RandoEFC

Thomas Frank (or any manager tbh) would simply ruin his career by moving to Man Utd.

I'm not talking about all Liverpool fans. Anyone vaguely familiar with Mike's posting on here knows that he's been desperate to see Everton relegated or worse for the last three years, and that's fine, but I'm not having him then getting on his high horse about Spurs being bothered about the potential fortunes of their rivals. If he can convince me that he'd actually support Liverpool in the last week of the season, with nothing to play for, against a team who could deny Everton a league title or, more realistically, relegate us, then I'll take it back, but there's not a chance that he can . And that's fine if he hates Everton that much, we are rivals, but I'm not having that in the next breath he has such a hard time believing that Spurs fans would want to lose to stop Arsenal from winning the title. I can see both sides because Spurs could still get top four but it's not bizarre. All this business about "letting" another team win is usually academic anyway. Spurs, sadly, don't need to "let" City win tonight in order for it to happen.

If Liverpool were playing Luton last night instead of Aston Villa and they could catch and relegate Everton by beating you then you'd have supported them 100%. This isn't even a matter of opinion. Going off the way you post about Everton on here you'd push your own Nan into the Mersey to see us get relegated . God forbid we were ever in the hunt for a league title, your head would explode mate. Don't act like this is a one way street.

I'd never actively support against Everton but City are so unpalatable, almost as much as Liverpool from my perspective, that if Spurs pull off a miracle tonight and Arsenal can win the league by beating us at the weekend, then sound. It makes no difference to our season and I'd much rather see someone else win the league other than City (except for the kopites). Spurs do have something to play for. I'd personally take Liverpool winning the league if it was needed for us to get into the Champions League but Spurs don't need that as much as us. I am surprised that their fans seem so unanimous about it but I won't judge them for it. Perhaps they'd feel differently if the odds of them getting 4th weren't still quite tricky even if they won tonight. If the roles were reversed than Arsenal fans would absolutely take a meaningless defeat to stop Spurs winning the league. Liverpool fans would as well if it stopped Man Utd or Everton winning the league. Anyone denying that is just an absolute liar I'm afraid. People going OMG I can't believe you care more about another team failing than your team succeeding is either doing so safe in the knowledge they'll never be put in that position themselves or just don't get rivalry in football. Spurs having a first knockout round run in the Champions League next season isn't worth it for their fans having to deal with Arsenal's boasting over winning the title. Even if Spurs fans aren't supporting Spurs tonight, I certainly will be.

Pole Position - Which driver will post the fastest lap in Q3 AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? Charles Leclerc Podium - Which drivers will finish the Grand Prix in the top three positions AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? 1. Charles Leclerc 2. Carlos Sainz 3. Lando Norris Random Driver - Predict the finishing position of this week's random driver, Nico Hulkenberg. 11th Bonus Question - I've selected 8 drivers - Perez, Sainz, Piastri, Stroll, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Gasly and Sargeant - that are trailing their team-mates in the world championship so far. Tip one of these drivers to finish ahead of their team-mate on Sunday and if they do it, you will receive 5 points. Gasly

Predictions - Emilia Romagna (Imola) Grand Prix For what feels like the first time all season, we have a race at a normal time, on a Sunday, with no sprint. Your deadline is the start of qualifying on Saturday - let's see if we can get 10/10 this week! If you see this and you know you're potentially likely to miss your chance on Friday night/Saturday morning, I'd suggest making placeholder predictions and then editing them after Practice if you have time. @RandoEFC @Stan @MUFC @Tommy @nudge @Whiskey @The Palace Fan @Coma @DeadLinesman @OrangeKhrush Pole Position - Which driver will post the fastest lap in Q3 AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? [INSERT DRIVER] Podium - Which drivers will finish the Grand Prix in the top three positions AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? 1. [INSERT DRIVER] 2. [INSERT DRIVER] 3. [INSERT DRIVER] Random Driver - Predict the finishing position of this week's random driver, Nico Hulkenberg. [INSERT POSITION] Bonus Question - I've selected 8 drivers - Perez, Sainz, Piastri, Stroll, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Gasly and Sargeant - that are trailing their team-mates in the world championship so far. Tip one of these drivers to finish ahead of their team-mate on Sunday and if they do it, you will receive 5 points. [INSERT DRIVER]

Duran Duran finally happened.

