Dan

Off to a flyer, so I either get a win here or Leicester beat Coventry. Think I just about favour the loss in this.

Crikey these are my sorts of picks. Lovely work. I might just award you the win for the selections alone!

Hadn't thought of that, but I don't see why not, I'll leave it up to everybody.

I had a feeling he'll play against Coventry and it scares me. I think bar passing, which he's very hit and miss with (he does play the occasionally excellent one) he's completely terrible, he's weak, clumsy and he can't defend at all. The bloke is awful and I've tried with him. Sunday was a reminder that he needs to go.

I think we have a very good squad for this level but it's totally imbalanced and we won't be promoted without some more quite substantial changes.

Mavididi official.

Nah you just lose your hypothetical tenner for the week. I'm a decimal user too and it's how it'll be presented in the table. If you know you know, and you clearly know.

So that's our pre-season wrapped up, with a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in Singapore. I watched the game but admittedly extremely tired so I could be off the mark but I thought we actually looked really neat and cohesive for 25 minutes, the better team for me, but Liverpool got their goal and we just capitulated. I think the key was they stopped pressing us right from the front and started closing off passing lanes instead, and we had no answer. Liverpool were sharp but we know they can do that to teams. It tops off what's been an absolute joke of a pre-season and the club themselves deserve nothing but a humiliation next week for the way we've gotten our priorities all wrong. The only thing that reassures me about things is that Maresca is quite clearly of the same mindset of me that it's all an absolute joke and I don't think he'll allow the team themselves the same complacency and mindset that the clowns above Maresca blatantly have. It's been such a farce. I knew when we arranged it it seemed ridiculous yet the whole thing somehow fell short of my extremely low expectations. Quite the achievement. We go into the Coventry game with just four signings. So much for the big reset. It'll probably be five in the next couple of days as Mavididi sounds done but they've decided to postpone that. Wouldn't want anything that might improve our team to distract those in Thailand and Singapore from the PR roadshow. Maresca is being hung out to dry already and I'm already sensing a clash down the line. This is a quite negative post when I still believe we are fixable and believe we have a decent chance to get promoted, but I'll believe it when I see it with us now. I think we have an exciting coach with fresh ideas for the team but is having his tough job made tougher by those above him. I know it's probably an alien concept to our director of football but Maresca actually needs this to work - if he flunks this, that'll be two failed jobs from two for him and that probably kills his managerial career at any decent level before it's gotten going. Coventry on the opening day as well. I get the whole mindset of giving him time and that you can expect some turbulence early doors, but that's a fixture that is going to yield pretty emotional response whatever the outcome. Good luck Enzo, I'm with you - as you can see below, he's clearly realised what he's up against.

The problem is that it isn't really a market and it's something they do for basically any game. If I have you to beat Cardiff on 365 and you go 2 up it pays out. I'm inclined to just exclude this part of it although it depends how much people want to transfer what they read in here to betting themselves - if they do at all. I will probably just ignore these sorts of things.

Yep that's all good. I think when I originally ran this I liked seeing if anybody had found any good value and I stole some of them myself

Week one starting from Tuesday so feel free to get something in for between then and Mondays games! @Stan @Storts @Lucas @RandoEFC @CaaC (John) @...Dan

PaddyPower also, it's just in the context of the league itself - I don't know if I should include it within peoples scores as it's almost certainly going to occur at one point.

Got a slight dilemma on this, I want to make the game more about your actual selections of results / games than the selection of bookmaker. My dilemma is do we include things such as two goal payout. For anybody unaware, Bet365 (who I generally use) have an offer on most of the well known leagues where if a team goes two goals ahead the bet is settled. So if I was to have Southampton to win at Sheffield Wednesday, they go 2-0 up but then end up drawing or losing, the bet is still settled as a winner, though if I did that on another bookmaker that isn't necessarily going to apply.

Most disappointingly, the longer Leicester go on failing to announce a signing that was supposedly done at the weekend (with doubts creeping in) added to the generally piss poor pre-season we've opted to inflict on ourselves, then I'm going to have to take Coventry or draw on the opening day of the season. Leicester are 1/2 (1.50) to win the game. That is just simply too short in my opinion. I think our team is still superior to Coventry's, but we are missing a hell of a lot of the firepower. We have, in total, two players you could class as attacking midfielders or wingers and they are Marc Albrighton and Wanya Marcal-Madivadua. Two players who won't be close to first choice this season. The game has come too early. Even if Mavididi is signed as expected, I think we're missing quite a bit and I can't go into this game taking us at a price like that. Coventry have lost Gyokeres and are likely to lose Hamer too, but they are a good unit, they're a club going in the right direction after a genuinely horrific couple of decades. I think they've a good chance of getting a point here. They do have a mental block at this ground though, they've never won here, so that's why I won't take them outright to win the game but I can see a draw, but I'll play safe and cover both options. Coventry or draw at Leicester - 6/4 (2.50). Doubled with my Southampton pick gives me a double returning £61.25 off a tenner if I win. I must say I thought it would take longer than this to go against Leicester but welcome back football!

