Dan

Less impressed with Maresca by the week. It really is like he's just downloaded a tactic on FM, plugged it in and stuck it on holiday mode for a year. The efficiency has worn off, there's no surprise element, our patterns are predictable. We're just so sickeningly casual about it all. We've been doing this nonsense for years now and he's added to the problem rather than fixed it.

Have a bit of a thought on next season - I'm tempted to make it so you can stake either £5, £10 or £20 on any given week. Obviously this is just pretty much allowing you to back something heavily or lightly and obviously you'll take a harder hit should you lose.

Happy to stick with just tenners but think it could make it a bit more dynamic (not sure this is the word but )

16 hours ago, Dan said:

This is the sort of fixture that would be extremely us to totally flunk, but you do get the feeling we've gotten back into our rhythm somewhat in the past week. He's even talking about bloody rotating the team again and I mean that in a positive way. He was playing it superbly early season often making 5/6 changes for a midweek game and seeing next to no dropoff.

I think this has potential to be a bad night but I want to think we brush it aside like we did early season. They've stepped it up the past couple of games and I've not been used to that from us in this month of the season.

I'll be optimistic and say 0-2 win, after weeks of saying we'll lose this 1-0.

Never ignore your gut instinct. Fuck off Leicester.

We've got to do it now. We've got arguably the best run in, top spot and the game in hand. We can even afford a loss and still win the league.

This is the sort of fixture that would be extremely us to totally flunk, but you do get the feeling we've gotten back into our rhythm somewhat in the past week. He's even talking about bloody rotating the team again and I mean that in a positive way. He was playing it superbly early season often making 5/6 changes for a midweek game and seeing next to no dropoff.

I think this has potential to be a bad night but I want to think we brush it aside like we did early season. They've stepped it up the past couple of games and I've not been used to that from us in this month of the season.

I'll be optimistic and say 0-2 win, after weeks of saying we'll lose this 1-0.

On 05/04/2024 at 01:16, Dan said:

New tactic because I'm so bad at this I might as well just utilise it.

 you know what I've been doing this wrong all season haven't I? I could've promoted Leicester by February.

17 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Off topic, but a mate of mine mentioned that Disney are looking to go down the Netflix route of cracking down on password sharing. It just makes me laugh that the likes of Sky, Netflix etc piss and moan about piracy and all that, only to push you towards IPTV with continuous adverts, price increases etc.

I quite openly use it. It'll always be an option while they continue to offer this piss poor value for money service.

My god what a perfect day. Late winner and both of those two lose. It's ours to blow again from here.

Fair play they have genuinely responded from that shocker on Good Friday. Six more to go and we even have the wiggle room to drop a game. I think we do it now.

9 hours ago, Lucas said:

People wonder why Leeds fans sing "Sky TV, are fucking shit..."

Well, not content with moving our away game with Middlesbrough to a Monday night, they've now moved the away game at QPR to a Friday.

So from both games being 7 days apart, we've now got to to go to Boro and QPR in the space of 5 days, the penultimate week of the season. Last sort of thing you're wanting as you come to the end if a gruelling season.

This will mean 7 out of our last 8 have been moved for Sky and the total for the season is beyond ridiculous compared tot he others. They've well and truly milked this cash cow dry.

I raise you 8 of our last 9. Pretty much exclusively dog shit kick off times too. Will only get worse in this league next season as well.

It's in peoples interests to go IPTV.

On 04/04/2024 at 22:12, RandoEFC said:

Yeah and don't forget the caving in to the five subs rule, getting rid of various extra time, replays, two legged cup ties that all play into the hands of the clubs with the biggest squads and the biggest fixture lists and limit further the chances for clubs down the pyramid to earn the gate money lottery.

I'm still yet to hear a word from any of the Super League Six managers about having six group games in each of the European tournaments, and extending said tournaments by allowing teams that finish 3rd to drop down to the one below for the knockout rounds. All unnecessary bollocks to generate extra lucrative fixtures but when it comes to travelling down to Bristol Rovers for an FA Cup 4th round replay because your second string of £150k a week players couldn't put their £15k a week squad to bed at the first attempt, it's "inhumane what we're asking of these players with this fixture list".

