Dan

Basically in one week you can replace a £10 stake with a £25 one. Doesn't have to be this week. Would be well advised for you to have not used it on the weekend just gone

I truly am cursed in this thread there's no other explanation for it. A Sampdoria first half red FFS.

This weeks offering.. Sampdoria v Feralpisalo - This one is a bit based around form and expected goals. Sampdoria are managed by Andrea Pirlo and a look to the underlying data tells me that he's playing the same kamikaze football that he played in Turkey when his team were a BTTS banker almost weekly with the highest combined expected goals for and against in the division, and it appears looking at Sampdoria it isn't loads different. They have won 5 of their last 6 games so things look to be clicking a bit for who were one of the promotion favourites, at home to bottom side Feralpisalo. Sampdoria have 12 points at home to Feralpisalo's 5 points away. The over 1.5 goal boost adds quite a bit to the price, and I can only assume that it's due to it being in a traditionally low scoring league in the Serie B. Carlisle v Cheltenham - This has been driven pretty much entirely by the circles I follow but they're quite high on Cheltenham's improvement under Darrell Clarke and went with them to beat Leyton Orient last week. They lost, but they did have a first half red card and were leading the game despite this until the 89th minute, so I would say while that one lost, they are probably worth getting on board with and their price is boosted due to their laughably bad start. Carlisle are in pretty dire form with just 1 win in 8. I think the price given all of this on a Cheltenham win is pretty generous.

Genuine question, are you up or down this season? You're looking in some right funny places here and I quite like it. I'm convinced there's an edge here somewhere.

You have already done one for this week - do you want to stick with that or do these?

WEEK 20 - MIDDLE OF THE ROAD WEEK 20 STATS Winning bets: 2/6 Winning selections: 4/10 Weekly forum position: £14.79 (Ranked 8/20) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 37/143 Winning selections: 124/270 Total forum position: -£326.27 I'm slacking a little on these table updates lately but can actually delve into what went right and wrong this time out. As it turns out, it was a pretty mediocre week with the balance taking a small hit and as ever, me losing. None of the top three played this week, although incase you miss it @Pyfish @Machado @Storts I have decided that as the game Christmas present everybody gets one £25 bet to use during the season instead of the usual £10. Call it the equivalent of triple captain. You are not obliged to use it as of course, should you use it on a loser, you will be taking an even heavier hit, but it should add an interesting angle. We have a new smallest winner of the season in @CaaC (John) - quite the difference from the lottery tickets he was buying early season, although not entirely by design. Chelsea beat Sheffield United at odds of just 2/11 (1.18) and Bournemouth's game with Luton was abandoned following what happened to Tom Lockyer. Grim circumstances all round and all the best of luck to him, although I'm almost certain he'll be forced into retirement now. Bournemouth v Luton is settled as void and you get the win for Chelsea. The form player of recent weeks however is @...Dan who takes the biggest win for the third time in four weeks and rises to a season high of 5th in the table. With a clear knowledge of Ligue 2 it's about time this sort of bet started paying dividends even if it is a league I find myself trying to avoid at all costs. Caen beating Dunkerque 1-0 and Angers running out 1-4 winners at Troyes. The only two winners of the weekend however. I have to sympathise with @RandoEFC picking two what appeared to be absolute bankers to at least win their games, but in what's probably the upset of the season we've been on the end of on this forum, Doxa beat Aris Limassol 2-0 to take their tally up to 4 points from 15 games for the season. A genuine shock of a result and really one of those situations you just can't really legislate for. A freak loss. Doxa were 11/1 to win the game at home prematch. @Stan makes the seasons first foray into the women's game and isn't rewarded. What has to be considered another pretty shock result judging by the odds was Tottenham's 1-0 win over Arsenal at 7/1, but importantly for the bet, a loss as it got nowhere near the 4 goals required. Plymouth didn't disappoint at home to Rotherham, picking up yet another victory in Devon which has seen them rewarded with losing their manager to the football black hole of Stoke City, and scoring 3 times in the process. @Lucas went for a couple of win and BTTS picks that I actually backed for real, and I'm in dreadful form of late so I should probably hand the £10 loss to myself. Brighton's first failure to score in any competition this season away to an increasingly tricky to break down Arsenal followed by Leverkusen shutting out Frankfurt in a 3-0 win. Both of them having great seasons and both are in serious contention for their leagues now. Leverkusen have never won it! And as ever, I finish on myself. This one can be placed in the category of a loss that I can accept as it has helped Leicester for Ipswich to not beat Norwich at home and I'd much rather it have lost on that than them winning to nil, but my god, the statistical probabilities falling against me this season really are remarkable. I really do feel like whatever I have it will lose. That's also three times out of three where I've gone early on a selection and ended up losing - it isn't paying off. This week runs up until Chistmas Day so anything from now until then - me and my mates like to have a group bet on Christmas Day for a bit of a laugh so there are some things going on in countries not celebrating Christmas. A few leagues beginning their winter break around now, so you may be forced into the dreaded EFL. Good luck!

Crikey I'm thinking of backing Aris in a few ways. They seem a complete banker.

definitely gonna start doing this to basically seal Leicester's promotion.

Ipswich to beat Norwich and BTTS @ 2/1 - first pick. It's paid out in 7/10 Ipswich home games and it just feels totally inevitable for me.

That's next weeks! Can have that for then though if you wish.

WEEK 19 - GOOD GRIEF WEEK 19 STATS Winning bets: 0/7 Winning selections: 3/12 Weekly forum position: -£70.00 (Ranked 18/19) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 35/137 Winning selections: 120/260 Total forum position: -£311.48 I'm a bit pushed for time this week but let the table do the talking. Absolute disaster throughout. @CaaC (John) probably the main winner of the week having not predicted! Better luck next time out.

