Dan

It's just a whole load of rubbish again this week, the less said the better - luckily only three people played with a tenner each so the loss isn't particularly heavy. The Croatia Scotland game blows two players in one game. I was a bit unlucky on Peru Uruguay with a late winner, but the other game Serbia won it fairly comfortably. Poor week.

Mask slips moment. It's all agenda-driven rubbish and I don't consume a great deal these days. I don't think the manager being foreign is something that should be ignored. Ultimately this is international football and I do think England being unable to produce a manager worthy of the job is quite a damning indictment. That doesn't mean I'd be going for Graham Potter over Tuchel though.

I mean what the fuck is this load of absolute waffle? This sort of thing really gets me behind Tuchel to be honest.

Mills has always been an absolute cretin. I really don't like our media and it isn't because they're harsh - they're just ridden with agendas and very selective.

Fine with me. I think this whole happy camp and culture thing is blown well out of proportion and think it's just a convenient line for the media (who liked Southgate) to go with to promote him. I didn't see much evidence of a happy camp in the Euros personally. I liked the below assessment:

Namedropped him as the manager I wanted in July. I'm very pleasantly surprised that the FA have gone up this route - I think it's a gamble and I respect them for taking it but he's a higher calibre than not far off any other international manager currently, I think he's got the right skillset for it and it's a good way of masking over his weaknesses. I think he's somebody who could totally blow up but he's also somebody who can win England a tournament. I like it. I'm genuinely quite enthusiastic.

We are just simply not allowed to be in the green. Soon as we get close it all goes to pot again.

What goes up must come down. An absolutely horrendous week last time out with 5/5 players losing, although the strange quirk being that of the 9 selections made, only the 2nd and 3rd unlikeliest according to odds actually came in, so there was some good work within the bad outcome. I register another loss having once again paying the price for going against my own team. Similarly to last week, I think the price all considered was quite generous as we've got a real tendency to go behind at home - the first time all season we haven't. But this game took a different path and we won. A good win. @RandoEFC was unlucky landing Brentford -1 in quite bizarre circumstances but being let down by Aston Villa who seem to be drawing a few lately. That game was one of those ones where the bookies knowledge just baffles me - the game priced very evenly despite it being abundantly clear to anybody that Aston Villa are the better team, yet a total stalemate plays out. @...Dan probably takes the wooden spoon of the week by backing two handicap teams who didn't even win their games, let alone heavily. An infuriating pair of games which I had my own interest in. Marseille v Angers possibly the most annoying 'freeze' game of the season, for anybody who follows. @Stan put AI above himself and maybe on this evidence it's safe to say the world hasn't fallen to the robots just yet, with both picks not paying out despite quite sound logic. Bournemouth had 17 shots yet only managed 2 on target. Haaland didn't score because he's in my fantasy team - I've landed 100% of his blanks and missed 100% of his goals so far. The unluckiest player this week though, by far for me, is @CaaC (John) who landed a really good pick in the Sunderland Leeds score draw, even if the circumstances surrounding it were frankly hilarious. But then was let down by heavy favourites Linfield at home to Glentoran. Just sums up his season so far. A shit week. Was always going to happen. A dreaded international break this time out - I'd snap your hand off for a breakeven. Nobody play!

I'm doing it again, draw double attempt. Peru v Uruguay - 3.10. Serbia v Switzerland - 3.10. £10 returns £96.10.

Happy for you to use these games for next week but do you want anything for this one?

Embarrassing. So not only did England go down there's now a very decent chance we don't go back up.

Yeah in reality there's probably too much committed to it for them to actually do this even though it would make sense - it's also basically sacrificing a years income for them too. This is a real fuckup though. Like I say I think November is a bit late for them to release the game and FIFA / EAFC have it right with the end of September. March is appalling and what happens to FM26? Do they release that in March 2026? That would be a really bad pattern for them to get into, but then March 2025 to November 2025 feels too quick as well. FM25 was being bigged up a few years ago as a gamechanger game. Well they might be right but not quite how they hoped. It's a real shame - you fear it could start to kill it.

March is bloody ridiculous. They should can FM25, release a 2024/25 squad update for FM24 and release the proper thing for FM26 - in September 2026 so they can actually get on a decent timescale rather than November which itself feels a bit late. You could sense this was coming though. They've really fumbled.

Our next three are very big though. They're all winnable. Southampton away, Forest home, Ipswich away. I want 6 minimum because it does turn again for us after that - although I don't think Old Trafford is quite the write off people instinctively think it is. Southampton are rank garbage. Worst team in the league for me. Forest are a strange side, draw specialists and wouldn't be surprised if that was another, but we do raise our game for that fixture at home. Ipswich I've been quite disappointed in as a neutral but quite relieved by as a rival. I thought they would offer a lot more than they have. The Villa performance was exactly what I feared they would offer - but that's a really bad loss at the weekend. I can see them beating us though.

