Dan

Absolutely wank again. Fuck me.

You know what - I'll take this with Cardiff v Preston draw at 11/5. Cardiff v Preston fills the criteria for my draw. Odds imply very little between the two teams, two fairly low scoring sides where under 2.5 goals is heavily favoured. I think 11/5 is therefore overpriced. Swindon have been pretty rank for weeks and Salford seem to have reverted to the level of last season following a managerial change - they've looked frankly a play-off level side in the last month or so. I think even despite the dropped price this is quite good value at 7/5. Cardiff v Preston - Draw @ 3.20 Swindon v Salford @ 2.45 £10 returns £78.40.

Bloody annoyed. Had two selections I was considering and the prices for both have absolutely tumbled good sign I suppose. I will probably still take Salford at Swindon at 7/5. The other was Partick Thisle to beat Livingston. That's gone from literally about 11/5 to 6/5.

I've added the odds to this one - because when odds aren't usually provided I just go off what flash scores says it was last, and there's no way I'd be able to find that bottom one. So a win here would return you £115.50.

He's quite prickly in general I think. He's got a right to be pissed off on both counts. I'm not denying that some of our games, particularly at home are a bit dull but that is frankly because they're a mismatch. That being said our fans have become embarrassingly bad these days - I don't know where this frustration was last year in the stands.

So I said during the Burton Lincoln pick that I'd be doing this method to back draws and honestly, I think there's genuinely a bit of an edge here. I've got a sample size of around 100 games now and it's around 14 points up. Look for tight odds and games the bookies think will be low scoring, and I'm finding you will win more than a third of the time (which is all you need if you make sure your minimum odds are 2/1). I think I'm quite likely to do a few draw doubles in here now unless I find something I can't resist.

WEEK 27 - MARGINAL GAINS WEEK 27 STATS Winning bets: 2/5 Winning selections: 5/10 Weekly forum position: +£4.11 (Ranked 10/27) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 46/181 Winning selections: 156/342 Total forum position: -£350.80 We seem to go up and down but the problem all season is that the downs are more extreme than the ups, so while this ranks as a decent week, it doesn't come near to wiping out the heavy loss of last week, although it's an upturn at least. @Lucas slips further behind the leader with his fourth loss on the bounce. The ever unreliable Dortmund delivering a 0-0 draw at Heidenheim, while the increasingly impressive Bayer Leverkusen strolled to a victory but didn't really bring the goals, so it's a double loser this week. The only change in the table is @Stan dropping back down to 6th following one of the most infuriating losses of the season. Having landed the generously priced A-League corners bet by the skin of his teeth, he was let down by Man Utd Women's 2-0 victory over Brighton Women not yielding the goals. @CaaC (John) in nice and early as ever with his prediction and makes no mistake this time out - two Premier League favourites who both racked up heavy victories over badly faltering teams for his first win since the week before Christmas. @RandoEFC is saved by a last gasp winner in France before I discover his second selection is postponed. The replacement of Rotherham v Southampton corners pays out fairly comfortably, for a nice winner. Mine was an optimistic double but once again, just no luck whatsoever. Cheltenham reverted to their early season woes delivering probably their worst result under Clarke, while the Burton Lincoln non-draw barely mattered by this point. I think if I told somebody that this season if I was around 50 points up on the actual selections I've placed nobody would believe me on this evidence. It's almost impressive to land only 1 pick out of 27 - a complete calamity of a season no matter how it's dressed up. Almost impossibly bad form.

Fucking hell

You've actually won. Happened to spot this now by pure chance - I'll give you the same chance I gave to Stan. You can either cash in your winner as a single or you can pick something else to become a double.

We haven't just not strengthened though, we have weakened. The Sensi fiasco, which is yet another circus to be overseen by this regime, has distracted people including lots of our own fans that we are considerably down on where we entered the window. These things all happened in January: - Iversen was loaned out to Stoke. That's no loss despite the fact I think he's perfectly capable at this level, but we have a very good goalkeeper and a backup that looks increasingly impressive too. A shame for me that we couldn't sell him when for example Cardiff would go on to buy Horvath this very month. Opportunity for some money missed, unless he's sold in the summer. - Thomas was sent back by Sheffield United and then loaned to Middlesbrough. - Ndidi got injured until April. - Casadei was recalled by Chelsea. My issue is less about Sensi, although the way it's come about is embarrassing for the club, but it's more that we are two midfielders down on where we were until April. If we get a loanee in, essentially a Casadei like for like - great. This should've been the preferred option when it appeared that Sensi wasn't a done deal, which many of us assumed it was. Now I know most of the league will have the tiniest violin out for us here but it's besides the point. This is a four horse race, one we are winning, but one we have not yet won, and there is no doubt in my eyes we're the only one of the four to not only not go forwards, but go backwards. We've just got to hope Maresca doesn't down tools like Rodgers did. I don't think that's what he's about, but I think we've broken trust with him now and he's really not too enamoured by us. I'm quite confident having spoken to a bit of an FFP whizz that Dewsbury-Hall goes early in the summer too. He's our most sellable asset by a mile and it increasingly appears we're going to have to sell one. It's just too many cockups under this lot.

