Dan

5 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

My offering for this weekend:

Galatasaray host Caykur Rizespor this evening. Rizespor aren't the worst team in the league, in fact they're in the top half. Their away form is terrible though with 3 draws and 7 defeats in their last 10. Travelling to Galatasaray who have a 100% home record this season doesn't look likely to change that. 1.66 should be decent odds for Galatasaray to win by a couple.

I got on Over 2.5 for Palace and Luton when it opened at 2.025. I think these odds are really generous even now at 1.75. Luton games tend to be goal heavy with an average of 3.5 match goals for the season and 8 of their last 9 league matches clearing this line. I won't pretend to be an expert on Glasner but you wouldn't say his appointment is likely to see a reduction in the goals they'll see when compared to Roy Hodgson. Statistically speaking, the last time a Palace match didn't have at least 2 goals was back in October when they drew 0-0 with Forest. 14 of their 19 games since then have seen 3 or more goals. Luton generally manage to score in games but their defence is awful and I'd back Palace to score at least a couple.

£10 returns £30.10

Edit: changed my pick to the Asian version of the same bet which slightly increases the odds. Leaving my original betslip below because I think it's useful if you didn't already know to see the difference in price for the exact same bet. 

I was speaking to a pro gambler about this and he has said if you do singles it is worth looking into things like this, even for things such as -0.5 Asian Handicap (which is literally the same as a win market), the odds are often different.

Bet365 is quite good at leading you down the road of accumulators with the way they've given two goal payout and acca boost.

SkyBet have taken Accafreeze off me after they've clocked I was gaming it although I don't really see how I broke any rules either. Made £430ish from doing it though. Might have to sign my sister up for another round.

On 29/02/2024 at 02:19, Dan said:

WEEK 30 - BARNSTORMING

WEEK 30 STATS
Winning bets: 3/5
Winning selections: 8/10
Weekly forum position: +£97.85 (Ranked 1/30)

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OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 51/198
Winning selections: 172/375
Total forum position: -£319.14

 

Week 30 brings about the best performing week of the season, and I tell you what, it was so close to being even better. Five players, three winners and even the two losers did not get too far off either.

@Lucas closes the gap on @Pyfish with a 3/1 winning bet builder on the League Cup final. One of those that looks easy in hindsight. Only his fourth winner this season, but he seems to save the wins for good ones and the fact he's in comfortable profit despite this is proof of how quickly this game can turn.

@Stan wins prediction of the week and is the biggest riser in the table too - very cynically picking the worst possible outcome for Leicester at the weekend to which all teams duly obliged. A late Leicester collapse at Leeds and the usual late goalfest at Portman Road sealing his biggest win of the season.

@CaaC (John) owes me here for reminding him to get one in for this week as his Monday double pays out to rise back to 7th - his second biggest win of the season too.

Then we come to the genuinely unlucky. @RandoEFC's trip to the French third tier proved fruitful with a comfortable 4-1 home win for Red Star, but he was let down in the goalfest at Kaiserslautern as they failed to land any of the four that occurred. One of the nearest misses of late, but I would argue probably not even the closest of the weekend.

My loss is less about what I did pick, though it's absolute sods law to see that following a Liverpool victory in a low scoring game obliged at genuinely kind odds, that West Ham would blow my other leg apart after six fucking minutes, as their two goals meant it was not possible for my bet to actually win. The absolute sickener was how close I came to putting a double of Crystal Palace to beat Burnley and under 5 goals and Fulham to win at Man Utd - two predictions I can back up in the predictions league, that would've paid out probably the second biggest win of the season and actually clawed me to not far off the bottom. Alas, it's this game, so I'm just not allowed nice things. Though I do happen to remember that my other winner came on the weekend we played QPR away and we face them at home this weekend. I really am clinging onto anything I can here. I'll also be going for pretty high odds picks too because at this point, there really is nothing to lose.

WEEK 31 STATS
Winning bets: 1 / 6
Winning selections: 5 / 11
Weekly forum position: -£40.50 (23/31)

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OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 52 / 204
Winning selections: 177 / 386
Total forum position: -£359.64

Longish shot again.

I'm not confident. They're not a bad side but we've looked well off it lately. The last two performances were woeful on the whole (despite winning at Sunderland) and I think Maresca has lost his nerve somewhat particularly with how much he trusts our squad to effectively rotate. We look shattered to me. Sunderland were toothless and didn't make us pay but Hull are a better side, albeit, they don't actually win loads at home.

I'll say a rare draw. 1-1.

3 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

This is exactly how I felt several months ago when people were sneering at us for calling the Premier League corrupt and asking why we don't blame the club and ownership.

