RandoEFC

Wouldn't be so bad. That would leave us above Luton as it stands and well clear of Forest who are likely to get more than 6 taken off them at least. Considering we finished 17th last season and survived on the last day, spent £3m in total over the last three transfer windows while selling/releasing half of our first team squad in that time (Begovic, Coady, Mina, Gordon, Davies, Gray, Iwobi), and we're the only club who will ever get charged twice in one season against a ruleset which is getting changed this summer to double the threshold for allowed losses to the point where we'd have been nowhere near any breach, and we don't have an owner, and there was talk of us even going into administration earlier this season, any outcome that results in Everton remaining a Premier League club into next season is an absolute fucking miracle.

This is potentially good news but as things stand, 777's exclusivity agreement is still in place. The Premier League has handled this absolutely terribly as well though. It's been about 5 months now since the "fit and proper" test got underway with this lot. If they haven't provided evidence that they're fit and proper by now then they should have been rejected. The Premier League have left us in limbo with no choice but to be funded in the interim by 777's loans so now we're either going to have those cunts as owners or we're going to have no ownership and owe 777 their money back. Being an Everton fan is an absolutely miserable experience at the moment. Money has absolutely ruined football and it's not talked about enough because until it affects your club you can just live in ignorant bliss and tell yourself that other clubs deserve to get in trouble when they've been run badly. The reality is that any football club with hundreds of staff and thousands of loyal supporters can just be ripped to shreds on the whim of a Middle-Eastern billionaire or an American hedge-fund consortium. Shite.

Four points to be given back to us on appeal. That's the minimum I think I could have taken on the chin. Regardless of Everton's guilt, it's absolutely scandalous how this has been handled and has definitely affected our season. Recent games against Palace and Brighton where we've been cagey because we're 1 point either side of the relegation line and it's arguably contributed to us dropping points in those games. The league table has been effectively incorrect for 3 months. Four points puts us back up to 15th ahead of Brentford on goal difference, 5 points clear of Luton in 18th and crucially a point ahead of Forest whose breach is supposed to be bigger than either of ours. If our initial offence is 6 points, you could see Forest getting docked about 8 points, and while I hope that common sense prevails on our second breach and we don't get punished twice for the same three-year period, if we do get charged with points again it should be less than 6 points as this time around it's apparently "less serious" but I don't know the figures.

Constructors' Championship - Teams Red Bull - @nudge & @Tommy Mercedes - @The Palace Fan & @MUFC Ferrari - @Whiskey & @Stan McLaren - @DeadLinesman & @RandoEFC Aston Martin - @OrangeKhrush & @Coma Yes, I've signed everyone up even if they haven't responded. If we get no-shows (hopefully an even number) then I'll merge two teams like I did last season. Below is a reminder of the scoring for the whole-season predictions: However, this year I'm introducing a "Verstappen rule". If you choose Verstappen or Red Bull for your Drivers' or Constructors' Champion, you will only get half points. So Verstappen bags you 10 points if he wins the title and 5 if he finishes in the top three. Anyone else gets you 20 points for the win and 10 points for 2nd or 3rd. Same with Red Bull. I reserve the right to implement a similar rule for the race-by-race scoring throughout the season if it looks really boring but not yet. Below are your predictions for the season. Please fill them out before the start of qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. You can edit them up until that point. The race predictions for Bahrain will be up within 2-3 days so best get these ones done sooner rather than later! World Drivers' Champion: World Constructors' Champion: How many different drivers will win at least one race? How many different constructors will score at least one podium? Which driver will have the most retirements? Team-mate championship battles - which driver will score the most points from each team? Red Bull - Max Verstappen or Sergio Perez? Mercedes - Lewis Hamilton or George Russell? Ferrari - Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz? McLaren - Lando Norris or Oscar Piastri? Aston Martin - Fernando Alonso or Lance Stroll? Alpine - Esteban Ocon or Pierre Gasly? Williams - Alexander Albon or Logan Sargeant? VCARB - Yuki Tsunoda or Daniel Ricciardo? Sauber - Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu? Haas - Kevin Magnussen or Nico Hulkenberg? Good luck!

Liverpool deserve this. It's an absolute embarrassment for Chelsea though I'm afraid. I know they're a mid-table team in reality and you could just about forgive them losing in normal time but Liverpool have brought half their youth team off the bench and Chelsea have had a host of big-money players and they've completely surrendered the initiative and been outlasted in extra time. After the original VAR reprieve as well, it's really inexcusable not to convert against such a young Liverpool side. Like Chelsea, Sky Sports have no excuse to continue putting Carragher on the commentary for Liverpool, especially in big games. He's absolutely incapable of being impartial, constantly loses his head and starts screaming down the microphone. That screech he goes into is absolutely horrific. I imagine even Liverpool fans have trouble listening to it. It's really poor from a supposedly neutral broadcaster. I imagine Neville would be just as bad to be fair if Man Utd were ever any good.

