Dan

Arsenal v Crystal Palace - Both teams to score @ 11/8 (2.37) - This is a quite peculiar pick because I think pretty much everyone's instinct for this game would be Arsenal to win to nil. Arsenal's defence bar the last few games has been pretty sturdy while Palace are pretty dour. But to be fair the stats actually back this selection up quite a bit and the price is really generous. Palace have scored in 9 out of 10 away games. Arsenal have scored in 9 out of 10 home games. I know Palace are missing Olise and Ayew, but I still think the odds are simply a bit too big here to ignore them. Brentford v Nottingham Forest - Brentford to score a penalty @ 4/1 (5.00) - This is a lot more about intuition than any statistical data, but I feel the Toney return is totally set up for him to score, and even more so I can picture him scoring a penalty too. Forest also have a few out and I'd probably back Brentford to win the game anyway. I need to be going a bit bigger at this point. £10 returns £118.75.

Sambiasso seemed to imply he never wanted to be here. It's shite timing though. We potentially don't have a single fit number eight for a game against 2nd in the table FFS.

Casadei about to be recalled too. Bloody hell. Our midfield all of a sudden is threadbare.

I'm in the camp that it isn't a red but an appeal wouldn't have had it overturned and it was a brainless thing to do at an already heated part of the game. Only solace is he'll be back for the Stoke game, rather than Watford as originally feared.

I quite fancied us to produce a bit of a reaction in this game but I'm a lot less sure when it's laid bare like that. It's probably going to be Casadei and Yunus Akgun as a midfield two and that's been horrid pretty much every time it's played. People will point to our depth and it's fair enough in a way but when you're having to change that many at once it's going to have a detrimental effect no matter who you are. Ipswich have definitely been a lot better at home than away but they've caught us at a pretty good time here I think. They are still 2nd and they're 2nd for a reason. A good test for Maresca - we need a reaction after that last week.

I ultimately think if you're winning fairly consistently then it's fine and I think when betting is so based on probability, it is actually quite hard to pick two to win each week. If I can be arsed I might make one, but I'd be intrigued to see the league table if you took every selection made as a £5 single rather than £10 double. I'm the last person you need to convince about luck in this and when I say that, it isn't an arrogance, it's because I've kept a spreadsheet with every single selection I've made this season and it's I think 50 or so points up. So a £10 selection on each would have you £500 up. So I'm doing something right, just not when it comes to this thread. Your style on this is the most intriguing for me because I think it's along the similar sort of statistical data I try and go for myself. I've gone up the corners route before but it can just be that bit too volatile for me. I'm trying to avoid in-play bets as a general rule but I've had the odd winner on corners on that. Interested to know how you made that calculation on Girona too.

That's next week. Can use that for then if you wish but pick another for this week.

Goal tallies so far: 2 2 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 2 3 2 Six BTTS payouts out of 12. Definitely a bit better than last time.

Burkina Faso and Mali were the two outright long shots I went for and we're off to a couple of good starts.

Roma for me. Bit torn on this though, I'm not sure Mourinho going will have that big a lift on them, they seemed to quite like him despite things clearly being poor on the pitch. This is simply because Hellas Verona are woeful.