You could go on all day really.

Eight group games from next season. Hilarious how anybody ever fell for this fatigue line. All it ever was was brinkmanship, which the laughably weak authorities fall for every time.

Said it a few times on here lately and I'll say it again - remember the punishment the six super league clubs got for trying to dismantle the structure of the league system less than three years ago? Me neither. And that should tell you who really holds the cards.

I was thinking about how you penalise these clubs and I wonder if embargos are the way to go. The gripe I have with what they've done to us three clubs is that we're in danger of entering a perpetual cycle where we just break rule after rule as they suffocate us and send us tumbling further and further down. At least with a transfer embargo you can't actually rack up any more serious debt beyond wages.

The irony is there are periods of time clubs would be better off for it. I firmly believe if we'd been under an embargo in 2021 we'd have come out of it better.

When we lost to Spurs 2-3 a couple of years ago we let in goals in the 95th and 96th minute and it was the latest a team has led a Premier League game and lost.

I know the added time has changed the game somewhat but that's been beaten at least four times since. It's gotten to the point where it doesn't even massively surprise you.

On 01/04/2024 at 19:27, Stan said:

Saturday 6th April, 2024
Crystal Palace 0-2 Man City, 12.30
Aston Villa 3-1 Brentford
Everton 1-0 Burnley
Fulham 1-1 Newcastle
Luton 2-2 Bournemouth
Wolves 2-1 West Ham
Brighton 0-2 Arsenal, 17.30

Sunday 7th April, 2024
Man Utd 1-3 Liverpool, 15.30
Sheff Utd 1-3 Chelsea, 17.30
Tottenham 2-1 Nottm Forest, 18.00

2 hours ago, Stan said:

I though about doing this too

So will do similar 

That top one is really good I think. If Ipswich are going to win you can see there being a few goals.

All must wins but this is probably our kindest remaining fixture. You can forget it if we blow this.

New tactic because I'm so bad at this I might as well just utilise it.

Just now, Dan said:

WEEK 34 - ABSOLUTE DISASTER

WEEK 34 STATS
Winning bets: 0 / 5
Winning selections: 0 / 10
Weekly forum position: -£50.00 (Ranked 28/34)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 56 / 221
Winning selections: 181 / 407
Total forum position: -£391.13

WEEK 35 - SLIGHTLY BETTER

WEEK 35 STATS
Winning bets: 1 / 5
Winning selections: 5 / 10
Weekly forum position: -£21.20 (Ranked 20/35)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 56 / 221
Winning selections: 181 / 407
Total forum position: -£412.34

On 19/03/2024 at 19:06, Dan said:

WEEK 33 - VERY SOLID

WEEK 33 STATS
Winning bets: 4 / 7
Winning selections: 8 / 12
Weekly forum position: +78.51 (Ranked 3/33)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 56 / 216
Winning selections: 181 / 397
Total forum position: -£341.13

 

This was a much better showing, in both how quickly I got the table out and the general performance on show, with it being just the second time all season that four people posted a winner.

It was actually a really quite impressive showing in general. Shown in the overall balance of course, but even those who lost this week all either landed a good pick or came very close to doing so.

@Lucas returns to the top of the table following a 3/1 success on the Sky Bet boosts. Always nice to see Sky taking a hit. I'm very bitter about them stealing acca freeze away from me. It's looking like a two way title battle at the minute between him and @Pyfish who loses top spot for the first time since January. A fantastic pick on the Luton Forest game where he essentially needed the game to end 1-1 or 2-1 either way, a quite niche pick but a winner, but let down by Man City only getting the 2 goals against Newcastle despite having them both by the half hour mark.

@Stan becomes the third player to enter profit in this weeks table - the first time that has happened since October. I'm spotting a trend in cynicism in his picks which seems to be paying dividends as we approach the business end of the season. Funny that. Ipswich and over 2.5 seems to be a pretty nailed on pick just about every time they play at home, and it was always pretty likely to happen in Chelsea v Leicester too. Good odds considering.

@...Dan makes a return after a few weeks out and despite this run stretching back to November, this makes it 4 wins in 6 for him following two away wins. Rijeka winning 0-1 in a game they appeared to completely dominate, and Leipzig producing similar but in far more clinical fashion, winning 1-5 at Koln.

