funniest I've seen in a long time. The match was also a good'un...and I thought the ref got all the big calls right. Awful defending from both sides, and some good attacking play makes for good TV. The match was predictably soured by some tool from the crowd who decided to make monkey noises and mimicry, allegedly aimed at Welbeck. His picture has been circulated, and Chelsea have said they'll take the strongest possible action when they find out who he is. Whether that'll be a lifetime ban or a secret internal confidential disciplinary action (there's precedent for both with Chelsea)...we'll have to wait and see.

Enough guff, to the stats:

This week, 17 people played.

Most popular predicted results: Arsenal & Man City WINS (17/17)

Most disputed result: Wigan vs West Ham (6-5-6)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon 5816/1

Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 1219/1

Average odds: 2786/1

Best predictor: Lawro, contiuing his unbelievable (Jeff) form, with 9/10

Worst predictor: Tarek with a mitigated 3/10. He did correctly call the Villa/Norwich game as a draw, but prediction was submitted after kick-off in that game, and thus cannot be counted as per Impossibilitee precedent.

Average score: 6/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal & Man City WINS (17/17)

Worst predicted result: Man Utd WIN (2/17) - quite incredible that so few though Man Utd would win! 

Villain of the week: The only match Lawro got wrong was the Reading vs Fulham game. Therefore, as per the rules, I have to find a villain from that game that stopped him getting the full 10. Officialdom (in general), has got a reprieve for this week therefore. Lawro went for a Reading win, and it's difficult to find a villain that stopped them from gaining that result. Reluctantly, I'm going to say MARK SCHWARZER gets the honour, for his stoppage time heroics preventing Reading scoring a 4th to win it. Just doing his job though...and doing it well!

Everyone's results:

Decent performances from most - Tarek's shoddy time keeping is the only reason he's alone on the right of the graph. The other side of the coin is Mr Chernick, who got his predictions in with 2 minutes to spare - although he did get that game wrong anyway.

To the leaderboard - and I'll try to write in English this week when explaining it. To reiterate, you only qualify for a place on the leaderboard when you play >2/3 of available weeks. This prevents someone having a great week as a one off and then refusing to play the rest of the season to protect their average. This rule is the fairest way of keeping the leaderboard a reflection of who consistently is the best predictor. It's early days yet in the season, so if you are not yet on the board, then keep playing and within a few weeks you will be.

And of course, it's still my flipping Dad, who increases his score to a scarcely believable 6. Lots of change in the middle, with Jonny Chernick leapfrogging me at the foot of the table. I'm still amazed at how well the 'professionals' are doing - last year they were embedded within us mere mortals. Let's see how long it stays this way...

For now though, my predictions for this week's matches:

Man Utd vs Arsenal - DRAW
Fulham vs Everton - EVERTON
Norwich vs Stoke - NORWICH
Sunderland vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA
Swansea vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Spurs vs Wigan - SPURS
West Ham vs Man City - DRAW
QPR vs Reading - READING
Liverpool vs Newcastle - DRAW
WBA vs Southampton - DRAW

Total odds with PaddyPower....56,804/1. Of course, compared to my chances of winning £95m this evening in the Euromillions, that's small fry.

Good luck guys, and feel free to spread the word to whomever you think might be interested...

Matchday 9: 25% of the season down and it's starting to get cold (& Matchday 8 results)

Snappy title eh?

It's crazy to think that we're pretty much a quarter of the way through the season already though, and to my  mind, reached the stage where early form gives way to genuine predictions for the rest of the season. It's predictable at the top - most would have picked the Manchester duo and Chelsea  to make the top 3. The West Ham and WBA are the surprise names in the next pack, with Arsenal under performing to date (although a win at Norwich would have seen them 4th, so hardly a crisis). Newcastle and Liverpool will be the most disappointed from the midtable teams, whilst Southampton and Reading were picked to struggle before the season started. Fernandes may well be getting an itchy trigger finger at QPR after a poor initial return from a hefty investment. It's all shaping up nicely for a top of the table clash this weekend. We'll get to that however.

