Dan

I have done for years. I found 23 a little harder but 21 and 22 were a piece of piss I think. Too early to say on this one so far.

Aston Villa v Fulham - Aston Villa win and over 1.5 goals @ 1.80 Rennes v Lyon - Rennes win and over 1.5 goals @ 1.86 I think these two are both very likely to win and the over 1.5 angle just rules out the 1-0 win yet boosts the odds no end. I actually think both of these are riskier to go under 4.5 than over 1.5 although Villa Fulham did actually end 1-0 last season. I kid you not, I nearly had QPR 0-0 Bristol City as a single. I thought it reeked of it - two new managers who will be happy to not lose, Cifuentes' Hammarby and Manning's Oxford were also both very low chance creating but high chance prevention teams as well. Flash scores reckons there were a combined 5 shots all game £10 returns £33.65

Yeah I think we're very overpriced as well personally. We're playing better football away from home and while you do at some point expect us to drop points I think there's probably a fair tactical reason for why it's happening. Simply I think teams are giving us more space to hit them. We have wobbled in our last three games but I still think we're quite a bit better than Middlesbrough. We've not lost there in 7 games either.

WEEK 14 - STAN HOLDS THE FORT IN A POOR WEEK The end of our good form as this time out just one of the eight players manage to post a win, although it's one of the better ones and it's saved us from catastrophe. @Pyfish retains his comfortable lead but loses for a second week running after neither selection, both ambitious and on paper safer, pay out. Under 4.5 is an angle I like but it's always a bit risky with a fixture like that I think. Fernandes avoids a yellow this week. @CaaC (John) makes the best pick of the week in Newcastle but is let down by Leicester's defeat to Leeds. I backed a Leicester win myself, thinking that a side with 13 wins in 14 are worth a go at evens in nearly any situation, but not paying off this time. Cartagena's game with Leganes with subject to a lot of discussion in here and as I suspected, the league leaders Leganes, the bizarrely priced underdogs, ran out 0-3 winners meaning that @Machado lands his pick of Cartagena not getting to two goals. Boavista however, a team I backed elsewhere, didn't get the goal needed against bottom of the table Rio Ave, so he loses this time out. @Stan ends his losing run and climbs two places with a good double in the FA Cup, landing two of the stronger outfits to deliver comfortable wins against vastly inferior non-league sides. With 7-2 and 5-1 wins respectively, this was as comfortable as it gets. @Lucas lands neither shot on target pick in the surprise Sunday results that saw neither favourite win. @RandoEFC's Midtjylland tip paid off with a 1-4 win at a dreadful Hvidovre (I think I'm going to back them to lose basically weekly) but Glentoran fell to a shock defeat at home to Carrick Rangers meaning there is no win at all here. I couldn't make it two wins on the bounce, both of my away picks had the better of their games but both could only draw. @...Dan probably the closest of all losers to a winner this week as Zwolle won comfortably and Hamburg did too, but too comfortably, as they didn't concede - seemingly out of character for them. It's no surprise to see a poor week here, in a week where the FPL average was as low as I've ever seen it, where Liverpool didn't beat Luton, Tottenham lost, Arsenal lost, Milan lost at home to Udinese, Porto lost at home to Estoril, Real Madrid drew at home to Rayo, Atletico lost at Las Palmas, to put it short there were absolutely loads of surprise results all over the place this weekend and I highly doubt many people collected winners so well done to Stan for managing to do it. I certainly had a relative shitter this time after a pretty brilliant weekend last time out. But we move on. It wasn't our hardest hit, but a hit nontheless. WEEK 14 STATS Winning bets: 1/8 Winning selections: 6/16 Weekly forum position: -£35.90 (Ranked 9/14) OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 26/102 Winning selections: 90/192 Total forum position: -£167.15

Timing

Leganes 3 up at Cartagena. I remain totally mystified at how they were considered outsiders. Shame I never went with it in here - although I landed neither of my picks.

London bus effect we hope. Huddersfield v Watford - Away win @ 6/5 (2.20) - I think Watford are probably a touch better than their position suggests with gradual signs of improvement being shown without really getting the results to back it up. Their performances are taking a bit of an upturn. Huddersfield on the flip side really do look woeful under Moore, I think following Warnock is always a hard ask and to make matters worse they're missing their key player Jack Rudoni here. I think better than evens on an away win is pretty generous here to be honest, I think it's a price that would be bigger if offered later in the season. Osnabruck v Holstein Kiel - Away win @ 11/8 (2.38) - This again just feels really generous. 17th v 4th, Osnabruck with 4 points at home to Kiel's 12 points away, vast gap on expected goals table too which I've always thought is something that will level out against performances in the long run. Basically I think Kiel are quite comfortably the better team based on the data I'm seeing and the price is above what it should be. £10 returns £52.36. Avoided Leganes. Too many people are on it. It scares me. I've bottled having Sheff Weds too. I've got a feeling they've caught Bristol City at a good time but it is just a bit too risky.