Endo, who was in an offside position, blocked off a Chelsea player who might have been able to challenge Van Dijk for the header. It wasn't the player who was actually marking Van Dijk though. I understand how it's a "technical offside", as they put it, but it's like when they occasionally give penalties for "grappling" at set pieces. It happens on basically every free kick or corner and it seems totally random as to when VAR decides to intervene. In this case, though, I don't suspect that it has been done randomly, I suspect that they've unnecessarily over-analysed it because it's a cup final, looked harder than they'd usually look to make sure everything was above board with the goal, and in doing so found a trivial offence and disallowed it. Decisions like that might be right by the letter of the law but if you look hard enough you can probably find something similar in the build-up to loads of goals, especially those from set pieces. I think it's a mental intervention. If you disallow a goal for that offence then I don't really see where they can draw the line. It's a far cry from "clear and obvious".

"Clear and obvious". Ridiculous decision. It's PGMOL all over though to wait for a marquee occasion like a cup final to make up a new rule so that VAR and the officials can be the stars of the show instead of the players. I get why it's offside but since when do they need to look at that much detail to see if a goal is legitimate or not. "We want a high bar for intervention" "We don't want to be re-refereeing football matches" Fuck off. You will find literally any nit-picking excuse to interfere with football matches and manufacture some unnecessary drama. There's a lot of things that have ruined football but VAR has a good case for being top of the list. You can't blame the technology either, because it's technology, but putting in the hands of the Premier League's current officials and governing bodies has been a disaster.

I still think they'll probably finish 3rd but I didn't think Arsenal would keep it a three-horse race after that dodgy run they had. Got to wonder how long Eddie Howe gets now. I can't remember the last Newcastle performance I saw which wasn't all over the place.

Red Star thumped Le Mans 4-1 but a loss on the second leg as Karlsruher win 4-0 and keep their first away clean sheet all season.

Would have taken a point before the game and sounds like the win would have been smash and grab but fuck me, 1-0 up against ten men into the 80+ minutes, you've got to see that out. Can't afford to piss away 2 points like that. At least Forest lost. Just like every match, just got to hope after the Premier League's independent panels have finished rewriting the league table a few more times that we can look back today as a point gained and not two dropped. It has ruined the season now for me I'm afraid. Everton were hit with 10 points back in November or whenever it was and over three months later, neither we nor the teams around us know how many points we need to stay up heading into the run-in. In theory, it shouldn't make a difference but in reality it does. You might rush a player back from injury or set up to take a point in certain games. The goalposts could get moved five more times between our appeal, the pending charges for us and Forest and two probable appeals against them. Everton and Forest only have themselves to blame for getting into trouble in the first place but fuck me, the Premier League's handling of the sanctioning process takes "not fit for purpose" to a new level.

@Pyfish @Tommy don't forget to make a pick from the remaining games.

Just to slightly elaborate, Red Star have won all 9 of their home games this season. Le Mans aren't awful but they are in poor form with the only win at their last 10 coming away to bottom club Cholet. The stats make a mockery of this price but that also just puts me in "what am I missing here" territory. Kaiserslautern have seen BTTS in 9 of their 11 home games this season, failing to keep a single clean sheet. Karlsruher have seen BTTS and Over 2 Goals in 9 of their last 10 league games. They've conceded at least once in all 10 of their away games this season and scored in all but two of them. Both teams have averaged over 3.5 match goals per game over the course of the season.

My effort for the weekend. I'll post research later if I find time.

