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....