I will likely add Midtjylland to one of my accas this weekend, that is ultimately the sort of thing that made me start this a few years ago, was kind of "who has any good picks for the weekend". My general method at the weekend is that I tend to place a series, maybe 4 or 5 accas of 3-4 teams and I'll need just one of them to win to breakeven, and I've got a pretty good hit rate, I got 14 out of 18 selections last Sunday for example. It's a method that's genuinely winning for me and has done for a good year now. I've kept a record and I've won on I think 62% of selections backed with an average price of 1.92 so I'm doing something right - makes the record in here quite funny anyway, I was quite confident I'd do well

Leganes outright is 2.80. I just find that absolutely mental. It's so big it feels like a trap, I'd be almost more likely to back it if it was 2.20 which I know is silly. The only possible reason I can offer is that checking the expected goals table, Leganes are definitely running quite hot and Cartagena have been a bit unlucky. But I still think even despite this it's very hard to justify getting against Leganes here particularly when they have 12 points from their 6 away games and Cartagena have lost all 6 at home.

Off the top of my head... - Staff contract renewals bar the important ones like chief scout, DoF etc.. but I make sure that this is after I bring in a backroom team that I'm happy with so they don't go and bring me in a load of dross - youth contracts, again, I will probably step in if we inherit a wonderkid - training, I admit I'm quite lazy on training although I have quite recently amended something on this so that I have players training with double intensity if their fitness bar is full, which has had in my opinion tangible results I think my general rule is I like to micromanage things maybe for the first month or so and just gradually ease off as things are how I like them. Bought this last night but not started a game yet. I think I'm going to take over Berliner Dynamo.

I've just been looking at Cartagena v Leganes. I'm completely baffled. How the actual fuck are Cartagena considered favourites? It's one of them that's 'so' daft it scares me going near it.

Players like Winks, Ndidi, Iheanacho, Justin, Ricardo etc... have all proven themselves in the Premier League so we already have a pretty good core of players. I think the likes of Hermansen can step up. The likes of Dewsbury-Hall and Faes for me were victims of Rodgers' ineptness in the latter years. Fatawu the winger we have on loan is starting to convince me he's a bit of a gem and we've got the option to get him permanently as well. I think we would probably need to invest in the defence, Vestergaard's been key this season but I do get the feeling he could come massively unstuck in the Premier League again. Getting back to the top 6... hard to say but I don't think it's impossible. The best case I can make is if you have a look at what happened to Villarreal around a decade ago, they went from making Europe regularly to seemingly out of nowhere getting relegated. They then got promoted at a canter, and in their first year back up finished 6th in La Liga. I'm not saying we will repeat this exact process, but I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that we could go up and finish in say the top half either. I will flip it around here and say how do you think teams like Crystal Palace, Brentford, West Ham etc... would be doing in the Championship? Do you think they would win 13 out of 14 games? It's completely plausible for me that we are a comfortable Premier League side already that simply underperformed to an extraordinary level in 2022/23. Ironically a player I'd like to see us go after again is Nicolas Gonzalez of Fiorentina. We were strongly linked in January, as were you in the summer I believe, and have therefore been looking out a bit for him whenever I've caught Fiorentina and I think he's got a load of ingredients to succeed. Pacey, creative, tricky but what sets him apart is his extraordinarily good aerial ability for a winger which profiles as well as literally any winger in Europe. There's a long way to go but we are looking a pretty good candidate to break the record for the points tally at this level. We're nearly a third into the season now and we've dropped points once. It's unreal consistency no matter how financially dominant we are. Everything that has happened this season just confirms everything I said about how big an underachievement last season was to be true. I really do think it's the biggest Premier League underperformance in my lifetime - Chelsea 2015/16 the only other candidate.

