Dan

It is quite remarkable how many times we draw Chelsea in the FA Cup and not just that, but how many times we get them at this very round. It's the 4th time in 13 years we've had Chelsea in the FA Cup quarters - pretty mad really.

I think the likelihood is a heartbreaking defeat like what Leeds and Newcastle suffered before - I think we'll give a good account of ourselves but ultimately drop out.

I'm more hopeful after that showing at Bournemouth though - for those who weren't aware, we changed 9 players from our first team game to their 2 and ended up beating a Premier League side away. A really, really good result.

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.

On 20/02/2024 at 03:57, Dan said:

WEEK 29 - USUAL SERVICE

WEEK 29 STATS
Winning bets: 2/7
Winning selections: 6/13
Weekly forum position: -£16.19 (Ranked 16/29)

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OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 48/193
Winning selections: 164/365
Total forum position: -£416.99

 

A fairly average week this time out with no substantial wins but enough to keep things semi respectable, particularly compared to some recent weeks, albeit it is still a loss - we've played 29 weeks and we've lost on 19 of them, with myself contributing a remarkable 28 times.

@Pyfish makes a return to the league with a win, landing the smallest odds winner of the season on one selection (which came quite close for comfort actually) but padding it out with a good pick in Solanke to score at Newcastle, for a steady 1.5 point win, and just under a £50 gap to second placed @Lucas who came extremely close to taking top spot in spite of this, putting together a pretty ambitious bet builder and as often seems to happen on them, is let down by what appears on the face of it one of the safest legs. A real piss-take.

@...Dan returns with a loss having picked two duds in Zwolle and Pau - although looking to the stats tells me Zwolle were victims of a smash and grab. Pau were 2 down quite early on though in what's a fairly low scoring league.

@Stan comes mightily close to a good win himself, missing by just one corner on the Sydney Adelaide game while Portsmouth v Reading pays out a home win with over 2 goals being scored. That exact fixture ended 7-4 in a Premier League game in 2007, so it was never in doubt. In-fact Stan and Lucas wins would've taken us to nearly our biggest win of the season. Fine margins.

@RandoEFC is the only change in the table this week following a remarkable late turnaround in Holland and then a very safe winner in Rangers and under 5 goals. He leaps ahead of @CaaC (John) who's Monday picks produced a double blank.

And as ever, we finish with me losing. This is genuinely embarrassing at this point. How is it even possible to lose 28 times out of 29?  For some context, that rate of return implies that I should've been taking bets pretty much at two 5/1 teams per weekend, but I certainly haven't been doing that. Incredible. Absolutely abysmal.

As for the bet freeze. On Sky now you have the option to 'freeze' a team when they go ahead so essentially paid out as a winner. You can do this up to five times in a week, the bet must have 5 teams or more in it, and the maximum stake on the acca is £20. But what I've started doing, and have managed to land in my fourth attempt having 'frozen' Bochum to beat Bayern (albeit pointlessly as Bochum ended up winning anyway), is picking four fairly safe picks (easier said than done granted) and then one big outsider to freeze on the off chance that they go ahead at any point in the game. So basically, you are getting the 8/1 odds that Bochum were to win the game changed to 8/1 on Bochum to have the lead at any point during the game. I won £92 from a fiver and I honestly think at the rate you this happens, you're surely going to profit. I've seen people on Twitter winning thousands doing it. Somebody landed Vietnam going ahead against Japan at 125/1  for a little more context, I did it earlier on Moreirense v Sporting, backing Moreirense at 8/1. They lost 0-2 so it didn't matter, but I happened to notice in play, Moreirense were 3/1 to score the first goal at 0-0, so you are basically getting enormously boosted prices - bear in mind the possibility of Moreirense going behind and then ahead again means the 'real' odds are actually probably something like 11/4, and you can get it at 8/1 if you're alert enough to freeze the selection. I've done 7 bets in total, lost 6, won 1, but I'm £57 up. Going to do it with fivers until I get to a few hundred and then up the ante. Will keep you posted how it goes, but I'm convinced there's good money in this.