To the stats:

This week, 17 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Most disputed results: Sunderland vs Newcastle (4-9-4) & West Ham vs Southampton (9-4-4)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon (again...) 18,157/1
Shortest odds: Will O'Doherty - 792/1... Great to have you back again this season!
Average odds: 6289/1

Best predictor: Lawro - for the first time in 46 weeks I think!!! (8/10)
Worst predictor: Josh Daniels (2/10)
Average score: 6/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (17/17)
Worst predicted result: Norwich WIN (0/17)

Villains of the week: Lawro got 2 results wrong - the Swansea and Norwich WINS. Of those, the worst culprit has to be the entire Arsenal team for not turning up and depriving Lawro (and literally everyone else) a chance at another point.

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, comprehending of those who have played <2/3 of weeks - or 6/8:

No change at the top, but the gap has been reduced to the chasing pack. Yanik drops down to 4th, and the other big loser is Josh Daniels who falls 3 places. A reversal of the bottom 2 is of no great consequence just yet, although that gap between me and Doron is a little worrying (from my perspective).

This week, I've gone for the following:

Aston Villa vs Norwich - DRAW
Arsenal vs QPR - ARSENAL
Reading vs Fulham - FULHAM
Stoke vs Sunderland - STOKE
Wigan vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Man City vs Swansea - MAN CITY
Everton vs Liverpool - EVERTON
Newcastle vs WBA - NEWCASTLE
Southampton vs Spurs - SPURS
Chelsea  vs Man Utd - CHELSEA

Total odds: 2041/1 with Paddypower

Good luck guys - you know what to do by now...

Matchday 8: Back to the real stuff

I'm no great fan of international football. Given the choice of Arsenal winning the Charity Shield (or whatever it's known as these days) or England winning the World Cup, I'd probably plump for the former. In this post-Olympics patriotic glow, the word "probably" has been inserted. Prior to this summer, I'd have said, "definitely". The whole thing leaves me a little cold - and I enjoy watching the biennial footyfests from a sort of neutral perspective. My feeling is that I invest emotionally enough throughout the normal season - it's quite nice to relax for a week here and there. I did watch the San Marino game, and actually thought it was pretty professional - a word not usually associated with England. The Man Utd trio up top dovetailed well with the Ox and I thought Carrick was superb in providing a slow pressure from 35 yards out. His effort off the bar was also of such technical beauty it deserved to go in - things like that are what high-definition slow mo was designed for - see also Arteta's goal vs Man City last season, and Shearer's volley vs Everton a few years back. Joe Hart could have been replaced by Diana Ross circa June 1994 and the result would have been no different.

Anywho, Hodgson seems to know what he's doing, and his face isn't all twitchy and melting, so that's good enough for me.

The Premier League action all was rather predictable I thought (although not predictable enough to predict it correctly, obviously). The biggest shock was Liverpool failing to beat Stoke at home, but then, that was probably the most predictable shock. Everton's struggle against Wigan was also an unpopular choice. Overall, however, most people did pretty well this week.

To the stats:

This week, 15 people played
Most popular predicted result: Chelsea WIN (15/15)
Most disputed result: Southampton vs Fulham (6-5-4)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon 7365/1
Shortest odds: Me, 574/1
Average odds: 3092/1

Best predictors: Nick Collins, Feneley & Sam Ruback (7/10)
Worst predictors: Whoscored.com, Tarek Najm & Jonny Chernick (4/10)
Average Score: 6/10

Best predicted result: Chelsea WIN (15/15)
Worst predicted result: Wigan vs Everton DRAW & Swansea vs Reading DRAW (3/15)

Villain of the week: As with last season, villain of the week only comes into play when someone scores 8+ (or there is something so stonkingly terrible that I decide I'm going to rant about it). Therefore, no villain this week.

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, and the >2/3 of playable weeks qualification rule (try saying that with a mouthful of crunchy peanut butter) means that only those who've played 5/7 weeks are eligible. 

Statsman still has a dominant lead at the top, with a solid clustering around the 5 mark. Jonny Chernick and I have swopped places, and together with Tarek, we make up a feeble triumvirate scoring <4. Josh Gaon makes his first appearance on an Impossibilitee leaderboard, with a respectable 4.80.

