Goodlord, I lurve the PL. It is the purest form of the football. I'm not having this nonsense about the lower leagues, the romance of Hackney Marshes or - pulls face - the World Cup being the one every player wants to win. It. Just. Ain't. True. Give me some of that sweet sweet Barclays (yes I know) any day. (I will also accept a big UCL night as special, but there's also a load of shrug there, especially early on. Or an FA Cup final. But that's it.). I got the chance the other week to get my photo with the trophy, bedecked in the most beautiful ribbon colourway the good folks at PLHQ have to offer, and let me tell you, this was no less special than the last time I got involved with a piece of that action when my hair was more red striped than grey streaked. At the risk of going full Sky Sports montage, it really is lovely to be back, watching some proper, meaningful football.
We started on Friday night at the home of the Champions. A sea of golden lions. Rampant. 3-0 win to calmly start that title defence. From lions to Tigers - newly promoted Hull "mauled" Man Utd 2-0. That very odd collective twitching thing they do from the stands now needs to stop or it'll have to be a 100 point deduction. Cannot be having that. It was a bit of a home win bonanza in fact this weekend - only Leeds getting their first win at Forest for generations (before a second in a week, like Nottingham trams), Chelsea winning at Fulham and the late, soft penalty at St James' Park giving Liverpool a point bucked the trend. Late goals were a bit of a thing - Ipswich scored theirs on 90 mins with a lovely jinxy pokey finish from Clarke against his former employers. He did not respect the traditional faux non-celebration and deserves credit for this. That Enciso lad looks a player too. Everton saw off Palace 2-0, which wasn't entirely reflective of the scoreline. Mateta wants out by legal action or by missing so many chances they tear up his contract. The late kick off saw Brentford thumping Spurs 3-0, with a missed penalty to boot. Spurs won't finish 17th this season but my word, can you spend £500m and not really transform a team? Brighton went one better and demolished Villa. 4-0 after 31 minutes, 10 men at 40 minutes and then Huerzler called off the dogs. My biggest question from this game is why a man with a great head of hair last season seemingly spent the last month in Turkey... Finally, and this really should have gone into the late goal section, but I forgot and i'm not editing this further, Man City turned it round late to beat Bournemouth. My latest prediction: Marko Rose gives me Tuchel vibes and will be touchline fighting in no time.
Public Service Announcement: You will notice some changes to the form. This is because I've been tinkering with the automation in the back end and so should make it easier and faster to do the stats bit of the blog, leaving me more time to write these epic missives. Shouldn't really impact on you, but as always, please only put the NUMERATOR of your odds *IF* you use them (ie 100/1 - just write 100). Don't need your name, don't need full odds etc. Well I do need your name, but in the field marked NAME. You get the idea. (and in fact, if you want to write your initial code if you know it, that's also fine). Many thanks. This basically creates a lovely automated dashboard for me to pull the stats from but you don't need to know all that...
Let's get statty:
This week, 25 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (25/25)
Most disputed predicted result: Brentford vs Spurs (7-10-8 split)
Highest odds: Josh Daniels (1,974/1)
Lowest odds: Dan Herman on debut (200/1)
Average odds: 1,407/1
Best predictors: Loads of you (6/10)
Worst predictor: WhoScored.Com (3/10)
Average score: 4.8/10
Best predicted result: Man City WIN (25/25)
Worst predicted result: Hull WIN (1/25 - Well done Zoe Daniels)
Everyone's score:
As is traditional, no leaderboards until after Matchday 3...
To this week's predos:
Good luck all
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