Dan

I dunno, if you've seen the rest of our picks you'd know. I'll leave with him to decide.

This weekends choice, a slightly more ambitious... Leicester v Hull - Leicester win and both teams to score @ 2/1 (3.00): This is quite a generous price in my opinion for something that all the form tells you will happen. Leicester have won both of our home games 2-1 (in-fact if you include last season and away games, 4 of our last 5 league games have ended in 2-1 wins) whilst not keeping a clean sheet at home in 11 months. Hull let plenty in but are partial to pinching a goal themselves. I have done this on Bet365, so should Leicester go 2-0 up and then Hull get a goal, the bet wins even if Leicester don't go on to win the game. Arsenal v Manchester United - Arsenal win and both teams to score @ 21/10 (3.10): This is a very similar rationale but Arsenal are good at home, score plenty but hardly ever seem to keep a clean sheet. The Emirates is very goal friendly and Arsenal with with BTTS paid out in 11 of their 19 home games last season, including a 3-2 win in this fixture. As per the Leicester game, as I've done it as a bet builder, an Arsenal 2 goal lead with any Manchester United goal means a bet win even if Arsenal go on to not win the game. £10 returns £93.

I'm still not convinced anything more happens with us. Often ends up going this way on deadline day. Loads of talk because we're a player or two short on where we should be but it doesn't actually come to fruition.

Got to laugh haven't you - gets the move to the Championship when it actually acts to our detriment

Good grief if you land one of these. It's one thing going for scorelines but you go for pretty ambitious ones!

WEEK 4 - THE CASE FOR SINGLES No this isn't Tinders latest advert, but a mere observation made that I'll post later on. Quite comfortably the forum's collective best effort yet, although disappointingly we do still post a loss overall, however we've almost doubled our entirety of winning selections so far so we're definitely picking up a little bit. @Storts lands the games biggest win yet with his double. Aston Villa paying out quite comfortably in their win at Burnley, although Man City made things a lot more tense than many expected with their 1-2 win at Bramall Lane. This game, and the late flurry of goals killed two birds with one stone as @Pyfish scraped his first victory of the season, taking him straight up to 2nd place from joint bottom. Chelsea's 3-0 win over Luton completed the double, for a nice win to get things going. @Stan can once again be deemed very unlucky as the chaos at Wrexham was tempered somewhat, though the stats paint quite the onslaught and Wrexham once again conceded out of very little against them - winning the xG battle quite considerably. His other game at Gateshead sailed in with a 1-3 victory for Woking. @CaaC (John)'s shot for the stars didn't really come close, and he was the only one of the eight to predict who didn't land a selection this week. This again is progress. We move on to my picks. This double I think totally sums up my betting life - I have far more success on foreign football and leagues I never really watch than ones that I follow a bit closer. I had no idea at all how Botafogo were so short to win this game, it appears to me the bookies really don't rate them like they should do as they sailed to a 3-0 victory. Bolton however didn't bounce back and could only draw 1-1 at Burton, infuriatingly, as a Bolton winner would've left me top of the league. @Lucas fell into what I deem the first huge trap of the season, totally understandably and with the form being shown I think it was a fairly generous price offered, but we have seen this sort of thing pan out in these ridiculous leagues way too many times now. It's a shame because his Norwich pick to win at Huddersfield absolutely rocketed in, in what was the best priced single to win this weekend. @RandoEFC again can be deemed unlucky, saved somewhat in unlikely circumstances in the Newcastle Liverpool game, but Arsenal had a rare off day at home to Fulham and both of their goals came in the second half. It's a loss overall, but if you had backed singles on every selection, the forum would've done slightly better, albeit still not quite in profit either. Plenty to play with this week coming up, which starts from now. WEEK 4 STATS Winning bets: 2/7 (28.5%) Winning selections: 8/14 (57.14%) Weekly forum position: -£23.01 OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 3/28 (10.7%) Winning selections: 17/55 (30.9%) Total forum position: -£212.61

He reminds me a little bit of Knockaert from watching that game. Pretty nimble, technically sound, looks like he can create and has a bit of natural flair, but he's strikingly slow. Don't think that'll be a big issue in this league though.

Looks like we're in for a pretty mad few days. Finally some departures that will give us some space to breathe. Castagne to Fulham is virtually done, that's probably £12mil or something for a player who hasn't played a minute for us this season and who doesn't want to be here, who'd have been on a decent wage gone. I thought Castagne was decent but nothing special, but I think we were quite spoilt in that position for years to be honest, Ricardo it's frankly laughable is playing in this division, Justin as well another who injury has really scuppered after he'd broken into the England setup. Castagne is a weird player - sort of buying into the theory he's more of a wing back than a full back. Ndidi is going to Forest as well by the sounds of it. I'm a bit disappointed it's Forest of all teams, but with a year left and him not being a natural fit to Maresca's system I'm happy to part ways. His drop off is really quite something. He was in the discussion for the best DMs in the Premier League just 2-3 years ago and he's completely fallen off. At Forest I think he'd probably be more suited to their game as they seem to low block against basically everybody so it should play to his strengths more, but then I don't know if it's just a bad fit for us in 2023 or whether it's that he really has lost it. These two departures free up some money for us, meaning we'll be able to bring in another three players I'm hoping for. I wanted five this month. Casadei is in, Yunus Akgun is in, it's apparent that Sporting Lisbon winger Abdul Fatawu Issahaku is coming as well on loan. I think we're probably going to buy Harwood-Bellis, and I've got a feeling we might sign Ilias Chair too. Get those three and we have absolutely no excuses to not get automatics frankly. We've won 4/4 with numerous square pegs in round holes, which is why I've given us the benefit of the doubt on the pretty mediocre performances. With better tactical fits I'm expecting to see an improvement in the performances because I'm not sure we can sustain winning like this. I think we now have to just bite the bullet on Iheanacho and accept there's a chance he goes for nothing in a year. It's simply not worth the risk losing him. If we lost him or Daka we would need a striker too.

