RandoEFC

£10 > £35.50

@The Palace Fan @DeadLinesman need to predict. Hopefully the last race in a while where you can't rely on leaving it to Saturday morning to get it done before quali.

What happened? Norris had his time deleted then reinstated?

Ver Per Lec Sai 11th RB

That was absolutely honking from Liverpool. Atalanta looked more likely to score in the second half. Bizarre how clueless they've looked lately. Like they just hit a wall at half time at Old Trafford and have been gash since. Two penalties in three and a half games since then is all they've scored if I'm not mistaken.

So Martinez got a second yellow during the shootout but apparently there's a special rule where it doesn't count as a second yellow in a penalty shootout. What a random and bullshit rule!

It's almost as if fixture congestion isn't actually their concern whatsoever and that what they really want is to clear out low-paying domestic games from their calendar to make room for even more money-spinning UEFA fixtures...

Glad to see the English clubs having a bad week in Europe to be honest. Just one of the last six Champions League finals hasn't had an English side in it and two of them have been all-English. Apart from Real Madrid, be good to see a different winner and finalist.

The Premier League, the FA and English football at large are a disgrace. Let's just be honest here. A small handful of Premier League clubs have been gagging for this for years. They cry about "fixture congestion" despite having the biggest squads, the biggest budgets, and the best medical and sports science technology ever to aid in players recovering between fixtures. No problem playing two legged ties in Europe or introducing extra European tournaments or bigger group stages, but we don't want to have to play a return fixture if we're unable to beat a League One side at the first attempt whose squad costs 1% of the "second string" we've put out in that fixture. All the while, clubs throughout the pyramid facing the threat of administration, points deductions for financial problems, could have their running costs paid for 2 years if they could earn a replay at Anfield or the Emirates and get 50% of the gate money that those grounds pull in on one matchday. English football has been trending this way for a long time but there's been a clear acceleration since the botched Super League breakaway. The threat of losing their biggest cash cows has seen the FA and Premier League cave once again to the whims of a minority of clubs. The FA and Premier League are pathetic, spineless cowards, and the clubs who have pushed for this for years because FA Cup replays are a minor inconvenience for them in the grand scheme of things are an absolute disgrace. And yes, if it transpires that my club have lobbied, voted or pushed for this as well for whatever reason then I absolutely include them in that.

Predictions - Chinese Grand Prix I'm not touching the Sprint stuff this weekend, partially because I've posted this on Wednesday and Sprint Qualifying will start in less than 2 days (-ish). So your deadline is Saturday qualifying as usual. Bear in mind that that's still early on Saturday due to time-zones! @RandoEFC @Stan @MUFC @Tommy @nudge @Whiskey @The Palace Fan @Coma @DeadLinesman @OrangeKhrush Pole Position - Which driver will post the fastest lap in Q3? [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, Yuki Tsunoda. [INSERT POSITION] Bonus Question - Which of the "bottom five" teams will get a car into Q3 - RB, Haas, Sauber, Williams, Alpine or None? [INSERT DRIVER]

Results - Japanese Grand Prix It was a close one this week aside from another no-show from @Whiskey - let us know if you want to drop out so I can stop tagging you. Everyone else predicted a Max Verstappen pole position and started the weekend with 5 points. After China, I may well adapt this prediction to become a "without Verstappen" prediction to spice things up further. Onto the race, @Stan, @MUFC, @nudge, @The Palace Fan and @DeadLinesman all secured 9 points in total, for various combinations of Perez, Sainz and Leclerc on the "non-Verstappen" podium, all with one exactly correct and the other two the wrong way around. @OrangeKhrush also chose the correct three drivers but none in the exact spot, meaning he bags 6 points. @RandoEFC and @Coma both score 7 points for getting one driver bang on, one driver in the wrong place, and a McLaren that didn't make the top three, while @Tommy scores 4 for putting both Ferraris in the top three but neither in the right spot, also let down by a McLaren taking his third spot. @The Palace Fan bags an extra 5 points as the only person to nail Pierre Gasly's exact finishing position of 16th, a great differential for him this week that leaves him as the highest scorer on 19 points overall. @OrangeKhrush also keeps 5 points to himself for the bonus question about which driver would outperform their pre-race Championship position by the most places. Ocon's 15th place was an improvement of 3 places on his championship standing. Albon's failure to finish and Hamilton and Norris both out-performing their championship position by just 1 place left everyone else empty-handed here. Here's what it does for the standings: A top-scoring week sees a new change in leader as @The Palace Fan moves into a 3-point lead ahead of @RandoEFC. @Tommy loses ground with his single-figure score with similar scores across the rest of the table limiting any movement this week. McLaren just about cling on to the lead in the Constructors' championship with Aston Martin moving within a single point of the lead. I'll have to consider how to proceed if @Whiskey doesn't want to continue so that @Stan and Ferrari can still have a fair shot at the Constructors' title.