WEEK 13 - LUCKY FOR SOME Halloween has arrived on the supposedly unlucky numbered week, but you wouldn't know it looking at the league table here as we post our best week of the season, a third straight profit on the board overall, the first week where four players bag a win and remarkably, even both people called Dan winning. It didn't quite start off so luckily though. @Pyfish came close to making it a hattrick of brilliant wins after landing a very impressive pick of Dortmund to win at Newcastle, but he couldn't overcome the Brendan Rodgers juju in the supposedly easier leg of the bet as Atletico Madrid falter on the road in the Champions League yet again. @Machado back to winning ways with his latest in what looks a carefully selected pair of stats based picks, although the Benfica pick can only possibly be due to some cynicism at his end on his own team. He was correct to have it though. I paid the price on an accumulator for trusting Benfica to win myself as I had them with under 4.5 goals - but they couldn't even hold on late on. @Stan also paid the price as this let down his bet, after correctly landing Bayern to win and over 3.5 goals in a hilarious game that saw 3 first half red cards and Bayern hitting 8 goals in the second half. @CaaC (John) should be donating his winnings to a certain somebody who reminded him to get a bet in for this week as his Italian double paid out to continue his relative hot streak. Atalanta smacking a woeful Empoli 0-3 but Lazio needing a 95th minute penalty to beat Fiorentina, to put him back into profit for the season. @Lucas is let down by Accrington who lost 0-1 to Colchester after correctly backing Chesterfield to win for an 11th time in 12 games (they're very generous odds considering in my opinion). @RandoEFC's usual asian handicap falls down this week. Juventus left it until the 97th minute to beat Verona to push all responsibility onto Brighton who didn't even beat Fulham, so it's a loss this time around. You have to feel here for @...Dan who gets his first win of the season at the tenth time of asking yet is still sent to the bottom of the table for the first time all season. He played safe this week and Manchester City made no mistake. Stop the world though. I've finally, finally won a bet. About pissing time too. I was wondering after how utterly perfectly my Hoffenheim pick landed that Manchester City would find a way to fuck it up, or somehow rack up the goals in injury time, but no, persistence pays off and I'm off the mark with what is the second biggest win of the entire season. I bet a lot and I think that's pretty obvious by now, and I'm back in hot form in the real thing too, so I did believe it would arrive here eventually. I'm hoping we won't have to wait the same amount of time for another - as that would take me all the way to the end of January, for some context. It's a very strong week on the whole though, and while a big win in each of the last three weeks has helped prop things up, the numbers are starting to really shift in favour of the forum now. The last three weeks have been the best three of the season, so October has been a hot streak collectively. WEEK 13 STATS Winning bets: 4/8 Winning selections: 10/14 Weekly forum position: +£67.48 (Ranked 1/13) OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 25/94 Winning selections: 84/176 Total forum position: -£131.25

Lucky 13

Think if Man CIty get a 2nd I'm finally home. And there it is. Now no running riot

That's for next week, so while I'll stick this down for round 14, you've not yet had one for round 13 - so you can pick a couple of selections for Sunday or Monday too if you fancy it.

I had a feeling about that one you know. I instinctively thought to back Stuttgart but the more I looked into it the more I thought they'd not only not win but actually lose. Very nice to see that pay off - hopefully the simpler leg will do the business, but we all know what's coming

Can attempt 13 be the lucky one? Stuttgart v Hoffenheim - Away win @ 11/4 (3.75) - This is very much a gamble but I'm that far back now that I think it's worth taking a couple of punts to get back to some sort of respectability. This is very much a trend bucker, but my reason for this is that Hoffenheim have won 4/4 away games this season and Stuttgart, while the surprise package with 7 wins from their 8 games.. well their 7 wins have been against Freiburg (8th), Wolfsburg (9th), Darmstadt (12th), Union Berlin, Koln, Bochum and Mainz (the bottom four) and their other game, against 5th placed RB Leipzig, they lost 5-1. Not just this, but Serhou Guirassy, responsible for 14 of their 25 goals is out. This to me makes them a very risky pick and actually worth even getting against. Manchester United v Manchester City - Away win and under 4.5 goals @ 19/20 (1.95) - Anyone who has followed what I put in here is a fool will know how often I go with the under 4.5 goals angle. Man Utd have picked up a bit in the last three games but I'm not sold at all, they have beaten three sides, the last two in particular that they are vastly superior to and only just gotten the job done. Man City aren't quite the swashbuckling force of last season yet, but that can only really feed into the under 4.5 angle and I think they're still enough better to get the win here. As I've done this on 365 bet builder - the instance where Man City going 2 goals up but drawing 2-2 would also be settled as a winner, albeit that's the only other score that can win here due to under 4.5 goals. £10 returns £73.21.

That is extremely unlucky. I thought Atletico were a great price tonight. I couldn't remember who you had doubled them with so that is a real shame. If you'd landed that then I wonder how far off guaranteed end of season profit you'd have been.

