Matchday 23: Official club blanket sales rocket

I'm writing this from the South coast, and watching the weather forecast man move a white spot along his map towards me, and contemplating what is the last possible time to make my escape back to civilisation and hopefully not have a horrendous journey from the disruption.

Not that that's football related in anyway, just letting you all know that my usual first world problems may be, in fact, second world problems for a few hours. Just £2 a month etc etc

On that note, I've received a suggestion from the group (ok, my dad) for an FA Cup extension to the usual game. There are 16 4th round ties, 8 5th round ties, 4 6th round ties, 2 semi-finals and a final - or 31 games left. The suggestion is that, as each round comes,  we do predictions as per usual, but they are added up cumulatively, so rather than being scored out of 10, it'll be out of 31 (with some sort of weighting to even up the discrepancy between no. of games per round, and to ensure competition isn't ruined by a terrible 4th round score. Full mechanics to be sorted out & posted before 4th round matches).

The catch? Well, to make it a little more interesting, let's actually put a tiny bit of money on it. £1 or 2 each? 70% of the "pot" to the winner, 20% to second place and 10% to third place? Tied places to share out the prize money from that level. So, with your predictions this week, please indicate if you'd be happy to play, and how much you'd be happy to pay. As it's totally separate from the normal stuff, feel free to invite people to join in (of course they're welcome to play normally, but won't get on leaderboard until next season now) - the bigger the pot, the bigger the winnings.

Was gonna discuss Kompany, but I've spoken a lot already. Summary: Ref call justifiable but wrong, FA totally wrong.

Let's get statty:

This week, 16 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Everton WIN (16/16)
Most disputed result: Reading vs WBA (4-6-6 split)

Longest odds: Chernick, 29,699/1
Shortest odds: Steven Daniels, 5093/1
Average odds: 11,651/1

Best predictor: Lawro (7/10)
Worst predictor: Richard Verber (1/10)
Average score: 3/10

Best predicted result: Man Utd WIN (15/16)
Worst predicted result: Everton vs Swanea DRAW (0/16)

Villain of the week: Obviously, this category remains unfilled.

Everyone's results:

To the leaderboard, and only those who have played 15/22 matches qualify.

The big winner this week is Feneley through his failure to play, and everyone's general poverty of results. Lawro retakes top spot, and Josh Gaon's 6 drives him forward into 5th. It's noticeable that the bunching in midtable seems less pronounced than previously. Hope for us all?

To this week's predictions:

Liverpool vs Norwich - LIVERPOOL

Man City vs Fulham - MAN CITY

Newcastle vs Reading - NEWCASTLE

Swansea vs Stoke - DRAW

West Ham vs QPR - QPR

Wigan vs Sunderland - SUNDERLAND

WBA vs Aston Villa - WBA

Chelsea vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Spurs vs Man Utd - MAN UTD

Southampton vs Everton - DRAW

Total odds: 7183/1 (Paddypower)

Best of luck guys, remember predictions & whether you're interested in the FA extension and how much you'd be happy to pay! 

Until next week.