Need Brentford to win and get themselves on the beach by the time they come to Goodison. Whatever happened since Christmas, we've been the 18th or 19th best team in the league since then. We could have got away with it based on our first half of the season but the points deductions have taken that off us. Forest and Luton will both be licking their lips at the prospect of facing us in the run-in. Need favours from elsewhere again.

MSP have decided that they'd rather just get their £160m loan repaid late than activate their option to become the majority shareholders of Everton. £160m is more appealing than owning a Premier League football club because of the mess that football club is. Encouraging for our future prospects. I honestly can't see how this ends in anything other than us going into administration and languishing in the lower leagues or going bust entirely.

Difficult one with Dyche now. Can't sack a manager who's taken a team who finished 17th last season, lost a few players, had the team patched up with a few loans, freebies and Beto, and racked up 35 points and certain safety pre-deductions with half a dozen games to spare. But can't defend a manager who has 1 win in 15 in the league and tries to play a high press away to Chelsea with Palmer, Mudueke and Mudryk counter attacking against Coleman, Tarkowski and Mykolenko after setting up for a 0-0 and hoping for a set piece or lucky goal at home to Burnley. Everton in complete limbo. Tonight at 5am UK time, the deadline for one American investment consortium to repay another American investment consortium who leant us some money to prove to the Premier League that they have the money to complete the purchase of the club runs out. We might wake up tomorrow and see that MSP are the new owners of Everton. We might wake up and find out that the purgatory continues as we potentially drift towards administration. The off the pitch nonsense often makes the 6-0 defeats and the turgid football look like the fun part of being an Everton fan.

Probably was a foul by Doucoure. After he gave the ball away as well. Sums up his form since returning from injury earlier this season. Not that it's made a difference.

Switching off now but this game can't be allowed to pass without mentioning the fact that one team here has been deducted 8 points and plunged into the pressure of a relegation battle for spending too much money despite making a net profit on player transfers and selling almost all of their quality players in the process, and the other has spent £1bn on players in the same time frame and been allowed to get around the same financial rules because their owner sold a hotel to another company he owns for £70m+ and that's apparently fine. Best league in the world and all that.

The commentators don't even know . VAR have gone home for the night as well by the looks of it. Palmer scoring four in a match will get them more interactions on Twitter so they probably haven't bothered checking it.

Corpse of a performance from a corpse of a team representing the corpse of what used to pass for a football club. Fitting that we perform like this the first time Moshiri has turned up in over a year.

Absolute disgrace this. You can lose at Chelsea but the manner of this is putting huge pressure on us against Forest at the weekend now. Pathetic effort tonight. Sort of occasion that calls for first half subs.

2-0. Absolutely shite from us. Pace killing us after we initially set up quite well. Completely capitulated after one moment of quality.

Great from Palmer but that is so poor from our defenders.

The part that nobody wants to talk about is how the Premier League along with a few teams who parted their cheeks and lubed up for the rampant capitalism that entered the sport to lock in pretty much permanent advantages over the rest of the pyramid, created the conditions where the only way anyone else could ever compete again was by doing what Chelsea and Man City did. City's owners are horrific cunts. Everyone knows this. But they and Chelsea and Newcastle are symptoms of the shift toward excessive, unsustainable spending and "the brand" that occurred in the early 90s. Anyway, feel oddly optimistic about the game tonight. Maybe just because any points here would be a bonus. Just have to get into these.

Not sure if there is choking. Think Liverpool have just run out of steam after punching above their weight all season. Arsenal possibly the same but possibly just that they didn't take advantage of the half they had the better of today against the team sat in 4th and Villa did. City left the door ajar this season with a poor first half of the campaign but their only dropped points since Palace at home before Christmas were draws with Arsenal and Liverpool and that weird 1-1 with Chelsea. But if you look at the three squads with all/most players fit, City should still be a bit ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal.

Bookies have City as roughly 70% likely to win the title now. Arsenal 20% and Liverpool 15%. It was about 40%/35%/30% on Friday. (I know they don't add up to 100% but that's how odds work).

Naturally I don't want Liverpool to win the title but I was hoping Arsenal could stop City who are just about as unpalatable. I know it's still close and "it's not over yet" but I don't think City will blink now. They do not lose a close title race. But maybe this will be the time...