These rules were either brought in to stop the likes of Newcastle "doing a Man City", or to stop rogue owners from mismanaging their clubs to the point of "doing a Leeds", depending on the agenda of the person trying to explain and defend them. All they're doing is turning that mid-lower tier of the Premier League into a circus and it won't get as much attention, but the Reading situation is scandalous as well. Constantly getting hit with points penalties because their owner is fucking mental. Hitting them with more and more points penalties when the guy who owns them clearly doesn't give a fuck is just driving them further into the ground.

Worst of both worlds is exactly right. Clubs having to make competitive sacrifices to offset the poor spending of an incompetent owner and then getting a competitive penalty to hold them account for the actions of an owner that have already harmed the club.

I think what's so depressing, and I'm sure you can relate to this, is just how much yet another non-football intervention is dominating the game. If it isn't VAR, it's FFP. If it isn't FFP, it's PSR. And so on.

This is not to say Everton and Leicester don't deserve some comeuppance for what's been done. I could write a hell of a lot of detail about the things we've gotten wrong in the last 5 years.

But how bad a spectacle is football truly becoming now. Goals decided in a studio. Relegation decided in the courtroom.

It's absolute joyless rubbish.

On 05/03/2024 at 21:07, Stan said:

Saturday 9th March, 2024
Man Utd 1-0 Everton, 12.30
Bournemouth 3-1 Sheff Utd
Crystal Palace 3-2 Luton
Wolves 2-2 Fulham
Arsenal 3-0 Brentford, 17.30

Sunday 10th March, 2024
Aston Villa 2-2 Tottenham, 13.00
Brighton 1-1 Nottm Forest, 14.00
West Ham 3-0 Burnley, 14.00
Liverpool 3-2 Man City, 15.45

Monday 11th March, 2024
Chelsea 1-1 Newcastle, 20.00

Wednesday 13th March, 2024
Bournemouth 1-1 Luton, 19.30

Going to give the table an update tomorrow - let it slip a bit, had quite a bit on.

Tell you what though it's some going to do what we've done  we've landed the worst of both worlds. Cut back enough to get ourselves relegated but ended up breaking the rules anyway.

Not sacking Rodgers months, hell even a year or so beforehand truly one of the most costly decisions a club has made.

1 hour ago, Stan said:

I don't think anybody really knows what the rulings are or what will happen. 

So many clubs could fall foul of it, and it may be a situation where about 7 or 8 clubs start on negative points next season in PL. 

What I do find laughable is that we may be punished by EFL for a rule breach that doesn't necessarily concern them when you look at the seasons involved. 

Also, infuriatingly, is our senior hierarchy who have fucked about for way too long and some of those individuals are so far out of their depth that they've pretty much run us into the ground financially. 

Either way, it's become a non-competitive sport off the pitch. You can risk everything and lose it all, or not risk everything and get fucked anyway. PL only have the interest of a few clubs, the rest can go fuck themselves in their eyes. It's become a bit of a mockery now. 

This is the crux of it for me. It's just starting to render the whole thing pointless. I think we've been stupid with some of our contracts and whatnot but it's become clear, as much as people have pretended otherwise for years that the rules have been brought in to protect a certain hierarchy within the game.

I mean you only have to remember that a few clubs tried to bring down the existing structure and completely got away with it. They're more powerful than the authorities. The negotiations were on the terms of those clubs - not the governing bodies.

I hold both views here that our board / DoF are totally inept and that much was clear last season, but also think that it's abundantly obvious these rules aren't fit for purpose.

5 hours ago, Lucas said:

Feel like you've had quite a few of those type of games this season, especially away from home, but you've done enough to scrape by eachtime.

Which is even more strange really when you raised your game for us only a week or so ago and looked decent. Feels more like that particular performance was more of an anomaly than these one's.

I'm increasingly thinking Maresca's quite negative and it's starting to rub off. I don't get how he can watch us absolutely batter them for 15/20 minutes, spurn two hilarious chances, get the lead anyway and think the answer is just to try and eek it out rather than exert our dominance. Keep pressing, get that 2nd and maybe 3rd. Get the likes of Dewsbury-Hall off and rested for a tough one Saturday.

His instincts are really starting to concern me a bit. I know we won but I thought that was a really bad managerial display. It was a really bad performance, largely through our own doing, entirely attitude / mentality related. We got away with it in a game against a side as vulnerable as it gets.

He's a genuinely good coach but he needs to seriously develop a ruthless streak if he wants to get to the top.

I don't think our slump is over by any means. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm happy to take the win to end the bad run and I think we are approaching the territory of the season where just wins by any way necessary are needed, but I can't pretend I'm not concerned by that second half. We were so much better than them in the first half an hour and should've had it won by then, but we seem to either just lose confidence or massively tire, because they were all over us for most of the second half.

I really think our lack of rotation, or ability to do it effectively is starting to hurt us. I think Casadei is a bigger loss in this regard than people want to admit.

