Matchday 37 Results & Matchday 38: A special guest & last chance for glory...

All in all, a decent set of scores last week. I really should stop trying to extrapolate from people's predictions. That said, in hindsight, it wasn't that surprising what happened:

Man Utd & Man City both have unwavering focus now. They were always going to win.
Arsenal & Spurs have both decided to flip the contest into a race for 4th place and as such, are refusing to win.
Newcastle were unlucky to be playing City, Chelsea have put all their eggs into one German basket.
Down the bottom, Blackburn are awful, Wigan seem to be less so when they want to play.
Djibril Cisse scores or gets sent off. This weekend, I predict  he'll do neither however.
Bolton were unbelievably complacent in a battle, and that's why I think they'll go down, but the worst result for me was Everton's failure to beat Wolves and thereby wrap up Merseyside bragging rights.
'
To the numbers

This week, 15 people played

Most popular predicted result: Man Utd WIN (14/15 or 93% concordance)

Most disputed result: Liverpool vs Chelsea (5-3-8 split)

Longest odds: Doron Salomon 2313/1

Shortest odds: Joe Miller 339/1

Average odds: 1094/1

Best predictor: WhoScored.com (7/10)

Worst predictor: Yanik Joshi (2/10)...someone's cracking up...

Average Score: 5/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (14/15)

Worst predicted result: Everton vs Wolves DRAW (0/15)

Villain of the week: No villain, however it was rather amusing to see John Terry dismantled in the first half at Anfield. Not amusing in terms of my predictions however.

Everyone's scores:

Solid scores all round, and an average score based on mode rather than range. Yanik's slide recently has been poor, and JT's return was heralded by whoopie cushions rather than trumpets. Joe played it safe with very low odds and was rewarded with a 6 that pretty much wraps things up.

The leaderboard:

Dan Davis - who I should point out made these predictions weeks in advance and to my knowledge hasn't been watching any football wherever in the world he now is, has jumped up the table, whilst Yanik falls back to 6th place. A couple of no-shows from Joel & Feneley mean that the bottom half is more or less as-you-were.

For the last time this season, to this week's predictions:

For what it's worth, I don't think there'll be too many surprises. I back City to win the league, Arsenal to get 3rd and Bolton to go do.wn. But I'm right less than half of the time, so we'll see.

Chelsea vs Blackburn - CHELSEA

Everton vs Newcastle - DRAW

Man City vs QPR - MAN CITY

Norwich vs Aston Villa - NORWICH

Stoke vs Bolton - DRAW

Sunderland vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Swansea vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Spurs vs Fulham - DRAW

WBA vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Wigan vs Wolves - WIGAN

Total odds: 1424/1 with PaddyPower.

As you all know, I've been pilfering Lawro's predictions from the BBC site all year, and for part of the season, from the more mathmatical Euro Club Index & WhoScored.com. I thought it'd be a bit for fun to see how statistics and experience stacked up against us, the common garden fan. I'll reveal all (calm down) next week about that, however, for the final weekend of the season, I've got a special treat for y'all.

This week, I was fortunate enough to meet a genuine legend of the footballing world. I don't mean Pat Rice, nor Titus Bramble. His CV goes on and on - let's see if you can guess who...

Named in FIFA's greatest ever players list, Winner of the Ballon D'Or, World Cup, World Cup Golden Ball, BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award.

3 league titles, 1 FA Cup, 1 European Cup. 106 Caps, and a (still) national record 49 international goals.

Got it yet?

Survivor of the Munich Air Disaster (which to me puts all the rest into the shade) and notorious proponent of the combover...

Sir Bobby Charlton - and can I just say what a lovely guy he is. In my experience, players from the 60s/70s are always more down to earth than their modern day counterparts. We had a little chat about the blog, and I asked if he'd be willing to give me his predictions, which he did happily. 

He went:

Chelsea vs Blackburn - CHELSEA

Everton vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

Man City vs QPR - MAN CITY

Norwich vs Aston Villa - NORWICH

Stoke vs Bolton - BOLTON

Sunderland vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Swansea vs Liverpool - DRAW

Spurs vs Fulham - SPURS

WBA vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Wigan vs Wolves - WIGAN

Thus conceding the title to Man City (his wife seemed more upset about this than he was), and relegating QPR. 

So whilst we can all conclude that Lawro knows jack all about football, it'd be great to see how we match up against Sir Bobby.

That's yer lot for this week - don't say I don't treat you....

Good luck, predos in the comments as per usual