S6M30: Normal service will be delayed

Like after a tube strike, things are slow to return to normal after an international break.

Unfortunately, circumstance have meant a full post this week won't be possible, which is fortunate because I was only going to rehash the same old nonsense about the video assistance in the France vs Spain game.

So it's predos only I'm afraid.

Matchday 30

Liverpool vs Everton - LIVERPOOL
Burnley vs Spurs - SPURS
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace - CHELSEA
Hull vs West Ham - HULL
Leicester vs Stoke - LEICESTER
Man Utd vs WBA - MAN UTD
Watford vs Sunderland - WATFORD
Southampton vs Bournemouth - SOUTHAMPTON
Swansea vs Middlesborough - SWANSEA
Arsenal vs Man City - DRAW

Matchday 31

Burnley vs Stoke
Leicester vs Sunderland
Watford vs WBA
Man Utd vs Everton
Arsenal vs West Ham
Hull vs Middlesborough
Southampton vs Crystal Palace
Swansea vs Spurs
Chelsea vs Man City
Liverpool vs Bournemouth

S6M29: Democracy in action

Subjects of Impossibililand.

Today I read a very interesting piece in the Graundiad about the Queen dying. Worth a read, but long story short is that people put loads of time and thought into this sort of stuff. The planning, the rehearsals, the secret code words, the flipping prepared radio playlists. We put more effort into this sort of stuff than the whole living bit. Ya know, healthcare, education, transport, that sort of stuff.

Still, who am I to complain? Rare is the day when I get a nicely planned blog post out - stats done in advance, coherent post. So actually, this week I'm pretty proud of myself. And I have you all to thank, dear readers, because when offered a choice, you changed the habit of a planet in the last few years, and chose right. Like the Dutch. But not Right. Ya get me?

It would have been pretty silly to have included last week, so the unanimous choice to exclude it was well received. It also means no stats this week, which is fortunate because it means I am now all caught up and can spend stats time revising for my exam instead. Which is less fun, but definitely more useful.

No need to get statty therefore this week,

To the predos:

WBA vs Arsenal - ARSENAL
Crystal Palace vs Watford - CRYSTAL PALACE
Everton vs Hull - EVERTON
Stoke vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Sunderland vs Burnley - SUNDERLAND
West Ham vs Leicester - DRAW
Bournemouth vs Swansea - SWANSEA
Middlesborough vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Spurs vs Southampton - SPURS
Man City vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Good luck guys

S6M28 & FA CUP R6: Pro Rata's revenge

So I was going to do a little recap of the week & the FA Cup 5th round, but frankly, this week has seen enough ridiculous football to make raking over the (recent) past somewhat redundant. The Champions League has thrown up enough talking points to keep radio alive until the Sun implodes on itself. Either Sun, although 1 would be more beneficial to humanity than the other...

There's also a fair amount of statty stuff to get through too, so let's just end on the Chelsea juggernaut rolling forward, and the Ranieri sacking finding itself in the same bracket as Adkins at Southampton. Retroscope has 20:20 vision and all that...

Let's get statty:

Matchday 27:
25 people played
Most popular predicted results: Chelsea & Man City WINS (25/25)
Most disputed result: Watford vs Southampton (6-8-11 split)

Highest odds: My mother 7509/1
Lowest odds: Feneley 1122/1
Average odds: 2631/1

Best predictor: Fink Tank (8/10)
Worst predictors: Eli Daniels & David Silverman (4/10)
Average score: 5.68/10

Best predicted result: Chelsea & Man City WINS (25/25)
Worst predicted result: Man Utd vs Bournemouth DRAW (0/25) - was that only last week? Seems like forever that we were getting excited about the Mings/Ibrahimovic stuff...

Everyone's scores:

The leaderboard (>2/3; 19/27)

To the FA Cup (& the Roly Poly Goalie....)

10/11 played

Most popular predicted results: Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City & Arsenal WINS (10/10)

Most disputed result: Millwall vs Leicester (6-4 split)

Best predicted results: Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City & Arsenal WINS (10/10)

Worst predicted result: Lincoln WIN (1/10 - congrats Dan Wigman - giant killer extraordinaire)

Best predictors: 5 of us (7/8)

Worst predictor: Steven Daniels (4/8) - of those who played

Everyone's scores (and totals):

Right, to this week's predictions and it's all a little complex:

The simpler bit first...

FA Cup R6 (QF) predos:

Middlesborough vs Man City - MAN CITY

Arsenal vs Lincoln - ARSENAL

Spurs vs Millwall - SPURS

Chelsea vs Man Utd - CHELSEA

The more complex bit...

