Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody :)

Hopefully my team can give me a few extra prezzies over the next couple of weeks to make up for some of those team related Christmas gifts I'll get :)
I hope you all have a good one with minimum hangovers and no family bust-ups  and a good time is had by all.

... and don't forget those predictions fellas :)

New Year Madness

The rumours suggest we are going to blow a big wad of cash on bringing in Ghana international Asamoah Gyan in Janauary on loan from UAE clubAl Ain.
This is the player that did a bunk from Sunderland to boost his bank balance to the tune of £140k tax free a week and play in a sub standard league.
His goalscoring record is pretty good but he has missed 2 high profile penalties in the World Cup and African nations cup.
This really smacks of desperation :(

Premier Predictions (Week 18-19-20)

Not quite finished with week 17 yet but here's the next batch :)

I guess you will all have plenty to do over the next week so if you can spare a few minutes here are the games being played over the Christmas period.
Don't have to do them all at once, but obviously predictions for each set are needed before the relevant kick off's.

Week 18 - Thursday 26th Dec

Hull v Man Utd
Aston Villa v C Palace
Cardiff v Southampton
Chelsea v Swansea
Everton v Sunderland
Newcastle v Stoke
Norwich v Fulham
Tottenham v West Brom
West Ham v Arsenal
Man City v Liverpool

---------------------------

Week 19 - Sat 28th + Sun 29th Dec

West Ham v West Brom
Aston Villa v Swansea
Hull v Fulham
Man City v C Palace
Norwich v Man Utd
Cardiff v Sunderland

Everton v Southampton
Newcastle v Arsenal
Chelsea v Liverpool
Tottenham v Stoke

----------------------------
Week 20 - Wed 1st January

Swansea v Man City
Arsenal v Cardiff
C Palace v Norwich
Fulham v West Ham
Liverpool v Hull
Southampton v Chelsea
Stoke v Everton
Sunderland v Aston Villa
West Brom v Newcastle
Man Utd v Tottenham

It's FA cup week 4th/5th January, so premier predictions is back for the 11th Janauary.

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, Jingle bells
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to see,
West Ham win away  :)

Where did that come from, we looked a bit dodgy early on but were even for the rest of the first half.
Second half Tottenham did a lot of running around without looking like scoring and we were getting better, Adebeyor's goal was a bit of a shock but Fat Sam's subs all contributed Diame and Morrison were excellent and what that the same Maiga? suddenly he's a big powerful striker winning things.
Jarvis's equaliser was good Maiga's winner was better, then he struck the cross bar with a bullet.
Renewed confidence flooding back for him and everyone after that. Credit to the unsung heroes who haven't been given much chance to shine this season Taylor, Adrian and Diarra.
Two wins at Shite Hart Lane in one season almost makes up for all the other dross we've seen recently, let's hope they go to Old Trafford believing they can win :)

Premier Predictions (Week 17)

It's getting to that complicated part of the season with multiple fixtures in a short space of time, so stay tuned :)
These are the pre-Christmas fixtures on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
I'll do another post for the boxing day games and the matches up to New year's day before the weekend to confuse you even more.

Liverpool v Cardiff
C Palace v Newcastle
Fulham v Man City
Man Utd v West Ham
Stoke v Aston Villa
Sunderland v Norwich
West Brom v Hull

Southampton v Tottenham
Swansea v Everton
Arsenal v Chelsea

Magical

Another One Bites The Dust

I almost feel sorry for AVB, but then I realise he will probably walk away with another huge pay-off and should get another job pretty quickly.
I don't think anyone warmed to him at Chelsea, but this time round at Tottenham he's been likeable.
They were never going to find it easy this season without Gareth Bale who had almost single handedly got them to top 4, also losing quality back-up players like Dempsey, Huddlestone, Livermore and Caulker.
The players brought in were a collection of expensive foreign imports, and yesterday when AVB was asked if they were the players he wanted to bring in he made it sound like he went along with Baldini and Levy's choices. This could be the main reason behind the sacking today, either they were all bought on AVB's recommendation or Levy just didn't like the way he'd suddenly been blamed for the poor players brought in.
I heard yesterday that Tottenham despite the few high profile defeats had only had more points at this stage once before, so it hasn't been an absolute disaster yet.
I'm hoping West Ham can inflict more problems on Tottenham on Wednesday night :)

Week 16

For anyone that's interested here's the complete facts and figures from the small table on the right.

PL = Games Predicted, HS = Highest Score of the season, the others self explanatory :)

Betflurry

Here we are, an overdue review of this football betting website http://betflurry.com/ which due to the fact you don't need real money makes it a far safer option than the real thing.
There appears to be a lot of work involved considering no money changes hands, all major European leagues and internationals are covered including the in-play option :)

Every week you are allocated a betting kitty of £1000 which can rise if your successfull, and from the drop down box of matches you just have to pick home/away or draw (the odds are a bit more tasty than real betting sites), the minimum bet is £100 so it's a good job it isn't real money.
You are allocated a league and you can create your own and add any friends that are also playing, this part of the program has caused me problems as I've now got 2 identical leagues and managed to invite myself to the league so now there's 2 of me, and I can't figure out how to delete one?
Also I can't seem to change my avatar from the standard "Granada TV" one.
Those problems aside this is a good well layed out free predictions tool, which if you can get a bunch of you playing is probably fun.