Well done boys. Better stuff. I'm fucked off I didn't have Villa. Really big price. There's a gaping chasm in this league.

I've seen it far too many times in the EFL with games like that Gillingham one. Gillingham hadn't been all that convincing apparently - sounds obvious but they aren't scoring enough. Another absolutely muck weekend in here. This is turning into a disaster! Unsure what you're entering this week @CaaC (John) I had the two scores (Rangers & Spurs games) for you but were the horses just general bets?

I like that bottom one. Good pick.

The weekend is here, get your bets in!

We're not half frustrating. We seem to haggle and haggle over selling players we won't use at all yet we're loaning Viktor Krisitiansen to Bologna for an absolute pittance. We need players off the wage bill to free up room to get signings in. This isn't really going to help at all. Don't really understand it. Maresca's even said he'd use him as backup.

That price on the first game looks unbelievable. I'm weary of overreacting to outcome bias but their games are averaging 6.5 goals a game, following 3.46 a game on average last season. This is clearly partly by design and I think you've got to take goals in their games whenever offered it frankly. They're massively underperforming at their own end, they seem to have concede from every other shot they face, but they are creating plenty.

They're good odds I agree. I think I will likely have it myself this weekend in some form. Though not entirely convinced they can sustain it scoring this few.

My bet this week is... Burton v Bolton (1.90) - Bolton had started the season fantastically but fell to a shock result by Wigan last week, though it had all the markings of a bit of a freak of a result, and Wigan have started really well too. I'd make Bolton far shorter to win this than what is offered and feel it's an overreaction to the Wigan result - particularly given how dreadful Burton have been so far in nearly every game, with just one point and one goal from their four games so far. Botafogo v Bahia (1.70) - This price was actually higher before I put it on, and it's come down since, but it seems like giving money away to me. Botafogo are running away with the Brazilian league, have claimed 10 wins from 10 at home and face a Bahia side sat 16th out of 20 and with 6 points from their 10 away games (and only 4 goals scored). This is on the face of it an absolute banker home victory and I can only imagine it isn't being treated as such due to Botafogo's season having a bit of a surprise factor, as they weren't fancied to do this. £10 returns £32.30.

Gillingham with 100% wins and Colchester with 100% defeats. I'm braced.

£10 on both. May introduce where you can have two £5 singles though. Hmm.

I think nothing is quite as telling about the performance levels being demonstrated here as the fact the two risers of the week were the ones who either forgot to bet or wisely chose to not bother (@Storts @CaaC (John)) as once again we have 100% of predictions falling. Not quite as bad as last week, but ultimately it's damage limitation. Starting from the top, and the only profitable member is no more as @Stan is inches away from a second victory that would've taken him around £40 up. Wrexham v Swindon was so chaotic that it's even forced the Wrexham goalkeeper into retirement, I think it's safe to say you won't get a price as big as that on the same market for a Wrexham game for a long time, as their four games have averaged an astonishing 6.5 goals each. Crewe produced their third comeback from 0-2 down in four matches to get a 2-2 draw, the corners sailing in but the cards unfortunately not. Very unlucky this week. @...Dan has also come close. My old Football Manager icons FC Andorra produced a 3-2 win over Cartagena, but Antwerp blew it late at Leuven to deny him a steady £21.50 win. He wasn't the only one done by Antwerp as I had them to win with over 1.5 goals in the game. Leuven's equaliser of course sealing one leg of the bet and breaking the other. Harry Kane naturally scored just the one. @RandoEFClanded one of his selections but was let down by Chelsea in the other. I had Chelsea myself on Sunday as I'd been quite encouraged by their opener, but they folded similarly to last season. @Lucasonce again manages to pick two favourites who both go on to lose their game, while @Pyfishalso fails to land either of his selections after Man City come up short in the super cup in normal time, while Salah naturally scores, but neither the first or last goal, such is the way of the tipping game. Onto the next week. We've got to start landing something soon surely. The stats make for grim reading! WEEK 3 STATS Winning bets: 0/6 (0%) Winning selections: 3/12 (25%) Weekly forum position: -£60.00 OVERALL STATS Winning bets: 1/21 (4.8%) Winning selections: 9/41 (22%) Total forum position: -£189.60

Absolute tripe again. This page really is cursed. Still time for some others tomorrow.

I've got both of those games on a BTTS so it bodes well. Or badly if you look through this thread.

Well that's me bust. Antwerp have bottled it as well. This page is a virtual money black hole.

It's looking decent...

This has fallen hasn't it? That was Man City to win in 90, rather than win the trophy, right?

When are people going to admit it's been a complete disaster. I didn't realise quite the scale of what it had taken from the game until I started witnessing games without it again. I cannot explain how big a disaster it is that so many reactions to goals are muted - this is football eating itself. To make matters worse, you still get games like last night. So the opening weekend of the Premier League has been another weekend of embarrassment, we're still getting contentious decisions - so we're getting very few pros and so many cons. Nobody will never convince me it's anything other than the biggest assault on any sport.