To this week's predictions:

Spurs vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Fulham vs Aston Villa - DRAW
Liverpool vs Reading - LIVERPOOL
Man Utd vs Stoke - MAN UTD
Swansea vs Wigan - DRAW
WBA vs Man City - MAN CITY
West Ham vs Southampton - DRAW
Norwich vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Sunderland vs Newcastle - SUNDERLAND
QPR vs Everton - EVERTON

Total odds: 2997/1 with PaddyPower

Predictions in the comments as usual, good luck one and all. Until next time...

Matchday 7 & a Colossal results blog

There's a lot to get through from the last 6 weeks, so I'm just gonna get straight to it...

Matchday 1:

23 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Chelsea WIN (23/23)
Most disputed result: Reading vs Stoke (8-8-7)

Longest odds: Steven Daniels 4260/1
Shortest odds: Josh Daniels 1236/1
Average odds:2478/1

Best Predictor:  Steven Daniels (on debut) & Ryan Wain (6/10)
Worst Predictor: Me, Feneley and Jonny Chernick (2/10)
Average Score: 4

Best predicted result: Chelsea WIN (23/23)
Worst predicted result: WBA & Everton WINS (0/23)

No villain of the week awards for any weeks to date as I haven't followed closely enough.

Everyone's results:

Matchday 2:


12 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Spurs, Chelsea & Swansea WINS (7/12)
Most disputed result: Norwich vs QPR (4-4-4)

Longest odds: Jonny Chernick 18525/1
Shortest odds:Sam Ruback 1583/1
Average odds: 7206/1

Best Predictor: JT & Lawro (5/10)
Worst Predictor: er....Me again.... (2/10)
Average Score: 4/10

Best predicted result: Chelsea & Swansea WINS (7/10)
Worst predicted result: Wigan WIN (0/10)

Everyone's results:

Matchday 3:


12 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Man City & Newcastle WINS (12/12)
Most disputed result: Liverpool vs Arsenal (4-5-3)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels 8667/1
Shortest odds: Doron Salomon 343/1
Average odds: 2936/1

Best Predictor: Josh Daniels (5/10)
Worst Predictors: Feneley, Doron, Ryan Wain and Me (completing a very unwanted hat-trick) 2/10
Average Score: 3/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (12/12)
Worst predicted result: Newcastle vs Aston Villa DRAW (0/12)

Everyone's results:

Matchday 4:


15 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Arsenal & Man Utd WINS (13/15)
Most disputed result: Sunderland vs Liverpool (6-5-4)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels (again) 27,465/1
Shortest odds: Feneley 1327/1
Average odds: 9858/1

Best Predictor: Lawro (7/10)
Worst Predictor: Nick Collins (2/10)
Average Score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Arsenal & Man Utd WINS (13/15)
Worst predicted result: Villa WIN (1/15)

Everyone's results:

Matchday 5:


15 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Newcastle WIN (15/15)
Most disputed result: West Ham vs Sunderland (4-6-5)

Longest odds: Tarek Najm 84,469/1 (!!!)
Shortest odds: Steven Daniels 3968/1
Average odds: 28,132/1

Best Predictor: Whoscored.com (8/10)
Worst Predictor: Jonny Chernick & Tarek Najm (2/10)
Average Score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Newcastle WIN (15/15)
Worst predicted result: Everton WIN (2/15)

Everyone's results:

Matchday 6:

11 people played.

Most popular predicted result: Everton & Man Utd WINS (11/11)
Most disputed result: Aston Villa vs WBA & QPR vs West Ham (5-3-2 and 3-5-2 respectively)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon 7073/1
Shortest odds: Sam Ruback 311/1
Average odds: 3107/1

Best Predictor: Steven Daniels (8/10)
Worst Predictor: Me again! (3/10)
Average Score 5/10

Best predicted result:  Everton WIN (11/11)
Worst predicted result: Spurs WIN (0/11)

Everyone's results:

I really hope that's correct, but if you feel I've got your results wrong if you've been checking yourself, please let me know and I'll update it in the records. It gets very messy when trying to get through this many numbers manually! Also, in week one, there were a lot of names that were unclear to whom they belonged....please claim them and I'll create/amalgamate the records (ie Josh, Ben, Daniel etc). Thanks! To the first league table of the season...