3 hours ago, Stan said:

9-0 record under threat. 

It feels like a monthly occurrence. Didn't happen this time but it could've.

Sheffield United are the biggest waste of space ever in this league.

Just win. I'm getting very scared.

Going to be remarkable seeing what method Southgate invents fudging having this squad at his disposal. Genuinely think England have a fantastic chance.

Luton have all the hallmarks of just falling short. They've given a very good account of themselves but they have that really unfortunate knack of playing well against the good sides but narrowly losing, and then flunking it in the games they're expected to actually do something. I mean they managed the seemingly impossible of losing at home to Burnley & Sheffield United.

Everton are just un-relegatable and Forest's luck knows no bounds either. I think even if Forest get docked some points they'll spawn their way out of it again. They're in trouble next year though.

The bottom half is fascinating - it's going to mean very few dead rubbers as well.

I really do fear for us. We're showing all of the familiar signs. I can't believe that I'm probably now only about 60% sure we get automatics.

I don't like it.

3 hours ago, Lucas said:

The Watkins one came in.

So I'm going to combine this with a Man City Man U bet builder.

Man City to win, Over 2.5 Goals, Foden 1 Shot on target and Casimiro +1 foul.

1.95 odds.

So if this lands, with the 2.50 from Watkins, it will be £48.75 from £10.

 

For that to lose because Casemiro doesn't make a single foul in a derby. The game has gone.

On 29/02/2024 at 10:21, Pyfish said:

Didn't realise I'd forgotten again!

Dangerous for me as I don't want to tempt fate but didn't want to bet on Grimsby so I'm betting on the two teams around us to lose. 

Up to you but you can either cash in Tranmere for a £9.50 win or you can convert this to a double.

On 29/02/2024 at 02:31, Dan said:

Yorkshire! Yorkshire!

This weekend's picks take me to the two Yorkshire derbies in the Championship. With picking a long shot like Huddersfield there isn't loads of science behind it beyond thinking Leeds are due a loss, and that it would be typical of them to serve it up in a local derby like this against a Huddersfield side in not bad form. It has all the hallmarks of a coupon buster for me, and I feel like with Leicester this season, whenever we've had a really bad weekend, a really good one hasn't been far away. 

The other is that I think the odds are again generous. Rotherham are down. They're beaten. They're miles off it and at this point in pretty much freefall. If you were to put together a Championship table since Rohl took charge of Sheffield Wednesday, they would be 14th, winning 9, drawing 2 and losing 12. While Rotherham in the same period have produced 2-7-14 - comfortably the worst in the division. I do think the price is boosted simply because of the league position of Sheffield Wednesday and that the gulf between these two is a bit bigger than the prices suggest, so I think they're worth being with.

So fucking close. I am just doomed to never win.

10 hours ago, Stan said:

Fucked it. 

Genuinely worried we're gonna screw up the autos, let alone 1st.

Can't be losing 3 in a row at this stage. Too bad losing 2 in a row, let alone 2 of them at home and one of them being at a relegation candidate. 

Just not good enough we're not seeing these games out. 

For a side with so many points we don't half lose a lot too. Is that our 4th loss at home?

That was an absolutely dire display. Clueless from 1-90 and QPR did as good a job on us as they could've done. Kept it tight, picked their moments and allowed us very little - exactly what I feared they would do.

Maresca looking increasingly one-dimensional.

Ipswich and Leeds are better than us.

On 26/02/2024 at 16:05, Stan said:

Saturday 2nd March, 2024
Brentford 1-1 Chelsea
Everton 1-1 West Ham
Fulham 2-1 Brighton
Newcastle 1-1 Wolves
Nottm Forest 1-2 Liverpool
Tottenham 3-1 Crystal Palace
Luton 1-2 Aston Villa, 17.30

Sunday 3rd March, 2024
Burnley 1-2 Bournemouth, 13.00
Man City 3-1 Man Utd, 15.30

Monday 4th March, 2024
Sheff Utd 0-3 Arsenal, 20.00

After the Leeds game I was bit twitchy about this. After the Bournemouth win I'm a lot more confident. We have very seldom dropped these types of games but I do think QPR are better than their league position suggests - that being said, it's not a game I'd expect any of our rivals to drop points in. I'll say a 2-0 win. Will be interesting to see who comes in for Vestergaard - Coady was reportedly very unhappy that he didn't get the nod over Ben Nelson. I think after his impressive showing at Bournemouth, Coady has probably earned the spot here even if I would like to see what Nelson can do.

I've got a feeling Leeds or Ipswich drop points this weekend.

It's also a fairly low stress draw. Given when we went into it there was a possiblity of having to face Coventry or Forest for a place at Wembley. It would've been pure nerves. This isn't unwinnable but it's no disgrace if we do go out - but I really want us to go at these.