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...