And not just a Championship job - basically now the Championship Everton (and that is probably harsh on Everton). What is the upside of the Stoke job? Nobody goes there and goes a good job. It isn't like Sunderland where you can see a route to the Premier League in the next year or two. Stoke is a club where players and managers go to die these days.

Surely Potter can't drop to Stoke. I know his stock has fallen but that would be an absolutely ridiculous move. They seem to be one of these clubs now who are stuffed whoever they get in charge. It's far too big a risk for what isn't going to be that big an upside. That move could finish him.

Yeah, a quick skim through looks like not a single winner

It'll be Steve Cooper. Marinakis keeps bottling it because the fans love Cooper, although that apparently pisses him off that Cooper gets all the plaudits. It'll go ugly there.

Currently in a lodge in what feels like the middle of nowhere and my internet is extremely on and off, so the table may be a bit delayed.

Ah honestly. I can't even claim to be unlucky in general it just seems to be in here. I've kept a record of every single selection I've made this season with a £10 stake and I'd be over £300 up with singles. I'm just consistently picking the wrong ones to stick in here. I had Wolves & Auxerre wins with over 1.5 goals tonight. I need St Gallen to do the same for a win tomorrow (their game at the weekend was moved to Wednesday). 1 win in 19. I mean bloody hell. I should be averaging 18/1 odds with that record and yet here we are.

Ah my god, I am genuinely cursed. I've never known anything like it.

I don't disagree with this, I tend to find the results are a bit harder to predict. Early signs here are that I've fumbled it yet again. Well well well, 1-0

I'm doing it again unfortunately. I'm going to take Wolves win and over 1.5 goals as an early pick for my double @ 13/10 - think that's very kind, Burnley haven't fooled me by beating a dreadful Sheffield United. Wolves for me are the better team and what seems to have a bit under the radar under O'Neil is that they seem to be a quite high goals team at both ends, with only one clean sheet, and one failure to score all season - both in August, and both of them frankly a bit of a freak. Burnley have conceded 3 2 3 1 2 1 in their away games. I concede the chances of 1-0 here are probably higher than most of their games, but I think you can justify getting on them here.

WEEK 18 - CREEPING BACK UP, CREEPING BACK DOWN WEEK 18 STATS Winning bets: 3/8 Winning selections: 8/16 Weekly forum position: +£10.27 (Ranked 6/18) --- OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 35/130 Winning selections: 117/248 Total forum position: -£241.48 A mixed week but some of this is on myself as I have made a bit of discovery, and not a good one either. I have made a couple of errors in the table over the season and have identified that I did not account for two people's losses earlier in the season. Read on, and hope that it isn't you! Better late than never. Well, unfortunately, not really the case for @Pyfish who delivers a last minute loss as Atalanta can't score at Torino. Always infuriating when you have a both teams to score pick where the underdog score fairly early but it loses. Torino ran out surprise 3-0 winners. AFC Wimbledon won 5-0, a pretty routine win. @Machado's habit of aiming for the utterly bizarre took us to Cyprus and Africa this week where we had two games with a heavy favourite being tipped to have their attack blunted somewhat. Sadly it backfired badly, as APOEL won 5-0 and Zamalek won 0-4. Two losses for the first time all season for him. @RandoEFC makes it four consecutive weeks of a half win, as while Braga delivered a 3-1 win to pay out, Cherno More Varna could only win 1-2, although they conceded a late goal themselves in that game so it was very nearly a first loss in a while. That's 7 wins in 9 weeks - although I think he'd have wanted more than £28.54 profit over that period considering. @Stan comes back with a winner for the first time in a month. Bolton sticking 5 past Harrogate in the FA Cup, but in a perfect twist getting the absolute dream scenario where he manages to see Leicester throw a point away very late on to win his bet, and then steal the win even later on anyway. So a win-win from a very unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, we come to our double-loser of the week. Many apologies to @CaaC (John) who not only loses his bet, extremely narrowly too after Everton won and Manchester United did come extremely close to a late equaliser, but is docked a further £10 entirely due to my own error in not knocking off week 11's loss. To make matters worse, the table has gotten very tight this week and this has knocked him all the way down to 6th. I apologise! The other victim here is @...Dan - who I forgot to dock the £10 of for week 15, so unfortunately his win, which is the result of the week in this table, is blunted somewhat. He does still even despite the deduction manage to have the best outcome of the week, his second win in a row and has put @Lucas into the bottom two, after he landed neither of Leverkusen or Man City's wins, quite unlucky too frankly looking at how the games went. Dan go a week without a late cry over the bad luck challenge. This week though, they can get absolutely fucked. I went early in my double and paid the price as Shakhtar could only manage the 1 goal over Antwerp. They hit the post on numerous occasions and even managed to round the keeper and miss. In even more annoying news, Plymouth got a last gasp winner, so I would've landed a very nice win this week, but it's not to be, and I'm absolutely cut adrift at this point. I need a good win again soon. Lots of football on this week. Do your worst. As stated, I'm thinking everybody gets a £25 bet to use one week from Christmas too, which should make it interesting, almost like a triple captain in FPL.

£25 a figure I had in mind. No obligation to use it and no specific week it has to be used in.

Now when it comes to Christmas presents traditionally we'll have surprises, however given that there may be those who think this isn't a good idea for the game, happy to hear what you think. For a tipping game christmas present, I'm thinking to allocate everybody a week where they get a boosted stake, to be used whenever they fancy.

Was about to complain that I have already done the table ready to post later but then remembered you're top regardless

With around 5 left of our game you got the absolute dream scenario