Sadly I've killed my own enjoyment by taking advantage of a couple of the early glitches with the "in-play" option, before that I was having a good battle with another member and had a near 80% success rate, that has dropped badly recently due to continually backing West Ham and last week's unpredictable results.

If only that was real money, half a million would come in very handy :)
They appeared to have sorted out a lot of the early problems and the chances of me finding 500/1 odds on a team I had just seen scoring a late winner probably won't happen again.
Over to you AJ, and come back to our less glamourous league, Biopunk's gone in front of you :)

Panic

The price of success? one good season and the board expect it every year.
We see it every year Pulis at Stoke probably did as well as anyone could but that wasn't enough, a few years back Pardew was building a good team at West Ham but the board undermined him with the Tevez deal breaking all the team spirit we'd built up in the 2 previous seasons and he was gone.

I'm not a fan of Steve Clarke, nasty spiteful footballer (saw him up close a few times) and miserable bastard with a face that could only inspire suicide, but he has done a half decent job at West Brom as they have a reputation as a yo-yo club.
The board claimed to have invested heavily but the £13m spent in the summer is only the 16th highest, and Newcastle had already done their spending in January.
I wonder what has-been failed manager they will end up with next?

Also worrying is mentions of us going back to the Zola/Clarke partnership? Watford's current form should see Zola sacked soon despite having his buddies in the boardroom, meaning it could happen and relegation would be confirmed soon after ... scary thought :(

Premier Predictions (Week 16)

Here we go again, 7 games on Saturday, 3 games on Sunday.
City v Arsenal is the stand out game, if Arsenal get anything here they must be considered serious challengers which injuries permitting I think they are.
The other big game is sadly a relegation six-pointer at Upton Park, injuries are hitting us hard with Downing the latest casualty after Flanagan's diabolical tackle last week.

Man City v Arsenal
Cardiff v West Brom
Chelsea v C Palace
Everton v Fulham
Newcastle v Southampton
West Ham v Sunderland
Hull v Stoke
Aston Villa v Man Utd
Norwich v Swansea
Tottenham v Liverpool

Interesting

The Germans dominated the Champions league last season and were rightly praised after some amazing results mainly from Munich and Dortmund. With the exception of Arsenal's great win in Munich, England's teams looked to have some catching up to do.
This season early on Munich won at the Etihad and Dortmund won at the Emirates, so it looked like the story would continue despite Chelsea and Man Utd's home wins over Schalke and Leverkusen.
But the four away legs in the second half of the competition maybe show a shift?

Schalke 0-3 Chelsea
Borussia Dortmund 0-1 Arsenal
Bayer Leverkusen 0-5 Man Utd
Bayern Munich 2-3 Man City

World Cup Draw 2014

World Cup Draw 2014

Groups + (World Rankings)

A - Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon (10 16 20 51)
Brazil should walk this with the other 3 taking points of each other, the climate won't help Croatia.

B - Spain, Holland, Chile, Australia (1 9 15 59)
Any 3 from 4, Chile could upset the European big guns.

C - Colombia, Greece, Ivory Coast, Japan (4 12 17 48)
Fairly even group, Colombia should be favourites but have a habit of blowing it on the big stage.

D - Uruguay, Italy, England, Costa Rica (6 7 13 31)
Again any 3 from 4, Uruguay should be favourites but seem overrated after only being 5th in qualifying, Italy still rely on the old guard, England who knows?

E - Switzerland, France, Ecuador, Honduras (8 19 23 41)
A really weak group where any of them could qualify, a lot of people predicted that France would avoid the big guns .. and they did!!

F - Argentina, Bosnia, Nigeria, Iran (3 21 36 45)
Argentina and ?, Bosnia looked good in qualifying but first time nerves and the climate will give the others a shout.

G - Germany, Portugal, USA, Ghana (2 5 14 24)
The real group of death, the Europeans should qualify but Ghana and the Yanks are no mugs.

H - Belgium, Russia, Algeria, South Korea (11 22 26 54)
Another weak group where any could qualify, the talented Belgian squad haven't had the big tournament experience so might struggle.

All kicks off 12th June next year :)

England Games
15/06/14 2:00 AM V Italy
19/06/14 8:00 PM V Uruguay
24/06/14 5:00 PM V Costa Rica

The Final - 13/07/14 8:00 PM

Premier Predictions (Week 15)

Sorry guys it's another quick turnaround as the Premier league tries to catch up after all those international breaks.
7 Games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and Swans v Tiggers on Monday.

Man Utd v Newcastle
C Palace v Cardiff
Liverpool v West Ham
Southampton v Man City
Stoke v Chelsea
West Brom v Norwich
Sunderland v Tottenham
Fulham v Aston Villa
Arsenal v Everton
Swansea v Hull

Good luck all :)

Bye Jol

Another Premiership sacking, and like DiCanio earlier in the season I don't think anyone was surprised.

Watching Fulham against West Ham yesterday Fulham were awful and made us look like world beaters (which we're not).
His policy of recruiting so called flair players and has-beens has backfired big time.
Berbatov, Ruiz and Taraabt are all gifted but not team players, Bent, Duff, Karagounis and Parker saw their best days long ago.

I've never really rated Jol as a manager but always enjoyed his after match comments, as his accent reminds me of old seedy 70's films for some reason :)