Six entries is a steady start - assuming you're in too @Storts as you said you fancied it in another thread. We're laughing anyway. The first week will run from Tuesday 1st August to Monday 7th August so you're all welcome to make picks for that already even if they're early Champions League qualifiers / womens World Cup etc... I already know one of mine is Southampton to win at Sheffield Wednesday. 2.45 on 365 which I think is a great price - think they're making that game out to be a lot more even than it is, Southampton a far superior squad in generally better knick for me, even if it is going to be a pretty tough atmosphere.

I know Mavididi has basically signed but where's this announcement at

All hypothetical and yep like I say, one of the good parts of it is you can enter it in March and win the league.

I plan to! Like I say though sometimes simply not playing works

In the Championship it just looks desperate. What price can you really put on being undercooked in a game like Coventry at home? They have never won at our current ground and they would love nothing more. I think in many ways it's the worst possible opening fixture we could have and we've put even more obstacles in our way for it. All for another stupid vanity project. If we're actually out in Thailand we ought to get a couple of games arranged with some of their teams. It's better than nothing. I need to start giving pod that a listen again. Maguire is particularly brilliant.

I'd love to know the amount of money we actually generate for this. We won't even play either game we were meant to play in Thailand (though we still have Singapore in a week). This was agreed when our top flight status was under real threat meaning it was always likely to scupper our plans but the fact we aren't even going to get a game out of it. The crowd as well was an embarrassment. It was played in a fifty thousand stadium so I anticipated a decent crowd but I think literally about 7,000 showed up and of those, you're pushing even 1,000 were there supporting us. This should be a wake up call to the club again. If you want to be a relevant 'brand' then how about focus your energy into getting us promoted. We're small-fry outside of this country if we aren't in the top flight. I've actually felt quite positive about things for the first time in a couple of years but this is a reminder that it's still a circus at heart. We'll have gained next to nothing for this while we're going to go into our opener (at home to our local rivals no less) undercooked.

The circus continues. Just embarrassing again.

It's whichever you use to be honest. You find a price for something just stick it in here and I'll add it.

As spoken of in another thread, the tipping game is back and I'll be running it and updating it weekly. This is ultimately a game for the gamblers who don't want to actually gamble. Basically, anyone who enters is given an imaginary £10 bet to place on either a single or double for the week. The selections don't have to be on the same day but both have to win for you to win that week. The winner is whoever comes out of the season with the best balance - so there's actually no obligation to play every week and missing a week doesn't have you guaranteed to fall behind like it is on a prediction league. You can actually win the league just simply by not losing anything! This was quite a good thread in the past as it actually gave you some decent tips for games for the week. Entirely hypothetical but just for an example I will say, for the first week, double of Southampton to win at Sheffield Wednesday (7/5) and Leicester to beat Coventry (1/2) - a £10 double on those two at those prices would return £36, so for that week I'm £26 up, or if one of them loses then of course I'm £10 down. You can of course just pick a single too if you only fancy the one thing, and you can even take a 1/10 single if needs be, just be aware you're only going to be £1 up when you win so it's a balancing act! You can have your money on anything providing the bookies offer a price for it. You can go to the most obscure of leagues and the most obscure of selections. If you fancy Sturm Graz to have more corners than Wolfsberger when they meet, then by all means, go for it. Now I tend for it to be football based on the whole (100% of my picks will be on football), however if there is something else you fancy on another sport then you are welcome to have that. Just let me know the selection(s) and the price you've seen. You can screenshot it as proof, however, I will trust you haven't just made the odds up especially given I'm somebody who pisses around on bookies sites even with no intention to place a bet and have a bit of an interest in odds in general, so I'll have a good idea if you're bullshitting (though I don't think anybody actually will anyway). Put your name in here if you are interested, I know a few have already said they are, and I'll ping a reminder weekly probably on Monday night for the week ahead and run the first week from Tuesday 1st August - Monday 7th August. I will run it Tuesday to Monday as the football calendar generally will have the weekends football stretching as far as that so it'll make it less confusing - this obviously includes anything from that week too, so if there are European games, by all means have it on that. I'm going to run it over 44 weeks right up until the week of the Champions League final. International weekends are included, as I say, you can throw other sports in if you absolutely wish and think you've seen the value there, and if you aren't interested in that week, you simply don't have to play and can save your hypothetical money. We're even lucky enough that boxing day falls on a Tuesday this year so week 22 will cover the festive week perfectly. Any questions, let me know, but think that'll cover the majority though.

Nor us by the sounds of it as he seems to have been sent straight to Leuven

Yeah I'm quite on board with that signing. He's scored at a rate of 1 in 3 from the wing for a bang average French side over three seasons. That's a smart buy on the face of it. Quite liking our incomings on the whole but it sounds like the usual process for sales - we need to just take the hit on some of these players now. Getting their wages off is the priority. The amount of times it sounds like we've cost a sale on the basis of a couple of million difference in fee, to then pay that out within 6 months in the players wages while they make about 4 appearances is infuriating.