FA Cup 4.4: Shocks again?

This was the round last year where Chelsea lost to Bradford (ha) and Man City lost to Middlesbrough - and I think 1 other big result too...

Going forward, this certainly thinned the herd which ultimately proved beneficial to Alexis Sanchez in May. I think we'd all agree that Alexis is wonderful, and deserves to win lots of medals because he's so wonderful.

Therefore, we should sort some kind of petition or something so everyone else just downs tools for the rest of the year. Or something...

Anyway, R3:

13 people played - Prize pot of £75
Most popular predicted results: Derby & Arsenal WINS (13/13)
Most disputed results: Watford vs Newcastle (7-6) and Wycombe vs Aston Villa (!) (6-7)

Best predictors: Steven Daniels & Yo Abbott (22/32)
Worst predictor: Joe Miller (15/32 - seriously mate....)
Average score: 20

Everyone's scores:

To Round 4:

Derby vs Manchester United - MAN UTD
Colchester vs Spurs - SPURS
Arsenal vs Burnley - ARSENAL
Aston Villa vs Man City  - MAN CITY
Bolton vs Leeds - LEEDS
Bury vs Hull - HULL
Crystal Palace vs Stoke - STOKE
Notts Forest vs Watford - WATFORD
Oxford Utd vs Blackburn - BLACKBURN
Portsmouth vs Bournemouth - BOURNEMOUTH
Reading vs Walsall - WALSALL
Shrewsbury vs Sheffield Wednesday - SHREWSBURY
WBA vs Peterborough - WBA
Liverpool vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Carlisle vs Everton - EVERTON
MK Dons vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Good luck guys!

S5M23: All the 3s

So, a lot of football played since my last blog and much has been discussed so I'll keep it brief:

• 3-3 draws galore. 3 in 20 games. That's unusual no? All of which with last minute equalisers
• Defoe scores a hat-trick - his signing was poo-poo'd a bit last year, but if he scores 10 goals a season worth 10-15 points....that's invaluable at that end of the table
• The Villa revival starts - 4 points from 6
• Swansea have gone all Liverpool in the late 1990s with a joint managerial team. It'll only end in tears...
• Leicester still haven't run out of puff
• Rooney's on one of his spurts. Urgh
• Dmitri Payet's free kick. 
• The potato-butter pie thing at Anfield is unbelievable. Definitely ruinous for your heart but my word...I had it "5 times" (Not really. That's a joke...'cos Liverpool do the whole 5 times thing. Ya know...)

Anyway - food for thought on the above...

Let's get statty:

Matchday 21

This week, 27 people played (my bad - forgot ECI before it went offline, and FT doesn't do midweek predos...will update the database if anyone can provide either of these)

Most popular predicted result: Stoke WIN (24/27)

Most disputed result: Southampton vs Watford (6-7-14 split)

Highest odds: My mother, 41,647/1 - I'm going to stop including her in this calculation from now on...

Highest odds not-from my mother: My brother. 15256/1. Still more than double the 3rd highest. Face palm

Lowest odds: My father, 2856/1

Average odds: 14,150/1

#impossibilifamilee

Best predictors: Dinkin & the Feneleys (5/10) - #impossibilifenelee

Worst predictor: Eli Daniels, Steven Daniels, Hesham Zakai & Nicholas Jones (1/10)

Average score: 2.93/10

Best predicted result: Stoke WIN (24/27)

Worst predicted result: Sunderland & Leicester WINS (2/27) 

Swing: McLean's equaliser for WBA at Chelsea - 24 disappointed (although secretly elated)

Matchday 22

This week, 28 people played

Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (27/28)

Most disputed result: Newcastle vs West Ham (5-8-14 split)

Highest odds not-from my mother: AFM (how nice to have you back...) 18384/1. A third of the highest odds form youknowwho

Lowest odds: Feneley, 1045/1

Average odds: 15,457/1

Best predictors: Menachem Grunewald & Me (6/10)

Worst predictor: Zoe Daniels (0/10) - however, she missed the Saturday games, and only played 3 on the Sunday. So a point for sportsmanship, which is not redeemable but everyone claps it

Worst predictors to play the whole round: Steven Daniels & Will O'Doherty (2/10)

Average score: 3.89/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (27/28)

Worst predicted result: Man Utd WIN (1/28) - Congrats Doron. Still amazes me how few people think Man Utd will win games these days. It's Man Utd for heaven's sake... 

Swing: The Rooney winner - 12 players denied

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3; 15/22)

To this week's predos:

Norwich vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Crystal Place vs Spurs - SPURS

Leicester vs Stoke - DRAW

Man Utd vs Southampton - MAN UTD

Sunderland vs Bournemouth - BOURNEMOUTH

Watford vs Newcastle - NEWCASTLE

West Brom vs Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA

West Ham vs Man City - MAN CITY

Everton vs Swansea - EVERTON

Arsenal vs Chelsea - ARSENAL

Good luck guys!

M21 + 22: you guessed it

As the fixtures come with little let up over the winter, my ability to find time to do all the stats stuff and churn 2 blogs a week is markedly inhibited by pesky things such as life.

My apologies therefore, for what I believe is the 3rd consecutive placeholder blog for a PL weekend. To be updated with results this evening, all else being equal.

So...the blog. Had I forgotten some of this stuff!