Results - Gameweek One Casualties (6) Half a dozen people fail to clear the first hurdle this time with 2 of the 5 teams that saw some backing this week failing to deliver. Despite taking an early lead at Rayo Vallecano, league leaders Real Madrid were pegged back and played out a 1-1 draw, sending @RandoEFC, @Bluewolf, @...Dan and @Rick crashing out. @Dan and @Redcanuck also leave the Spanish round pointless after gambling on Granada, who could only rescue a draw against bottom side Almeria after going behind early on. Unlucky, folks! See you in France. Survivors (11) Around two-thirds of this round's entrants make it through the first Gameweek. All of this week's good news came on Saturday, with Atletico Madrid opening proceedings with a 5-0 thumping of Las Palmas, sending @6666, @Michael, @Pyfish, @Lucas, @Stan and @Storts safely through. Osasuna's 2-0 win over Cadiz provided relatively stress-free progress for @Viva la FCB and @Tommy, who keep all of the league's big guns in their back pocket for future Gameweeks. Finally, there was drama afoot for @nudge, @CaaC (John) and @Rucksackfranzose, who had to rely on a 97th minute penalty for Barcelona to secure a 2-1 win at Celta Vigo and see them live to see another day. Congratulations on your progress. See below for this weekend's fixtures. Preview - Gameweek Two Games start on Friday. Real Sociedad vs Villarreal Granada vs Valencia Barcelona vs Getafe Alaves vs Mallorca Almeria vs Atletico Madrid Cadiz vs Celta Vigo Real Betis vs Athletic Club Las Palmas vs Osasuna Real Madrid vs Sevilla Girona vs Rayo Vallecano Good luck!

This is the timeline laid out for the appeals process. It's bad enough that any appeal Forest or Everton submit for the second round of breaches will be heard after the season has ended, but based off the fact that Everton's first appeal was heard almost three weeks ago and we don't have a conclusion yet, it could be FOUR WEEKS after the end of the season before there's a final decision on who's been relegated. An absolute joke and not acceptable for anyone involved in this year's relegation battle. Luton could finish 17th, spend a month planning for another season in the Premier League, and then have the rug pulled from under them when another team's appeal gets them some points back.

I assume people are game for this again? If so, I'll draw the Constructors teams in a few days and have a look at any scoring tweaks before posting the pre-season predictions. @DeadLinesman @nudge @Stan @Tommy @MUFC @OrangeKhrush @The Palace Fan @Whiskey @Coma

Rangers win 3-0. Should have backed myself and gone for the under 4 goals at 2.05 but hindsight is one thing. +£18.80

@Michael @Whiskey @Storts @DeadLinesman @N U F C if you're interested in this round.

Naturally, Roda JC lose their second home game all season to the team with 1 point from the last 8 games. After taking the lead as well. One of those losses that makes you think you might as well not bother doing any research and just run through bet365 slapping any old shite onto your bet slip at random. And I was typing that out this happened so I take it all back .

Two more comfortable by-election wins for Labour in safe Tory seats last night.

Roda JC are the best value I've found so far for this weekend. That price has already shortened from 1.90 to 1.83 since I put it on as a single earlier in the week. Roda are really strong at home with 10 wins from 13 this season, their only defeat coming against league leaders Willem II. They face FC Emmen who are in the worst form in the league. 1 point in their last 8 games and 5 consecutive defeats on the road. 1.83 looks like a mad price but as usual, I'm wary that I might be missing something. At least I know the market is moving in the right direction for me. Roda also won the return fixture 1-0. I was going to go for Rangers and Under 4 goals for the second leg but the odds are reasonable for Under 5 so I've gone on the safer side. Rangers are in great form with 11 wins in 12, Celtic away being their only blip. Almost every Rangers away game this season has had less than 4 goals with their 5-0 win at Dundee the only exception. St Johnstone have averaged under 2 match goals for the whole season and haven't had a single game reach 5+ goals. Both previous meetings this season have been 2-0 to Rangers which would be ideal. My single bet on this for the weekend is actually an Under 3.0 Goal Line but playing it much safer with this double. £10 returns £28.80

Chelsea's whole business plan seems to be "Brighton are run well so let's just get all of them to come here and then we'll be well run".

@nudge @Viva la FCB @6666 @RandoEFC @Michael @Pyfish @Bluewolf @CaaC (John) @...Dan @Dan @Redcanuck @Rick @Tommy @Rucksackfranzose @Lucas @Whiskey @Stan @Storts @DeadLinesman @N U F C and any others welcome. Below are the fixtures for Gameweek One. Villarreal vs Getafe Atletico Madrid vs Las Palmas Osasuna vs Cadiz Celta Vigo vs Barcelona Valencia vs Sevilla Rayo Vallecano vs Real Madrid Granada vs Almeria Mallorca vs Real Sociedad Real Betis vs Deportivo Alaves Athletic Club vs Girona My pick for Gameweek One is Real Madrid. Good luck!

"Brentford have made more profit in 2 seasons than Man Utd have in 31." I wonder which one of those clubs will spend £100m+ on squad improvements this summer and which one will continue to live within their means because if they did that they'd violate the *checks notes* profit and sustainability rules.

@Pyfish enters the Hall of Fame for a second time with his Serie A victory. The last time was the Dutch round in 2019-2020!