Neither of these came in.

Results - Miami Grand Prix Apologies again for the lateness here, been a busy week! Our first week of a non-Verstappen pole position prediction saw the field split between opting for Sergio Perez or Charles Leclerc for best of the rest. With Perez out-qualified by both Ferraris and Leclerc putting his on the front row, @RandoEFC, @nudge and @OrangeKhrush bag the 5 points here. Onto the race, and the non-Verstappen podium ended up with Lando Norris 1st followed by Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez. Everyone who predicted (except for @OrangeKhrush) put Perez in 1st place, meaning that they couldn't pick up 5 points either for Norris finishing there, or for the Mexican finishing 3rd. @RandoEFC, @Stan, @Tommy, @The Palace Fan and @DeadLinesman all bag 5 points at least for putting Leclerc in the middle of their podium. @OrangeKhrush picked up 6 points for having the correct 3 drivers in the wrong order, while @MUFC and @Tommy were let down by Carlos Sainz and had to settle for 4 points each from this prediction. This week's random driver was Lando Norris and it was no surprise that nobody had him finishing in 1st place. @Stan receives 2 points for being the only person to back the McLaren driver to finish as high as 3rd. Finally, this week's bonus question was to predict the biggest under-performer of the weekend. @Stan, @nudge, @DeadLinesman and @OrangeKhrush are all desperately unlucky not to bag the full 5 points for picking Lance Stroll, whose poor weekend in Miami saw him finish 6 positions below his championship position. However, Oscar Piastri "won" this category, finishing a whopping 7 positions below his championship position, leaving these four predictors with just 2 points instead. @Whiskey and @Coma didn't predict in time so end up with 0 points. I'm still considering what to do as "Insurance" in the Constructors championship for the team-mates of people who don't predict so bear with me. Here's what the standings look like: @Stan retains his narrow lead at the top of the standings after a close week across the board. @OrangeKhrush and @RandoEFC outscored our championship leader this weekend to close the gap. McLaren were this week's top scorers in the Constructors' championship by enough to move ahead of Red Bull into top spot. A good weekend to be papaya! I'll get the Imola predictions posted tomorrow morning.

I'm afraid we've had a bit of a misunderstanding here and I've kind of fucked up because I saw the "congratulations" in this thread and assumed somebody won, and therefore didn't post the fixtures for the weekend just passed. We do not have a winner. The tie break picks only come into effect if nobody picks a winning team. @Pyfish and @CaaC (John) both picked Monaco, who beat Clermont Foot 4-1 last weekend. We should have had another round in the weekend just passed, that's on me for not checking that the most recent post in this thread was actually accurate. Apologies, but at least it's in keeping with the shit-show of my keeping on top of this this season. Just to confuse everyone even more, this coming weekend is the last of the Ligue 1 season, so this time, the tie breaker picks WILL have to be used to pick a winner in the event that both finalists manage to pick a winning team - clear as mud? Good. Preview - The Last Gameweek Below are the fixtures for the third and final Gameweek. You have both used Lille and Monaco so may not pick them from the fixtures below. Otherwise, you need to make your three picks: 1) A match-winning team that you haven't already used before now. 2) An anytime goalscorer from any of this Gameweek's fixtures. 3) The time of first goal in the randomly selected fixture, Lyon vs Strasbourg. Fixtures: Le Havre vs Marseille Lens vs Montpellier Lille vs Nice Lorient vs Clermont Foot Lyon vs Strasbourg Metz vs PSG Monaco vs Nantes Reims vs Rennes Toulouse vs Brest Good luck!

Unlikely but not impossible.

Embarrassing attempt from them to be honest. Barely distinguishable from Sheffield United, who have been one of the worst top flight teams ever, for most of the season, and worse than Luton until the last few weeks. No excuses for Burnley either as they had a centurion team in the Championship and spent money in the summer. They should have blown Luton and Sheffield Utd out of the water and at least been able to overcome a points deducted Forest team who are also really poor in their own right.