@CaaC (John) picks up a good win having backed a score draw successfully. I have to say when I saw that I considered backing it myself, it felt extremely 1-1 to me, although it appears Stockley Park saved him somewhat. We seem to have a bit of a knack in this game of picking postponed matches, but in this case John took the void and the £33.33 win.

@RandoEFC is the only player in the game to not claim any win on a selection this weekend with both corner picks falling two short of what was required, which is pretty unlucky.

I now hold the very unwanted title of landing 20 straight losses which, as I keep stressing just seems implausible. I think when I started this, I quietly fancied myself to do really well at it so this has been a bit of a humiliation considering. But my god I don't get any luck do I. Successfully landing Chelsea beating us and BTTS (again at very decent odds), bloody hell, I even said 4-2 on the day. But Huddersfield get a red card at Rotherham and draw the game, so once again I think bad variance has stuffed me because Rotherham are genuine no-hopers and 11 v 11 I think Huddersfield to win the game. There's no point in me trying to pick anything under evens now either to be honest, there are only 11 more attempts to claw this back. The worst case scenario for me is I finish on around -£380 given there's still a £25 to use, so I've got to somehow try and make that much out of it. I'm due a bloody win anyway.

WEEK 34 - ABSOLUTE DISASTER

WEEK 34 STATS
Winning bets: 0 / 5
Winning selections: 0 / 10
Weekly forum position: -£50.00 (Ranked 28/34)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 56 / 221
Winning selections: 181 / 407
Total forum position: -£391.13

Really slacking on tables, have two weeks worth coming up shortly.

I feel a lot more confident having watched the Norwich game - but then there is a part of me that thought they played right into our hands. They executed virtually nothing that works against us.

30 minutes ago, The Palace Fan said:

That's pretty shocking. It feels like promotion or real trouble.

The best case scenario is promotion, a fire sale before July and then into the Premier League with a weakened squad and a points deduction. Basically an even safer bet for relegation than Sheffield United were this season, an absolute complete certainty and we then go from there - but to then probably be hit by the EFL when we get back.

It's disgusting mismanagement. Some of the absolute worst in English football. 115% wages to turnover  what the fuck are they doing!!!!!!

This idiot is cut from a similar cloth to Chansiri. Wants to take all the plaudits for anything good that's happened (which I would argue most of which was residue from the previous years) while shirking responsibility for everything else. Nobody accountable. The difference between him and Chansiri is that Chansiri didn't inherit a solid Premier League club. Put him in charge of Brighton for five years and I think this is the sort of outcome you get.

It's unforgivable. What will it take for them to self reflect?

£90mil of losses despite selling Fofana and Maddison. It's so staggering you can't believe it.

On 27/03/2024 at 14:52, Stan said:

Tuesday 2nd April, 2024
Newcastle 2-1 Everton
Nottm Forest 1-1 Fulham
Bournemouth 2-2 Crystal Palace, 19.45
Burnley 2-1 Wolves, 19.45
West Ham 2-3 Tottenham, 20.15

Wednesday 3rd April, 2024
Arsenal 4-1 Luton
Brentford 3-3 Brighton
Man City 1-0 Aston Villa, 20.15

Thursday 4th April, 2024
Liverpool 5-0 Sheff Utd
Chelsea 2-2 Man Utd, 20.15

6 hours ago, Danny said:

Honestly I think it's so normal having a slump in the season when you did, final run of games now after the International break, more days between matches so more training to do, don't see why you can't pick your form back up.

We've gone beyond slumping in recent years though. There are slumps and then there are collapses. We've produced the latter in three of the last four seasons and that's no exaggeration.

Today was a big positive but we're not out the mire yet. The big thing is having players back from injury. The manager has proven himself extremely one-dimensional in recent weeks though.

I have to say for all my extreme bashing of us we did well today. Responded in what was becoming a quite toxic environment and frankly dominated most of that game. We looked a level above them today. Much better. But it's just a start. We need that seven more times.

Lets hope the rest of our opposition plays at the same level as Norwich's league position implies. If that's what 6th in the league are going to serve up then good grief.