I had Gary O'Neil at 20/1 after their first game because I noticed their form was dire and their fixtures were bad. I think having a hard opening start is always bad as well because it immediately puts you on the back foot even if obviously you do have to play everyone twice anyway. I think it adds pressure onto a game like Brentford for them the weekend just gone that otherwise wouldn't have been there. Their fans I follow do want him out now. I feel similarly to you on Palace. Their start has been pretty awful really all considered especially when you think about how well they finished last season and how they were being tipped as an outsider for Europe. But Palace aren't alien to bad starts and they're hardly ever in serious contention by the time April comes around, so I do expect them to be OK. I've been pretty heavily critical of us, and I'm still nowhere near convinced, but I do believe we can survive. I really don't think our squad is as terrible as people think it is - we have goals in our side. We've created the last chances in the league yet bizarrely are the only team other than Man City & Arsenal to score in every game. Vardy's always going to get goals, Mavididi and Buonanotte look better than people thought they would at this level. Still think Fatawu has a lot to offer too.

Rushed bet and it shows. Though this had paid out in two of our three home games this season so far.

Very big win and much needed. I only caught from about the half hour mark. We weren't convincing but I do think our own fans are being slightly harsh as well and I never thought I'd be the one saying that. I thought bar them hitting the bar they struggled to really break us down and that's nice to see - it's been a long time since we did that at this level. We're not actually in a terrible position now. Our case is helped by the fact Southampton, Ipswich, Palace and Wolves are all somehow still winless but we can do this, genuinely. I'm nowhere near sold on the manager and don't think he's a long term option, but that's the sort of game we need this season.

Leicester v Bournemouth. I'll do Bournemouth half time, draw full time. 14/1.

This new format is garbage. Barely any interest at all in it, riddled with complete mismatches. Once again I think it's football in managed decline.

I do get the creeps about FM25. I'll buy it but I feel it might be the first in a long time where I'll end up going back to an older version.

Had O'Neil at 20/1 after their first game - I think he's probably a loss to a bad side away from it. Their form is appalling and has been since about March. I do wonder if it could be Cooper. If we lose to Bournemouth we're likely in the bottom 3, 3 points from our opening 7 games going into the best run of fixtures of the season. But then this is too logical for us. We had a similar situation in 2022/23 and decided to let the manager nail us for another 6 months before getting rid when it was all pretty hopeless anyway. Cooper does just need to leave. I've never seen a manager have this little fan backing this early on.

I've checked the stats and can confirm this is the best week in tipping game history. It's the first time we've ever collectively broken £100 profit and we've done it with absolute comfort as well, largely owing to two very handy wins. I couldn't add to last weeks win - but I still sort of retain that there was good value in the bet I took at 6/1 with Arsenal registering 17 corners and Gabriel himself racking up an xG of 0.49, so a bit unlucky really. Still, at least on the plus side Leicester managed to actually keep the goals out and stop everyone else scoring, eh. Oh wait. Of course we didn't. @RandoEFC rises to 2nd in the table with a second straight win, given a bit of a scare in the unlikeliest of ways as Arsenal nearly didn't win the game, but the corners as stated hit 17 with 6 of those coming in the first half. I have been through @...Dan's bet and was given a dilemma. I've asked about and it does appear some bookies are still settling any Antwerp bet as a void, but I think in these circumstances it's fair to award the win given they have actually been given a 5-0 win anyway. Beerschot's fans pyro'd and got the game called off at 4-0 with 15 left and I've seen this in Belgium before where this seems to default to a 5-0 loss for the club in question. Probably not a bad way of doing it in all honesty. The real clincher here though was Lyon picking up an injury time winner, for his biggest win of the season and the third biggest of the season. The highlight of the week however is @Stan who's bet builder contained so many things that I just simply had to type "Bet Builder" rather than all of the small details. A great pick though, and the biggest single priced odds winner of the season so far. Benfica had an early scare against Gil Vicente but ended up smashing them 5-1. A perfect outcome here, and a game that has contributed to me winning loads of money via acca freeze abuse as well as Benfica landed me one accumulator and Gil Vicente's goal started another. More details on this if anyone is interested. This leaves @CaaC (John) as the only player to play multiple weeks and not yet register a winner. Both selections out again and he's cut quite adrift at the bottom now while 2nd-6th have all become quite bunched together following this week. A decent win from him soon and I think we're in quite sound profit as a collective, which hasn't happened once since playing.

As bad as we are we're better than this dirge.