As for the league table, I've created it for those who have played 2/3 of games (or 4 of 6 weeks). Whilst it doesn't show too much after only 6 weeks, it's clear that the "pros" are doing pretty well, along with my father who is using his maths brain to good effect. I've had an appalling start, but am blaming that on geographical isolation, and plan to change that around, starting with this weeks predictions...

I'm going for:

Man City vs Sunderland - MAN CITY
Chelsea vs Norwich - CHELSEA
Swansea vs Reading - SWANSEA
WBA vs QPR - WBA
Wigan vs Everton - EVERTON
West Ham vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Southampton vs Fulham - DRAW
Liverpool vs Stoke - LIVERPOOL
Tottenham vs Aston Villa - SPURS
Newcastle vs Man Utd - DRAW

Total odds: 574/1 (Paddypower)

Good luck guys, and let's try and get the numbers up this week....or else I'll start with the social media harassments again....

Matchday 6: Starting to take shape

This, my friends, will be the last blog post where you are in the dark over results so far this season. That right there, is a Ricky D Guarantee. I'm returning to London this weekend, and have a very long flight in which I plan to sort out all the stats thus far. Therefore, this time next week, the bragging rights will be up for grabs once again - and I genuinely have no idea how anyone (including myself) has done so far!

The downside of that, is that you must bear with me, yet again whilst I stick up just my predictions - perhaps some of you prefer the waffle-less system, but it's my party and I'll waffle if I want to!

This week, I'm going:

Arsenal vs Chelsea - ARSENAL
Everton vs Southampton - EVERTON
Fulham vs Man City - MAN CITY
Norwich vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
Reading vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE
Stoke vs Swansea - DRAW
Sunderland vs Wigan - WIGAN
Man Utd vs Tottenham - MAN UTD (obviously, do Spurs ever do anything else but lose to Man Utd?)
Aston Villa vs WBA- VILLA
QPR vs West Ham - QPR

Total odds from PaddyPower: 3012/1

Just a quick story about a man I met in a pub last week watching the CL matches. He told me he was a Man City fan - I remarked about how unusual that was here (it's almost entirely Man Utd or Liverpool fans) and he told me that he was a Liverpool fan for 20 years, but had switched to City now Liverpool were rubbish...

Still....he bought me a drink, so he's not all bad!

Good luck, enjoy your weekends and check back next week for a mega-stats blog!

Matchday 5: Nice and Early this time!

The thing that was drummed into my head about the Romans when I was a young'un was that the reason their empire was so strong was because they learned from their mistakes.

I always wanted to be a Roman - I liked the idea of wearing sandals and red baggy pants and being paid in salt (running out of Roman stuff now) - and so have taken this maxim on-board and therefore am doing this week's post in good time.

My predictions are as follows:

Swansea vs Everton - DRAW
Chelsea vs Stoke - CHELSEA
Newcastle vs Norwich - NEWCASTLE
Southampton vs Aston Villa - SOUTHAMPTON
WBA vs Reading - READING
West Ham vs Sunderland - WEST HAM
Wigan vs Fulham - FULHAM
Liverpool vs Man Utd - LIVERPOOL
Man City vs Arsenal - DRAW
Spurs vs QPR - SPURS

Total match odds: a ridiculous 39,027/1. Quite hoping that this week is the week I win :D

Just as an aside - I watched the Arsenal match last week in 30-odd degree heat on the beach. That, my friends, is called winning.

Good luck, you know what to do by now.

Matchday 4: A Million Apologies

I'm so so so sorry guys. 42 weeks in and I've majorly dropped the ball. Can't even blame lack of wifi access on this one - it just slipped my mind to do the blog.

Therefore, unless we get more than 10 real players (ie not me and not a website) this week, it won't count towards the league table (when it arrives), out of fairness as I'm sure many people won't have time to do this before the first kick off. Sorry once again.

My predictions are as follows:

Norwich vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Arsenal vs Southampton - ARSENAL
Aston Villa vs Swansea - SWANSEA
Fulham vs WBA - FULHAM
Man Utd vs Wigan - MAN UTD
QPR vs Chelsea - DRAW
Stoke vs Man City - MAN CITY
Sunderland vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
Reading vs Spurs - SPURS
Everton vs Newcastle - EVERTON

Total odds with PaddyPower: 1482/1

Apologies once again - if Club Impossibilitee could work the magic extra hard this week and make sure everyone sees this late blog, you guys might be able to cover my slip up.