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.

4 hours ago, Danny said:

Do you not think Chelsea losing that killer instinct is down to the ownership and their transfer model rather than Poch?

Pochettino is a symptom of the ownership. He's a busted flush.

Pochettino's never been able to get sides over the line but you could at least a few years ago have made a case that he would take them somewhere close. I don't even think you can even make that case for him anymore. If he isn't under serious pressure then Chelsea are pretty much done as a top club under this ownership I think.

If you don't have the play-offs then you have to cut the league to about 18 teams - I don't know the exact maths of it but it renders loads of the season completely pointless if you abolish them. Teams in midtable would have nothing to play for from about December.

I've not been through it, but it's looking like the best week by a mile yet.

West Ham Brentford is definitely ending a draw given I need one and John needs the other.

6 hours ago, CaaC (John) said:

FA Cup 5th Round - 25th Feb

Bournemouth v Leicester (Leicester to win)
Blackburn v Newcastle (Blackburn to win) 

These fixtures are for next week and you've not done one for this week yet. So if you want to do one for a couple of games tomorrow then you are welcome to.

I run the weeks from Tuesday to Monday simply due to the fact the football usually runs over a weekend at that time. I know it's a strange time for it though.

16 minutes ago, Stan said:

Here comes the Brentford 5-0 win... 

With it being 0-2 going into injury time or some shit

I'm definitely picking bigger odds things now - I'm getting absolutely sod all out of things at odds on so we might as well take some gambles. My one actual win was at quite good odds.

Howe probably goes in the summer. They're objectively bad at this point. Don't think he's been dealt a great hand this season but they've dropped off massively.

Burnley man. How does Kompany get away with this? They're the biggest underperforming newly promoted side I've ever seen. 101 points last season to 0.5 points a game this year. Truly awful.

I'm in potshot territory now. I'm genuinely sick as fuck about not backing that one earlier though.

This is mine:

You know what as well. I'm absolutely sick of the officiating. It's just absolutely appalling more often than it isn't. Shit refs I've come to accept are a part of the game, but not this shit, this often. By all means, introduce another colour card or introduce a load more bullshit technicalities in the rules with your fingers in your ears every time somebody dares tell the truth about it. Absolute joke of a performance - from a Premier League referee as well. That's following the Premier League referee we were inflicted with last weekend as well, who against all odds has blagged himself a cup final this weekend. Is the level seriously this bad?

Think I've finally calmed down after that the other night. That one stung. The points that inevitably get thrown our way about the league position and how many clear we are miss the bigger fundamental issues that surround this club, and the worry for me is that we've still not quite put those demons to rest.

We've come into this league on the back of what I will repeatedly describe as being the most avoidable drop to the second tier in a generation, from a position of consistent top half Premier League finishes to crashing and burning in 12 months of complete madness. With the greatest of respect intended, when fans of clubs in this league moan about the parachute payments, the imbalance and whatnot, they are missing the point. We are not a normal relegated team. The biggest wage bill in the history of the division. A squad that should on paper hold its own in the Premier League. Leicester winning the majority of our games is largely the expectation in this situation. You still have to make it happen, but it would be disappointing if we weren't capable.

I think last night we proved for the most part we are actually capable of living with a decent standard of team. I thought the first half we probably edged overall despite a couple of hairy moments. The second half we played two thirds of it to near perfection. I was genuinely surprised watching how comfortably better we looked than them. I don't think a Leeds fan could've seriously complained if we had walked away 0-3 winners. The statement win made. Frankly, eliminated from the discussion. It becomes a three horse race for third, with ourselves then 9 clear of 2nd placed Ipswich and 12 clear of 3rd placed Leeds.