Carroll's revenge - 2 cracking headers for West Ham's 1st double over Liverpool since the 1950s I think. Sunderland "thrashing" a self-destructive Villa, who scored a great acrobatic goal through Gil. Arsenal ground out a win against a Newcastle side led by the profligate Wijnaldum. Leicester and Bournemouth cancelled each other out, whilst Swansea were unable to build on their 3-peat against Man United where Rooney scored his first goal in forever - Martial the true spark there.

Wanyama & Mane grabbed the headlines for their ill-discipline, which Norwich took full advantage of through yet another fantastic goal - this one the moment where football ate itself - Tettey describing his winner as "doing a Yaya" in the post-match interview...this being 1) a goal from 12 days earlier and 2) A TOTALLY DIFFERENT STRIKE.

Pulis continued his undefeated run against his former employers with a late winner from the prolific Jonny Evans, and Man City also scored 2 late goals (also both brilliant...what happened this New Years!) to defeat Watford. That Aguero hang time...woof

Chelsea shrugged off the Mourinho fug with their best performance of the season. Narrative klaxon, as the good folks at the Guardian Football Weekly podcast would say. Willian with the best goal of that game, whilst finally, Everton and Spurs battled to an entertaining draw with a pair of....you guessed it...great goals.

So, let's get statty:

This week, 26 people played
Most popular predicted result: Arsenal WIN (26/26)
Most disputed prediction: Crystal Palace vs Chelsea (8-11-7 split)

Highest odds: Zoe Daniels 41,697/1
Lowest odds: Feneley 2,399/1
Average odds: 13,108/1

Best predictors: Lawro, EuroClubIndex, FinkTank & Tarek Najm (6/1)
Worst predictors: Stan Collymore, WhoScored.com & Aron Kleiman (2/10)
Average score: 4.08/10

Interested how split the pundits/models were!

Best predicted result: Arsenal WIN (26/26)
Worst predicted results: West Ham & WBA WINS (1/26 - congrats Josh Daniels & Tarek Najm)

Swings: Oscar & Tettey's openers/winners - 11 left disappointed

Everyone's results:

The leaderboard (>2/3; 14/20)

To the predos:

M21

Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace - ASTON VILLA
Bournemouth vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Newcastle vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Chelsea vs WBA - CHELSEA
Man City vs Everton - MAN CITY
Southampton vs Watford - WATFORD
Stoke vs Norwich - STOKE
Swansea vs Sunderland - DRAW
Liverpool vs Arsenal - DRAW
Spurs vs Leicester - DRAW

M22

Spurs vs Sunderland - SPURS
Bournemouth vs Norwich - BOURNEMOUTH
Chelsea vs Everton - DRAW
Man City vs Crystal Palace - MAN CITY
Newcastle vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Southampton vs WBA - SOUTHAMPTON
Aston Villa vs Leicester - DRAW
Liverpool vs Man Utd - LIVERPOOL
Stoke vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Swansea vs Watford - WATFORD

Good luck guys

FA Cup 4.3

So the return of the Impossibilitee FA Cup game conveniently coincides with the FA Cup 3rd round games. Bizarre I know.

For those who've never entered before, this is how it works - it's subtly different to the regular game.

1) Copy/Paste the games below and select the team you think will progress from the tie (ie...no draws). Ideally as a blog comment - I also accept entries by any medium providing they are with me before kick off (so if you miss game 1, you can still get later games etc). Please put your name with it so I can keep track.

2) Pay the £5 entry fee - this is a paid game with cash prizes for the top 3 players. Total prize money is divided between those three so the more who play, the more money in the prize pot and therefore the bigger the prizes.

Please note this is exclusively a paid game - so if you play, I'll expect you to pay. Every year, I end up chasing a few people and it's a bit of a drag, so get your entry fee to me nice and quickly - either in person, via bank transfer or potentially via paypal (will need to check that's still active before you send any money across)

3) 1 point per correct tie prediction. No round weighting this year.

That's about it really. Last year, the winner made about £40 I think, so not a bad return of investment for 4 months work....

The ties:

Arsenal v Sunderland - ARSENAL
Birmingham v Bournemouth - BOURNEMOUTH
Brentford v Walsall - BRENTFORD
Bury v Bradford City - BRADFORD
Cardiff City v Shrewsbury - CARDIFF
Carlisle v Yeovil - CARLISLE
Chelsea v Scunthorpe - CHELSEA
Colchester v Charlton - CHARLTON
Doncaster v Stoke City - STOKE
Eastleigh v Bolton - BOLTON
Everton v Dagenham & Redbridge - EVERTON
Exeter City v Liverpool - LIVERPOOL
Huddersfield v Reading - HUDDERSFIELD
Hull City v Brighton - BRIGHTON
Ipswich v Portsmouth - IPSWICH
Leeds United v Rotherham - LEEDS
Manchester United v Sheffield United - MAN UTD
Middlesbrough v Burnley - MIDDLESBOROUGH
Newport County v Blackburn - BLACKBURN
Northampton v MK Dons - MK DONS
Norwich v Manchester City - MAN CITY
Nottingham Forest v QPR - NOTTS FOREST
Oxford United v Swansea - SWANSEA
Peterborough v Preston NE - PNE
Hartlepool v Derby - DERBY
Sheffield Wednesday v Fulham - SHEF WED
Southampton v Crystal Palace - CRYSTAL PALACE
Tottenham v Leicester - SPURS
Watford v Newcastle - WATFORD
West Bromwich v Bristol City - BRISTOL
West Ham v Wolves - WEST HAM
Wycombe v Aston Villa - ASTON VILLA

Good luck guys! Here's to another good year!