Good luck

Matchday 3: I feel so out of touch

Last Sunday marked my first 90 mins of the season. The 20th match played by my calculations. In a sports mad country that shows 7-8 PL games a week, this is a very poor show. Unfortunately, its not going to change for the next few weeks, and this has left me feeling like I am very out of touch with what's going on!

Apologies if it seems like I'm phoning it in at the minute....WiFi is hard to come by but I promise that there will be a results post (for all weeks) in the next 2 weeks. For now, its just the predictions.

West Ham vs Fulham - Fulham
Swansea vs Sunderland - Draw
Spurs vs Norwich - Spurs
WBA vs Everton - Everton
Wigan vs Stoke - Wigan
Man City vs QPR - Man City
Liverpool vs Arsenal - Draw
Newcastle vs Aston Villa - Newcastle
Southampton vs Man Utd - Southampton (6-3 anyone?)

No odds this week as Paddypower website wouldn't load before my internet timed out!

Sorry this is a bit rubbish atm guys, bear with me for just a few weeks more. When I'm back in Blighty, I'll make it up.

Good luck

Matchday 2: Hopefully this week I'll catch some football

The trouble with having 12GB of internet for a month between 15 people is that it doesn't leave streaming football matches as a realistic option. Consequently, the only football I've seen so far this season was the last 10 minutes of Chelsea vs Reading on Wednesday. Therefore, I can't comment on anything that's happened other than Torres being offside and the whole goalie going up for the corner thing - it works so rarely....what exactly is the point? Jimmy Glass moments are few and far between.

Anyway, I also haven't done any stats from last week because 1) it's tedious through this internet connection and I need to copy and paste it all, 2) I've been busy with trying to find somewhere to live next month last minute in my free time and 3) the numbers have swollen to the extent that I don't know who everyone who played is! That's brilliant, but if possible, could you identify your predictions from last week and use a unique handle in future weeks - either first name & surname or your twitter names - that makes my life so much easier!

Anyway - onto this weeks predictions:

Swansea vs West Ham - DRAW
Aston Villa vs Everton - EVERTON
Man Utd vs Fulham - DRAW
Norwich vs QPR - NORWICH
Southampton vs Wigan - SOUTHAMPTON
Sunderland vs Reading - DRAW
Spurs vs WBA - SPURS
Chelsea vs Newcastle - CHELSEA
Stoke vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Liverpool vs Man City - MAN CITY

Total odds: 8177/1 with PaddyPower.

Sorry for it being short and sweet, but its 2am and I've just got off a 10 hour shift. I'll try to do a stats post before the 3rd set of predictions.

Good luck!

Back for the new season

Welcome back old friends, and hopefully welcome for the first time to some new players too!

After a summer break to take in the Euros and the Olympics (and from my perspective, to try a pass a bloody difficult set of exams), it's time to get those virtual accumulator forms dusted off and try to show that after a year's practice, this is the year where we, collectively, hit the bookies where it hurts. Failing  that, let's just have some fun!

Quick recap of the rules of the game for those with poor memories/never played before. Before each round of PL games, I'll post a blog up here with the matches and my predictions - either which team I think will win or a draw if that's how I see it going. I'll then put the odds I got for an accumulator bet from a bookie. You do the same in the comments section (without the odds if you're not a gambler) and then I'll do my stats wizardry after the round is completed. 1 point for calling a match correctly, and the weekly scores are accumulated into a league table so you can see how you do against everyone else. I'll also be incorporating the predictions from Mark Lawrenson on the BBC Sport website, and a couple of statistical predictors to see if they're better than our intuitive approach.

Words can be confusing, so to explain above, I'll do my predictions for this opening set of fixtures.

Arsenal vs Sunderland - ARSENAL
Fulham vs Norwich - DRAW
QPR vs Swansea - QPR
Reading vs Stoke - READING
WBA vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
West Ham vs Aston Villa - DRAW
Newcastle vs Tottenham - DRAW
Wigan vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Man City vs Southampton - MAN CITY
Everton vs Man Utd - DRAW

Total odds with PaddyPower: 3309/1

So copy and paste that into the comments section and change the results for what you think will happen.