I'm quite pro Newcastle in this game and I think part of it is because I had exactly the same thought pattern about PSG - but I do agree with you that 5.50 is quite juicy. Dortmund seem to be widely not rated, including by myself to be honest, but they do keep getting the results. Newcastle are really quite good though. They've been performing like a top side for 18 months now.

I'm 'too' confident for that game to be honest. If we lose there I don't think I can ever trust again.

You've definitely been quite unlucky I think. Lots of yours have gotten pretty close and just one of them land you're probably 2nd in the table so I don't think you're far off personally. That being said the goals pick was miles off. But then even that - this season the Championship is averaging 2.77 goals a game, so 11 games at that rate in theory should produce 30/31 goals and there being only 24 is pretty harsh. I see the one that I put in here but didn't actually have did win. I really do like the under 4.5 goals angle - think it's certainly worth getting on for our home games as we normally always win but teams don't generally leave themselves open here like they do away. We haven't actually conceded a goal at home since Hull. I'm not risking it against QPR though, they really are that bad.

WEEK 12 - NOT BAD AT ALL Probably had the gloss taken off it by how well last week went, but this week turns in yet another solid performance and is second to only last week, with both the third and fourth best wins of the season both landing this time out. @Pyfish is absolutely on fire, with two good wins in a row meaning he's now absolutely miles in front at the top of the table, and no matter what now he will be in profit at Christmas. Knowledge on League Two is coming in handy as the utterly inept Tranmere are swatted away even by Doncaster. Salah being evens to score against Everton at home feels unbelievably big as well, so that's a good spot. @Machado went early with his bet this week, was offered a reprieve but didn't take it. Russia failing to beat Kenya in a friendly cost him what would've been his biggest win of the season - £12 @CaaC (John) becomes the first player this season to bet on a game that was later postponed. This voided the Ipswich selection and just turned it into a single on Preston, but unfortunately they couldn't beat newly managerless Millwall at home. Should you have gone for the Ipswich win as a single, or if somebody is to pick two games that are both postponed (which is possible given this page does like to play in the lower leagues of England) then the bet would be voided and you would get an extra one to use, but as Preston didn't win, unfortunately this can't be offered this time and it is just a loser. @Lucas takes in his second win of the season and a pretty good one to boot - another where the odds look very generous in hindsight. Bet builders can be the way to go a lot of the time I think. He climbs two places, and hits his best actual position of the season in terms of overall balance. @RandoEFC's asian handicaps again save him from a loss should he have gone for a flat out -1 handicap, as Barcelona could only manage the 1-0 win over Athletic. Tottenham made no mistake against Fulham though, so it's a small win, and he becomes the first player to land 5 wins this season. @Stan's bad run continues, six losses in a row and this one frankly got nowhere near, with only 24 goals scored and to be honest after that I couldn't be bothered to work out how many corners there were. Wouldn't surprise me if that was the lowest scoring day of the season in the Championship, it's had loads of goals this season and that's pretty tame, with a 0-0 and four 1-0s. Not his day. @...Dan loses 10/10 and let down as stated earlier by Troyes who had both an early red card and then went on to miss a penalty in a draw. One of the most infuriating losses yet, particularly after RKC Waalwijk had done the business. I make it 12 defeats from 12, missing both of my games by a goal which was annoying. Once again I was torn on my selection on Gillingham Notts County, I fancied an away win but thought it reeked of goals more. I went to Lillestrom v Valerenga and to be honest I don't think Valerenga would've scored if they were still playing. They were abject, embarrassing and a horrible showing for their local derby. I don't suppose anybody happened to catch the banner at that game that did the rounds? Depicting their manager Geir Bakke as a rat following moving from Lillestrom during the season, a move which hasn't yet aged well. Good experience though going over there, another country ticked off. I suppose the only thing even more perverse than my record is the one who didn't predict went up a place and somebody who actually won a bet went down, but such is the way. It's a pretty good week on the whole. WEEK 12 STATS Winning bets: 3/8 Winning selections: 7/13 Weekly forum position: +£31.91 (2nd/12) OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 21/86 Winning selections: 74/162 Total forum position: -£198.73

That's a thing? Oh fuck me. I've been wanting that for years. Sods law though they had to introduce that in the year it feels like we've nailed our business.

I want to back Leicester but feel like I can't. My record is just too bad and I've coaxed some absolutely nonsense outcomes already this season. I do think Leicester to win and under 4.5 goals at 19/20 is a fantastic price tonight - given we're 1/2 just to win.