Matchday 28:

Hull vs Swansea - SWANSEA

Everton vs WBA - EVERTON

Bournemouth vs West Ham - BOURNEMOUTH

Liverpool vs Burnley - LIVERPOOL

Now...as mentioned at the start of the season, we're going to pro-rata this weekend, as we did 2 weeks ago. The issue is that there was a much fuller programme that weekend that this. So this might be a little ridiculous.

So...I'm willing to put this week to a public vote. If >2/3 of people indicate that this week should be discounted, then we'll do so. We can maybe think about instigating a threshold of >50% of games to be played or something.

Predictions/comments etc below the line....

Good luck guys

S6M27: Pro Rata debuts

So a truncated programme last week saw the shock of all shocks. Crystal Palace won. Less surprisingly, Chelsea won. and Sunderland lost. Bournemouth continued their difficult second season syndrome with defeat to WBA and surprisingly, Harry Kane beat a woeful Stoke.

The War of the Roses finished all square on Humberside, whilst the inverse of the game of the season was rather dull - early and late goals punctuated by Antonio's red card.

And then to Leicester. Fittingly, in the city where Richard III died (and was dug up, and reinterred), Shakespeare was in charge after Ranieri had allegedly Othellost the dressing room. Quite a few of the players have now come out and denied that they had been involved in a dressing room coup, or a loss of Tempests. Still, they rallied against a distracted Liverpool and managed to Mac-the-betht of a bad situation. As the now unemployed Merchant of Venice (Rome but who actually cares) may have remarked phlegmatically.... All's well that ends well...

That's pseduy enough to be Henry Winter's Tale. In fairness, it started off badly, but then just became a Comedy of Errors. Hamlet to believe that it's As You Like It...

 I'm not even sorry. If anything, I'm Pericles with myself. Blame Andy Zaltzman

Let's get statty:

This week, 21 people played.
Most popular predicted result: Chelsea WIN (21/21)
Most disputed result: Watford vs West Ham (11-2-8 split)

Highest odds: AFM 2697/1
Lowest odds: Feneley 135/1
Average odds: 593/1

Best predictors: Loads (6/8)
Worst predictors: Loads (4/8)
Average score: 4.76/8 (5.75/10)

Best predicted result: Chelsea WIN (21/21)
Worst predicted results: Watford vs West Ham DRAW & Leicester WIN (2/21)

Everyone's scores:

Remember this season, for matchdays without a full programme, the scores are pro-rata'd to give a relative score out of /10 which is used to calculate season averages as to not cause advantages/disadvantages for missing weeks with fewer points on offer.

Leaderboard (>2/3; 18/26)

To this week's predos:

Man Utd vs Bournemouth
Leicester vs Hull
Stoke vs Middlesborough
Swansea vs Burnley
Watford vs Southampton
WBA vs Crystal Palace
Liverpool vs Arsenal
Spurs vs Everton
Sunderland vs Man City
West Ham vs Chelsea

Good luck guys!

S6M26: Arrivederci Campione

Long story short - the last couple of days have been a little kray kray & as such, I don't have time to write a full blog. Ranieri's sacking has hit me hard....

So just the predos for now & I'll stick results & graphs up on the weekend.

Updated with M25 results:

26 people played
Most popular predicted result: Man City WIN (26/26)
Most disputed results: Sunderland vs Southampton & Liverpool vs Spurs (8-9-9 & 9-9-8 split respectively)

Highest odds: RDM 5322/1
Lowest odds: AFM 571/1
Average odds: 1647/1

Best predictors: Joe Abbott, Matt Abbott & David Brickman (8/10)
Worst predictors: Aron Kleiman & Will O'Doherty (3/10)
Average score: 5.46/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (26/26)
Worst predicted result: Burnley vs Chelsea DRAW (1/26 - well done Sam Ruback)

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard (>2/3; 17/25)

Predos:

Chelsea vs Swansea - CHELSEA
Crystal Palace vs Middlesborough - DRAW
Everton vs Sunderland - EVERTON
Hull vs Burnley - HULL
WBA vs Bournemouth - WBA
Watford vs West Ham - WEST HAM
Spurs vs Stoke - SPURS
Leicester vs Liverpool - LIVERPOOL

Good luck guys!

FA Cup 2017 R5: An Imp & A Giraffe walk into a bar

So an uninspiring draw still managed to throw up a few unexpected results. Newcastle came a cropper to Oxford and did Liverpool against a pack of Golden Wolves. Watford losing to Milwall would probably also be classed as shock, except for the fact that they were awful. Until they stopped being awful - you're welcome. And as to the 2 non-league teams - booya - 5th round here we come!