I'm going to take a slightly different angle for my other. So Cheltenham at 2.55 (31/20) is my first (that's come down). The other is Burton v Lincoln to end in a draw at 3.25 (9/4). Part of this comes from something I've been doing lately, a process that I'm putting to the rest in picking games to end in draws. While it's obviously not flawless, I am finding a bit of an edge in backing draws if the odds imply there is both a little between the two teams and that there aren't likely to be many goals. This game ticks both boxes, with both being pretty impressively dour in recent weeks. Draws are risky, but the prices are fairly good on the whole, and I need some decent priced winners now so I think I'm going to be going up this route a bit. £10 returns £82.88.

A banker they are not, I agree, but being priced as slight underdogs at home is crazy to me. You've got to remember that Cheltenham under Elliott got 1 point and 0 goals in their first 11 games yet have in Clarke's time had I think the 10th best record in the league while Wycombe are pretty clearly one of the worst sides in the division on the road. Cheltenham's upturn under Clarke has been borderline miraclous. They are likely to survive this season despite the worst first quarter of a season on record. If any Cheltenham fan reads this, I would like to apologise for tomorrow.

Cheltenham are my first. Absurd price.

Context: We fucked up the Sensi deal and left ourselves with no alternative. So to sum up our window... In: Thomas (Returned from loan) Out: Iversen (Stoke, loan), Thomas (Middlesbrough, loan), Smithies (retired), Casadei (recalled) With Ndidi out until April as well. There's a part of me that thinks we fuck this. We've managed to successfully fuck Maresca over so he'll be livid now. I'm not quite at the point of thinking we won't go up, but we're leaving this more to chance than we needed to and it really didn't need anything major. Just get a fucking loanee in for fuck sake if Sensi is too complicated a deal. We flew him over, did the announcement videos, the medical and everything, and tomorrow he's on his way back to Milan. Really have had enough of this clown director of football who can do literally no wrong in the owners eyes. It's pathetic.

It tallies up. Just a really poor player and miles off it for me.

With the greatest of respect he looked about a League Two, possibly even National League player to me. I've no idea how he got a deal here.

Another absolute embarrassment from this ownership and director of football. When are our fans going to wake up to these lot.

WEEK 26 - SIX LOSERS FROM FIVE BETS! WEEK 26 STATS Winning bets: 0/5 Winning selections: 2/10 Weekly forum position: -£50.00 (Ranked 21/26) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 44/176 Winning selections: 151/332 Total forum position: -£354.91 This really was an absolute shocker of a week with an astoundingly low number of selections landing, not a single player winning a bet and to really rub salt into the wound, I've discovered another accounting fault which has penalised one player in particular. I'll get that bit out of the way. @RandoEFC is £20 down on last week rather than the £10 the table says, and moves down to 8th, as I've missed off a previous loss unfortunately. To really rub salt in the wound, I can't seem to land anything where I put my money where my mouth is, and yet; The corners pick was one of only two single selections to land this weekend, but the Serie B game that promised goals actually delivered a Serie B game. A double whammy. @CaaC (John) continues his poor form with a sixth straight loss, no magic of the cup this time as neither Villa or Spurs managed even a goal, let alone a win in their ties. Starting to wonder if the ultra long shots are worth a return! @Stan's winning run is over following a double blank. Devante Cole blanking for Barnsley in their loss to Exeter, and Juventus remarkably failing to beat an abject Empoli at home, though two things of note from that game - Arkadiusz Milik was sent off in the first half for Juventus, and Empoli have just appointed the man who is supposedly the survival specialist of Italy and in truth, his record stacks up. In 2016/17 he kept Crotone up from a position of having just 9 points from their opening 19 games, and in 2021/22 he did similarly at Salternitana. He's taken over Empoli in similarly dire straits, so they may well be a team to keep an eye on now - even if this result was probably a bit lucky. Then we come to the slightly more controversial. I've decided due to fairness that I agree with @Lucas in that we won't include things such as acca boost or 2 goal payout, as we had our first instance all season this weekend of a bet that would've lost in a regular form, but won on Bet365's early payout. It was settled however when Senegal blew it against Ivory Coast, a result that also sank myself. It was written, but in truth, Senegal really didn't turn up at all and despite taking a very early lead they just didn't really do anything, they sat in and hoped to never be broken down, a risky strategy that backfired. In the twist of twists, Ivory Coast are now the second favourites to win the whole thing! So yeah, a really rubbish week on the whole, unfortunately.

Yeah I've snapped, Southampton definitely getting autos. They're signing players now who have no business in this division. Maresca wants two midfielders but it's dependant on us being able to shift Praet so I highly doubt it. We're terrible at selling players. It's held us back quite a bit in recent years. Sensi will sign though which is good. I like the fact he's acknowledged the lack of physicality in the side as well even if he isn't going to be able to address it. The Sensi signing did make me wonder if he was a bit too idealistic.

1-0 Senegal already. Could it be?

Max Gradel playing for Ivory Coast while a Leicester fan and a Leeds fan need Senegal. We all know how this ends.

Out of interest, where were those odds from? Because this is the first time this has happened this season. If you had backed a PSG win and BTTS on a Bet365 bet builder, you would have actually still won because when a team goes 2-0 up it's classed as a win.

and Cape Verde have done their bit too. Brace yourselves people. We've got an absolute corker on the way here.

Excuse me I have actually won one I definitely have quite low faith at the minute though. Does feel like very little is going true to expectation. This one really is as simple as I think they're the better teams in their ties and the Senegal price especially is great in the circumstances. Just to clarify it's both to win in 90.