WEEK 24 - COULD HAVE GONE BETTER WEEK 24 STATS Winning bets: 2/6 Winning selections: 6/11 Weekly forum position: +£7.66 (Ranked 9/24) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 42/165 Winning selections: 143/310 Total forum position: -£303.09 And we're back again. Not loads of change in the table and one of the most balanced weeks we've had in terms of overall performance. I'll work chronologically on what actually happened over the weekend rather than up and down the table as it's about the only way I'll not come to myself last and there's only so many ways I can address that at this point. @CaaC (John) was the first player bust this week as he went for the Friday night clash between Burnley and Luton. Luton grabbed a controversial draw but it wasn't enough, but luckily Man Utd didn't win either so he wasn't cost, and is the only player to lose both picks this weekend. @Stan picks up consecutive wins picking Adam Armstrong to net in Southampton's latest 4-0 win over a bottom half team, which I feel like is almost a fortnightly occasion at this point. This did come however after his other selection in Bolton v Cheltenham was void due to a spectator illness, of which said Bolton fan did actually end up dying from, which is a shame to hear. He was given the option of replacing it with a second pick but cashed in for an £11 profit instead. @Pyfish gets back to winning ways. The Cole Palmer price to score at anytime was fantastic I have to see. He's the one plus in what's been another dreadful season for Chelsea and he scored another penalty to give them a 1-0 victory. Newcastle v Man City both teams to score, pays out after 35 minutes. Lovely. It's the biggest win of the week and largely responsible for the small profit we find ourselves in. Sunday however was much less productive. I happened to notice that the Barnsley - Bristol Rovers selection had come in after Barnsley won 2-1, so I just simply needed Girona, almost flawless Girona, to beat a barely believably bad Almeria side and for over a goal to land in the game. We've done it to death in here but you all know what happened. The price on Girona to win actually got even bigger prematch which is always a worrying sign. I watched the game play out and honestly, just how did they know? Almeria were the better team. It's baffling stuff to me. The sort that makes you wonder how people could ever make consistent money off doing this. That's 24 bets and just 1 win. That's truly awful, almost impressive to pull off. If you had to pick 24 bets to lose I think you would do very well to get 23. @RandoEFC moves to corners and suffers similar pain. Charlton v Peterborough defies the recent form and just 7 corners occur in the game. My gripe with betting on corners is it's just a bit too reliant on game-state. I'll give you an example here in that I had something on Derby v Burton last night via Bet365. For those unaware, Derby went 2-0 up so the Derby to win leg pays out, but I need Derby to get 4 corners as well. They had just the 1 corner as they went 2-0 up and this is a problem because there's less desire to attack. I got very lucky though, Burton came back to make it 2-2 and all of a sudden Derby had to attack them, and the corners flew in so I won. What's unlucky about this Charlton Peterborough pick for me is there was nothing in the game state that meant that should've lost, so it's just really unlucky. To rub salt into the wound, there were a staggering 21 corners in the Manchester United - Spurs game. There was room for one last bit of bad luck though as recent league leader @Lucas came awfully close to landing another massive win. AC Milan v Roma was a 3-1 home win, and a game that has ultimately ended up finishing Jose Mourinho's tenure there. Having watched their last three games, I did think it was coming soon, they look really poor. The unlucky part though is that PSG beat Lens 0-2, so he was just the goal off and Lens did have a man sent off in the first half, so I think it's quite plausible that they would've scored without it. This would've left him nearly £200 clear of 2nd and quite honestly, the comfortable favourite to win the league. We move on.

That's my point. I know numbers, and I know that it's all probability at the end of the day. This isn't merely "top couldn't beat bottom how is that even possible" it's that the gulf is absolutely enormous, they're 43 points apart after 19 games, so they build up on average over two points a game between them with every game they play! It would make more sense to me if Girona had gone off at say 2/5 to win the game and just not turned up. It's just that the bookies pre-empted that outcome and I cannot for the life of me see how. It genuinely fascinates me. I'd love to have Tony Bloom's number. I want him to explain to me what's just unfolded.

It's one of those games that makes me question everything I know to be honest. It's less about it being a freak result and more being the bookies seemed to know that would be fairly tight. Frankly, Almeria were the better side and came nearer to winning. It's just how did they know, looking at those respective records that it would be? This wasn't just bottom vs top, this was a team on course for a Derby 2008 points tally against a team on course for over 95 points. It's crazy.

Genuinely don't know why I bother. How is it even possible to be this unlucky?

The worst thing about today is it's exactly the shot in the arm they needed to go on a proper run and get into the playoffs / possibly win them. Even if we'd just drawn it it would've at least killed their excitement a bit. You can always nail us on for at least one absolutely hideous collapse a season. I've had a feeling for a while Fatawu was going to get a red card and had a horrible feeling it would be today. He's a good player and a bright prospect, but he's a bit reckless. I actually don't think it's a red, but in the context of the situation, to fly in for a challenge like that after we've just had a contentious one go our way is naive in the extreme and I knew the minute he made it he'd get a red. Referee was absolutely woeful today. Embarrassing how a Premier League referee can be that weak. We will win the league, but I don't like our big game record, and it will bite us next year if we aren't careful.

Sensible man. In other news I'm half way to a win and it's my unlikelier leg that's done it. So we all know what follows here. Everyone get your life savings on Girona winning 0-1!

If you wish, you can add another selection tomorrow / Monday, or just go with that and cash in the £11 win!

Nah they aren't actually. It's a pub with a cinema-esque screen. But it's produced a good bit of wind up content anyway.

Please beat these idiots again. Make it as heartbreaking and painful as possible.