Interesting fact: Sutton also have a related satellite team inspired by them abroad. I knew Arsenal did and I'm sure other clubs do - but Sutton must be the smallest club ever to have this. The Gambia, if anyone cares. Home of the Argos President.

Spurs managed to avoid being the unwanted shock of the round by the skin of a hen (standing on a beach ball)'s tooth. Chelsea had their usual routine home win against a lower league side. Nowt else to mention other than football's first Saltbae themed celebration. The 21st century amiright...

Let's get statty:

9 of the 11 players played
Most popular predicted results: Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol City, Chelsea, Burnley, Middlesborough & Man City WINS (9/9)
Most disputed results: Derby vs Leicester & Millwall vs Watford (5-4 & 4-5 split)

Best predictors: Tarek & Josh Daniels (11/16)
Worst predictors: Daniel Wigman & Sam Ruback (0/16) - Steven Daniels & Aron Kleiman (9/16 of those who played)

Best predicted result: Chelsea, Burnley, Middlesborough, Man City WINS (9/9)
Worst predicted result: Sutton, Wolves, Lincoln WINS (0/9)

Everyone's results:

R6 predos:

Burnley vs Lincoln - BURNLEY

Huddersfield vs Man City - MAN CITY

Middlesborough vs Oxford - MIDDLESBOROUGH

Millwall vs Leicester - MILLWALL

Wolves vs Chelsea - CHELSEA

Fulham vs Spurs - SPURS
Blackburn vs Man Utd - MAN UTD
Sutton vs Arsenal - ARSENAL

Good luck guys

S6M25: Zero to Almost Hero

Well folks, you'd have to say that's that for the league title.

Liverpool and Arsenal had the chance to reel Chelsea in and make things interesting. Now, the gap is 9 points to Tottenham, and 10 to Man City. Neither of whom have shown themselves capable of the consistency required to make up a gap like that, if - and it's a big if - Chelsea return to their early season form.

So, we turn again to the lesser battles. The remaining CL places are still 3 from 5, with a 5 point range separating the protagonists. Everton remain dark horses for as long as Lukaku maintains his form. At the ugly end of the table, it's also looking like 3 from 5. Sunderland are rallying whilst Palace have yet to show any benefit from their new manager effect. I don't think we've discussed the Alardyce-Cheryl Cole/Tweedy/wtvr her name is now photo yet. That is frankly the most disturbing image I've ever seen.

Hull & Swansea are also showing those famed green shoots, so could Leicester complete the more likely part of an unlikely & unwelcome double. A penny for the thoughts of Riyad Mahrez right now...

Let's get statty:

Matchday 23:

23 people played
Most popular predicted results: Arsenal & Man Utd WINS (23/23)
Most disputed result: Stoke vs Everton (5-9-9 split)

Highest odds: Josh Daniels 4086/1
Lowest odds: Feneley 633/1
Average odds: 2405/1

Best predictor: Will O'Doherty 5/10
Worst predictor: AFM 0/10 - **A NEW ADDITION TO THE CLUB**
Average score: 2.48/10 - A NEW RECORD LOW!!!

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (18/23)
Worst predicted result: Watofrd WIN & Man Utd vs Hull DRAW (0/23)


Matchday 24:

23 people played
Most popular predicted results: Man City WIN (23/23)
Most disputed result: WBA vs Stoke (12-7-4 split)

Highest odds: AFM 11403/1 (2nd highest, my mother, 3277/1)
Lowest odds: Steven Daniels 231/1 (Doron - 232/1)
Average odds: 2967/1

Best predictor: AFM - 9/10 - What a turn around! And if she'd gone with the only guaranteed result that weekend, she'd have been the first human 10 in Impossibilitee history!
Worst predictor: Silverman (3/10)
Average score: 5.78/10

Best predicted result: Man City WIN (23/23)
Worst predicted result: Sunderland WIN (1/23)

Everyone's results:

Leaderboard: (>2/3; 17/24)

This week's predos:

Arsenal vs Hull - ARSENAL
Man Utd vs Watford - MAN UTD
Middlesborough vs Everton - EVERTON
Stoke vs Crystal Palace - DRAW
Sunderland vs Southampton - SUNDERLAND
West Ham vs WBA - WEST HAM
Liverpool vs Spurs - SPURS
Burnley vs Chelsea - CHELSEA
Swansea vs Leicester - SWANSEA
Bournemouth vs Man City - MAN CITY

Total odds: 1350/1

Good luck guys!