I'm abroad until the end of September, and have patchy internet access at best so I'm not going to be able to remind/harass you guys like I did last year so if we could foster a "Club Impossibilitee" mentality and remind one another that'd be awesome! Those of you who have each other on Facebook/Twitter, please give everyone a nudge and if you have any friends who'd be interested, then please invite them along. I also can't guarantee that I'll do a stats post every week, but I promise that the predictions will be up, at least 2 days before the matches take place. If you add your twitter names to your predictions this week, then it makes it easier for others to find you and remind you. You'll also get new followers.....and most of you are worth following!

The new season starts here - I'm excited and hoping to pick up where we all left off last year. Good luck guys!

Matchday 38 Results: How about that then?

I grew up watching the 1988/1989 Season Review VHS, resplendent with horrific graphics and a distressingly short pair of shorts on Paul Merson. It meant I was familiar with Mickey Thomas's last minute goal even before I really understood exactly what it meant.

This Sunday, I had a wedding that I had belatedly been invited to. The ceremony started at 3.30. You have to be kidding me I thought. The missus wanted me to drive into town and so I told her that the deal was that no talking whilst the football was on the radio. Apparently missing the ceremony and arriving later after the final whistle was not an option. This is how my afternoon went:

Spurs scored approaching Baker Street. No worries....I was concerned with only one result. A minute later, I got the news I was waiting for. Yossi (accordingy to Radio 5, Gervinho. Idiots) had put us ahead at WBA. Then another goal from the Hawthorns made me punch the steering wheel. Stuck in traffic, moving about 40 metres in 10 minutes and the football going all wrong.

Needless to say, my reaction to going 2-1 down was even less dignified. We then parked up and went in to wait. I would say there were maybe 80 women waiting, and around 15 men, most of whom were over 70. So I settled down, had a look at Twitter - Santos. Boo Ya. Rooney & Zabaleta. Boring...City gonna walk this one. Newcastle collapse - care...it's all about our win. My stomach had woken up in knots, and by this point was doing it's best Red Arrows impression. Half-time - right, I thought, let's get this wedding sorted, you have 15 mins. GOOOOOOOO.

That was wishful thinking. It took over 45 minutes in the end. I (along with 70% of the male guests, who had arrived literally at the last minute) flitted between the ceremony and my phone, subtly located inside my jacket. Koscielny. GTFI. Keep it tight boys.

Ah, balls. I've been clocked and getting the death stare from the missus. Phone into pocket. Come on. come on....yes yes happily ever after. COME ON. Ceremony finishes, and as we head to the reception, I checked the scores. Spurs 2-0. Forget that then. Man Utd still 1-0. City are losing? Lol...but never mind that. We're still 3-2 up. 10 to go. My heart's joined the protest now. I went into the reception and found a corner, all alone.

Gunnerblog tweets "WBA put the ball in the net....offside". My howl of anguish dies in my throat. Full times come in. Bolton are down. Boo Hoo. Spurs win. Newcastle lose. Gibbs makes a block. Twitter goes mad. Must be some block. This is killing me. 5 minutes of injury time. I'm going to explode. Seriously, who puts a wedding during the final matches of the season. 3 to go. City score. Even so, can't believe they bottled it at the last. 2 to go. Free kick to Arsenal in the Arsenal half. Now is the time Szcz, for a yellow for time-wasting. COME ON....I can't refresh fast enough.

FT: WBA 2-3 Arsenal. Ah thank the lord, the tension literally melts away. The breathing gets deeper. My heart slows. We didn't screw it up. Refresh to see the comments.

Shut up. Shut up. No bloody way. Aguero? 2 goals in 4 minutes? City ripping the red ribbons off the trophy, tearing Fergie's hand away like the playground bully....can't touch this. Bloody hell. Amazing. I don't care - we've got 3rd place!!!!

Time for alcohol.

As the comedown continued, it sunk in. City's win wasn't a surprise, but what a manner to do it in. It's been talked to death, but I suppose if you have to wait 44 years for a title, why not do it in a fashion memorable outside your own fans. Cruel on Man Utd, but they've been there before. Spurs fans apoplectic with their season's conclusion. Understandable. A lesson on when to give it out duly delivered by the fat lady. Liverpool, er yeah. 14 losses. More than 1 in 3. Big decision there on Dalglish's future. I'd get rid, but I didn't grow up idolising him. Emery is available after leaving Valencia and I'd go with him.