Now the goals themselves, as well as the one we had disallowed, had a lot of bad luck about them. The 2nd & 3rd particularly were incredibly unfortunate, but a result of the retreat that you see from us on too regular a basis. What I can't come to terms with is the inevitability of our implosion and how there seems to be no fix for it. If this game was an isolated incident, I could forgive a night that involved plenty of bad luck, but we made a lot of that bad luck. We lose all belief, we lose our heads, it's the players, the fans and anybody with any association. You know that despite blowing the lead against the odds, we won't hold out for what is a very respectable and useful point. You know we'll go the full way. Why is that? Where does this stem from?

The manager has proven himself a talented coach. He's had us looking well organised and cohesive with a quite clear plan in the vast majority of our games this season. But he still hasn't quite got to grips with the bottle syndrome we seem to have developed and maybe it's one of those things that will take time to fix. Make no mistake, it exists. The number of absolutely ridiculous collapses, the songs in the street from the opposition I'm witnessing, even in a season where we have clear superiority to the level is infuriating, and it bodes really badly if we do see this through.

I still believe we will win this league. I believe the gap in quality will see us through. But I've now hit a point where I really wouldn't be shocked if we did blow it either. It just seems to be our way now and I hate it.

QPR at home for us next week. That is on paper a routine victory. The sort of fixture that our season has been built on. It is our consistency in these types of games that is why I retain the belief we will see this one through for now. But if we start blowing those sorts of games, I really am going to panic a bit. The others are not slowing down for the most part. This is no ordinary season. The strongest three to go down ever combined with the most ridiculously good promoted side ever in Ipswich. There is a long way to go, and I really hope it doesn't come down to tight crunch games - instead that we can amass a big enough gap to begin with and avert them. Because I really don't trust us in them.

1 hour ago, Coma said:

Just popped in to see if the Leicester fans are shitting it yet.

If we don't beat QPR next week, I will concede we're in a fight.

I did think Ipswich were being unfairly written off. Every team has had a bit of a wobble now. Really is going to be hard on whoever misses out.

I don't think I will ever trust anything again if it's us.

 I actually cannot believe it.

Yeah I am genuinely jinxed. It's mental.

Ipswich will deflect one in in the 107th minute and I've no doubt Southampton get two late as well.

Gonna have to get one in for tomorrow but I was genuinely considering Fulham as a big long shot and then Palace / under 4.5 (which has a fantastic chance). It'll win because it's this pissing game and I'm jinxed in it.

Lucas I've not read all of that but what you've put to me is quite telling that you thought you were rubbish. I agreed. I thought we were the better side in the first half and then brilliant for most of the second. I just can't fathom how that can play out. We see that through and I'm talking about probably the best showing under Maresca and a night that gives me confidence we can live in the Premier League without tonnes of work.

Yet we lose 3-1.

I'm genuinely baffled. I usually have the answers (or so I think) but I truly am stumped here.

There is something seriously psychologically wrong at this club and I can't really explain it. There is an almost inevitability about bottling things.

If Leeds had outclassed us tonight I could say fair game, but we have played that game pretty much 90% spot on and still somehow imploded at the end. If it was an isolated incident I could blame the luck of the bounce and deflections and whatnot, but it isn't.

The minute they get one, the fans, the players, they just know what follows. There is something psychologically wrong and I really don't see the obvious fix for it.

What will be will be  

On 19/02/2024 at 09:37, Stan said:

Saturday 24th February, 2024
Aston Villa 2-1 Nottm Forest
Brighton 2-2 Everton
Crystal Palace 1-0 Burnley
Man Utd 1-2 Fulham
Bournemouth 1-3 Man City, 17.30
Arsenal 2-0 Newcastle, 20.00

Sunday 25th February, 2024
Wolves 4-1 Sheff Utd, 13.30

Monday 26th February, 2024
West Ham 0-2 Brentford, 20.00

Yet another wasted triple captain season. How has Haaland picked up just 10 points from those two fixtures. Wanted far more than that.

12 hours ago, Stan said:

What's this I hear that Nunez is out of tonight? Was hoping for the extra fantasy league points... 

Don't get me started on FPL. Beyond a joke. Jota a total waste of time and triple captain wasted on a 10 pointer.