Almeria v Girona - I think anybody with any vague interest in football outside of England this season knows the story of Girona. Comparable to Leicester of 2015/16 if they were to go all the way and win the league. They sit 2nd in the league at the half way mark, level on points with Real Madrid, but I think the really impressive bit is actually the points tally of 48 from 19 games. So they have only dropped 9 points all season, coming in a loss to Real Madrid and draws with Real Betis, Bilbao and Real Sociedad. This means they have won every single game against teams sitting 8th or below. Almeria sit 20th in the league on just 5 points. They're every bit as bad as Girona are good and the fact the odds on a Girona win is 7/10 itself is remarkably overpriced. I think the odds of it being 0-1 are pretty low though and there's a good case to get on some handicaps. There isn't a single thing beyond "sods law" that I see stopping a comfortable Girona win here. I actually quite also like Girona to win & BTTS at 5/2, Girona -1 at 13/8 and Girona -2 at 4/1, all very palatable. Barnsley v Bristol Rovers - BTTS has paid out in 5 of Barnsley's last 6 home games, and all of Bristol Rovers' last 11 games in all competitions. So there is plenty of reason to think this will pay out. BTTS is 4/6 but eliminating the 1-1 draw as an option (granted risky) boosts the price a fair bit, and I really need a bit of money to come in on this so I'm taking the slightly riskier option. £10 returns £39.26.

WEEK 23 - REGRESSION TO THE MEAN WEEK 23 STATS Winning bets: 1/5 Winning selections: 4/9 Weekly forum position: -£16.08 (Ranked 12/23) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 40/159 Winning selections: 137/299 Total forum position: -£310.75 Back for another (slightly) late update. Just five players again this week, and a slight loss after last weeks best. Starting with @Pyfish who returns a double losing selection on two pretty short priced both teams to score picks - though two games which I fancied for it myself, the Sunderland v Newcastle one giving me an early kick off curse. Sunderland fans' consensus is that they didn't play anywhere near their best and that they would've done better under Mowbray, which is quite damning. How Arsenal didn't score as well was quite remarkable, another selection which cost me a bet over the weekend. @CaaC (John) falls victim to the same game as Sunderland's no-show means it's nothing for him this week, following Tottenham's late win over Burnley. The only winner of the week is @Stan who picks two pretty well priced selections of Championship sides winning at home to lower league in the FA Cup, with the goals flowing. His first win in a while and nearly cancels out his £25 loss last week. @RandoEFC is pretty unlucky this time out, being let down by an extremely short priced game in Falkirk where the slightly vague information online tells us the game only saw 3 corners when 7 were needed in their 1-0 win. Inter came in. I for the fourth time have dropped a fairly short notice selection in early, and for a fourth time have been burnt as Bologna failed to deliver the goods against Genoa at home. They went behind to an early free kick and pretty much from that point I knew it was done. I watched the game and I don't think it could've gone any more how I expected it to from that point - Genoa park the bus and Bologna, a good and improved team but not quite good enough yet for this scenario, could only break it down with a last gasp equaliser, meaning the stats are skewed laughably in their favour. They probably ought to have won, but I did fear that exact game could play out. Back to league action this week with pretty much all of Europe returned.

Moving it to Cardiff or Southampton just totally defeats the objective of this competition.

A little torn but think I'm for it. First of all I was amazed at how old he was. I had it in my head he was about 23 so I've clearly stuck him in some sort of time freeze from the day he joined Inter. He joined them very highly regarded but it hasn't really worked out. I think in terms of style he appears to be a good fit in that he's very comfortable on the ball, he's another technically proficient player that you would like to think, like Winks, would thrive where he's struggled before. He's also out of contract in the summer and isn't on that mammoth a wage, so it isn't actually that expensive a deal for us - somebody saying £2.5mil and current wage of £35k a week. That's very reasonable really. It's another link that makes a mockery of the league we're in as well to be honest. The big catch is the injuries. We've had terrible injury issues in the last few years and his record slots right in here for all the wrong reasons. Now in fairness, we've gotten a proper run out of Ricardo Pereira again for what feels like the first time in about four years, so maybe we are learning to manage it better. I think however we may come a cropper with these things in the Premier League. It is easier to manage injuries when you're this dominant in that you can rotate more effectively and we're not chasing after teams because we have 70% of the ball every game. I'm for it though. He could easily be another Winks - a technically savvy, quality midfielder who needed the right environment, and it's not actually that expensive a deal either so it's not really that big a risk.

Hull have got something decent going. Fair play.