Chelsea have the chance to ruin Spurs' dreams but I'll be supporting Bayern all the way. If only Fat Frank had told Terry to do one when he asked about lifting the trophy. Norwich did well all season, Wolves shuffled away (great left field appointment by them with Solbakken). Joey Barton is a disgrace and I don't understand why the police rarely get involved in stuff like this.

Enough talking, time for results. It was a record-breaking week this week, fittingly, in many way.

This week, 24 people played (RECORD)

Most popular predicted result: Chelsea WIN (24/24 or 100% concordance)

Most disputed result: Everton vs Newcastle and Swansea vs Liverpool (7-11-6 and 7-6-11split respectively)

Longest odds: Josh Daniels (6166/1)

Shortest odds: Sam Ruback (347/1)

Average odds: 2448/1

Best predictor: JT (9/10) (Levelled RECORD...well done mate!)

Worst predictors: Will O'Doherty, Dan Davis, Naphtali Torrance & Ben Grabiner (5/10 - not bad for the worst performers)

Average Score: A season high 7/10 (6.71/10)

Best predicted result: Chelsea WIN (24/24)

Worst predicted result: Stoke vs Bolton (6/24)

Villain of the week: The only result JT got wrong was the Stoke vs Bolton draw. He went for a Bolton win, and therefore terrible refereeing from Chris Foy (again!) to allow Walters' first goal cost him (and our...shared achievement) a 10, and a win at 1311/1. Is now a good time to mention that I claim 10% of all winnings? Desperately unlucky.

Everyone's results:

As this graph shows, it was a really good week, with everyone outperforming there average. It was great to have so many people play - 34 players in total this season, and if we exclude Sir Bobby Charlton who's unlikely to play every week in future, that's 70% turnout. I'd love to have you all back next season along with any friends you have who may be interested.

To the final leaderboard:

As always, only those who played >2/3 of weeks were eligible, so 26 weeks were needed. Ryan Wain just slipped in, but remained rooted to the bottom. Joe Miller is the inaugral champion, with a score of 5.30, the only regular to get >50% right on average. He's been at the top more or less all season and is a worthy winner. I'm still looking for a not extortionately priced trophy for you. Nick stays in 2nd place, whilst JT and myself share 3rd (I'm higher as I played more weeks). Doron Salomon's 1st week in the table sees him jump into 5th spot, followed by Dan Davis and Yanik Joshi. All of whom beat Lawro over the course of a season.  Joel Salomon and Feneley stagnated somewhat second half, Will O'Doherty will be disappointed to have slipped so far down that Sam Ruback overtook him on games played. My baby brother ensures that family bragging rights stay in their rightful place for another year.

I've also compiled a second table giving everyone's scores who didn't play enough to qualify above. It's ordered by Games Played, and then Score.

Ben Grabiner did pretty well over 16 weeks, as did Jonathan Chernick over 12. WhoScored.com and the EuroClubIndex also looked good - much better than Lawro! (although rounding up/down, they both are only right ~50% of the time). Marc Joss had a great last 3 weeks...let's see if he can reproduce that over a full season and Tharshan Thavagnanam showed his maths brain off...but only over 4 games 'cos he's also a lazy sod.

Thanks to everyone who played at all this year, obviously, this would have been a total flop without your participation and I hope to see you all again, every week next season!

Finally, I'd just like to ask for a little feedback if you have the time, looking to next season already on how to improve this game.

• What was good? What was bad?
• How could this be easier?
• Would you like email notifications? Twitter? Facebook? Too much harassment? Too little?
• If you didn't play that much, why? Was there anything missing for you?
• Would you be prepared to contribute if I looked to build this more? Either skills (ie web stuff) or say £1-2 towards upkeep of a proper purpose-built site?
• Too much waffle from me? 
• What stats would you like to see that weren't provided?
• Cup competitions?

Obviously I don't expect huge reports, just any help you can give me to make this even better would be really appreciated.

Thanks once again guys, I really appreciated all your support throughout. Until next time.