The conclusion here was both players get a yellow . I've seen a lot of Luton fans on social media complaining about cheats "prospering" in the Premier League and calling Everton a horrible club etc. Quite funny at this point really. They've got 26 points and we'd have 48 if we hadn't had any deductions. It's nearly double. Once again I'm wondering how they're the victims when they've benefited from being in the first relegation fight in history where two of their rivals have been handed meaty points deductions. Don't get me wrong, they're obviously operating on a shoestring and some of the results they've achieved have been commendable but 26 points is a shite return and regardless of how much of an excuse you've got for only being able to get that many, you can have no complaints about going down on that whoever you are. Just enjoy the fact that your club have given a good account of themselves and probably set themselves up really nicely going forward. This "it's not fair, if Everton had been deducted 25 points and Forest had been deducted 10 points then we'd have stayed up, we're the real victims here" is just a bit embarrassing.

Quiet one today, and boring to be honest, but always nice to win. 5 consecutive home wins to nil to finish the season after only winning 3 of the first 13 home games.

City already lead at Fulham. On track for 16 wins and 3 draws in their 19 league games since coming back from the Club World Cup (which they won). They'll end the season with a 24 game unbeaten run if they don't lose one of their last three. They also made the FA Cup final at a canter. That "disgraceful" schedule that is so "unfair on the players" that Pep likes to cry-arse about really holding them back again this season.

There have been other owners that have been more corrupt and/or left their clubs in a worse state than he has (so far), but in terms of idiocy, Farhad Moshiri has to be the stupidest man who has ever owned a football club. He believes everything he gets told even now. The list of people who have had his pants down since he came into football is endless, starting with Bill Kenwright, through several managers, "super-agents" and their players, all the way through to 777. How these people make their billions in the first place is absolutely beyond me.

Sounds like 777 are basically about to go bust. Standard Liege players unpaid, tonight's game versus Westerlo abandoned because their fans were protesting and the team coaches couldn't get through.

Haven't done a (football) prediction league for a while so go on then.

Should be Foden. The young player of the year award is totally defunct. Say it every year but it should be limited to players with less than a full season's worth of Premier League starts before that season. Having the likes of Saka and Haaland on that shortlist just makes it a second POTY award. Give some recognition to those who have had their breakout year. Palmer would still make that list and deservedly walk the award by the way.

There's a lot coming out now about alternative buyers. Maybe we could come through all of this and actually be a normal club again in a few years time? A man can dream.

The sooner the better. Seen rumours that a resolution will be reached before the weekend. Presumably to cut ties. Some of our fans are positing conspiracy theories that we just needed their help with the running costs to get to the end of the season still in the Premier League and then Moshiri is somehow going to find money to keep us going or another buyer is going to be found. It's based on nothing but hope though. I'm not optimistic about where this ends. Nobody else wanted to pay Moshiri's price back in the summer. Now the club is slightly more attractive because the new stadium and the incomes that come with it is just months away from completion. But the club is also way less attractive as an asset because you've added £200m of additional debt owed to 777 into the mix. I can't see who's going to want to take the plunge.

If Labour end up sinking to hung parliament territory from the poll lead they've held for ~18 months then I'll be astonished but if they take more reckless risks like they have today then it'll become a possibility.

Natalie Elphicke has just swapped from Tory to Labour. She's on record as having attacked trade unions over P&O Ferries' fire and rehire a couple of years ago amongst other things. She's pretty right wing and pedals the Boris Johnson fan-fiction that Rishi Sunak took over the Conservatives via a political coup. She's the MP for Dover and is standing down at the next election, so the chosen Labour candidate is still going to stand in her seat, and this is clearly a handshake deal that she can join to make Rishi Sunak look like a tit at Prime Minister's Questions today without actually having a long-term future in the Labour Party. But she is still not remotely the type of person they should be welcoming into their tent. I just don't get why Labour do this to themselves. They're on track for a huge win at the next election and if they're losing any votes, it's on the left. There is no need for them to make this move and risk alienating a bunch of people on the left and centre-left just to consolidate their position with centre and centre-right voters who are already overwhelming leaning towards them or at least toward not voting instead of voting Tory. Baffling.

Crawley 3-0 MK Dons. MK Dons came into the playoffs having finished 7-8 points ahead of Doncaster, Crewe and Crawley in the other playoff positions. Ouch.