Smily Time

Being a Hammers fan you don't get that many opportunities to have a big grin on your face after a match, but I shall be wearing one all week :)

No premier games this week due to another International break, so I'm hoping England don't take the smile off my face and do enough to qualify for next years World Cup.

Premier Predictions (Week 7)

Man City v Everton
Cardiff v Newcastle
Fulham v Stoke
Hull v Aston Villa
Liverpool v C Palace
Sunderland v Man Utd

Norwich v Chelsea
Southampton v Swansea
Tottenham v West Ham
West Brom v Arsenal

6 games on Saturday and 4 on Sunday
The big game on Saturday is the other Manchester v Liverpool clash that usually doesn't get as much publicity, City are really unpredictable at the moment, Everton seemed to have clicked under Martinez straight away which makes me wonder if Moyes has been holding them back?
Moyes himself needs a victory badly, and anything less than 3 points against the struggling Mackems will heap the pressure on him.
A few possible upsets on Sunday and I'm praying that Tottenham have a nightmare journey back from Russia and eat some dodgy lasagne on the flight, because with 3 tough games this month we could end up in the drop zone :(

Disgrace

Dirty Vertongen wiping bogies all over Torres thumb, it's a disgrace.

Is it the early seventies again? Man Utd are shit and Clough has been sacked by Derby.

Van Ginkel is out for 6 months, which is great news for Juan Mata ... He'll have someone to talk to in the stands.

I've just seen a referee in a pink and yellow quartered shirt ... it was Mark Battenberg. 

Gareth Barry has revealed the chance to play under Roberto Martinez was a big factor in his decision to join Everton... Man city telling him "F*ck off, you useless c*nt" was also a consideration.

Premier Predictions (Week 6)

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

Saturday
AVB v No Way Jose, big test for the Y words to see if their new collective XI can be better than the old one- man team.
West Ham have a strictly must win game against Brucie's Tiggers.
Villa will be dreading facing Man City now they've hit form and also having lost their star striker.
Man U need to start winning to stay in touch with the leaders and will hope RVP is fit.
Arsenal's injury prone stars face the best footballing side in the division, could be good.
Saints v Palace, probably the best bit will be Pochetino's interpreter trying to translate Holloway's rants and words of wisdom.
Fulham v Cardiff, the other game.

On Sunday
How will those pampered little darlings of Blunderland cope without that nasty man shouting at them? not good that they have to share a field with the cannibal who according to his manager is "chomping at the bit" and "hungry" :)
Norwich at Stoke, Gary Hooper's fit so it will be good to see if he can cut it at this level.

Monday
Unbeaten Everton against Le Toon, should be the Toffee's game but Newcastle are always unpredictable.

Good luck all :)

Bye Paolo

Bye bye Paolo DiCanio the least surprising Premier manager sacking of recent seasons.
It was fun for the rest of us but I think we all knew it was just a matter of time before the loveable loon was shown the door.
The main surprise was that they had offered him the job full time, and after allowing him to bring in 14 players during the summer break you would have expected them to give him a bit more time.


They have been a bit unlucky in the last 2 games with some dubious reffing in the Arsenal game and the late injury to Fletcher after using 3 subs in Saturday's game.
The team Paolo inherited were piss poor and he did well to inspire them enough to stay up, and as they decided he was to be the future of Sunderland and not just a quick fix, they should have given him more time.

For the record - Played 13, W 3, D 3, L 7, F 15, A 24 including a 3-0 away win over the Geordies.

Premier Predictions (Week 5)

Saturday and Sunday games this week, West London derby on Saturday, Manc derby on Sunday.
Will the Chelsea boys get off the mark? will Lukaku send a message to Jose (hope not).
Good luck all :)

Norwich v Aston Villa
Liverpool v Southampton
Newcastle v Hull
West Brom v Sunderland
West Ham v Everton
Chelsea v Fulham

Arsenal v Stoke
C Palace v Swansea
Cardiff v Tottenham
Man City v Man Utd

Premier Predictions (Week 4)

Still can't get used to England playing in German shirts, but the results were not too bad.
Anyway International break over, back to the real stuff :)
 10 games this week spread over 3 days, 8 on Saturday.
First chance to see all these new "superstars"our clubs have spent millions on, maybe we've even heard of some of them?

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

Bale Saga

The summer long Bale transfer looks like it's finally going through today.
Tottenham must be sweating as they've spent all the money already, and I really don't know how this "financial fair play" thing works?
Once again I hear West Ham can't bring anyone in because of the wage restrictions and yet Tottenham can sign a bundle of high wage players despite only averaging a thousand more fans per game than us??

I personally think AVB must be sweating as if Bale goes the team doesn't look anywhere near as good as what he had last year, Bale and Dempsey were 2 players always likely to get you a goal and Parker, Huddlestone, Caulker and Livermore are all good premiership players.
Paulinho looks a good solid midfielder and Soldado has a good goal scoring record in Spain but the others are virually unknown to me, and a lot of foreign players do struggle to settle in.

So Close

What a great game, shame about the finish.

Fernando Torres opened the scoring with a cracking goal after a great run by Hazard, the world's scariest footballer equalised for Munich just after half time and at 90 minutes it was 1-1 and Chelsea had lost Ramires to a red card.
Early in extra time Hazard scored a brilliant solo goal and it looked like Chelsea would hold on with Cech and his back four having inspired games.For some reason Jomo brought on Terry for Hazard which invited Munich to set up camp in the Chelsea half but they came within 5 seconds of holding on.
The penalties were all good until Lukaku did his Anelka impression (David Luiz should be put in charge of penalty training).
Munich were the better team overall but the Chelsea defence were superb especially Gary Cahill.

Fantasy Leagues Update

This hasn't really taken off, but someone's playing so it was sort of worth it :)
TFF - 6 teams so far, I will add a couple more of my teams before the cut off date 27th Sept, so current players feel free to add as many as you like, and anybody else can join :)
FPL - 2 teams only? 2.8 million players!! anyone else want to join :)

So here's the week 2 tables.
TFF
1 TURPS SPIRITS - 114
2 Part Vole - 97
3 Mad Eyed Screamers - 96
4 RUNCORN REDS 1892 - 86
5 HAMMER TIME - 85
6 Hit N Hope - 83

FPL
1 Cockney Rejects 138
2 Longy's Longshots 132

Champions League

The Champions league group draw

Group A - Man Utd, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Sociedad
Group B - Real Madrid, Juventus, Galatasaray, Copenhagen
Group C - Benfica, Paris SG, Olympiakos, Anderlecht
Group D - Bayern Munich, CSKA Moscow, Man City, Viktoria Plzen
Group E - Chelsea, Schalke, Basel, Steaua Bucharest
Group F - Arsenal, Marseille, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli
Group G - Porto, Ath Madrid, Zenit St Petersburg, Austria Vienna
Group H - Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax, Celtic

First thoughts, Man Utd and Chelsea should stroll through, Man City should finish 2nd.
Arsenal have a really tough group and could struggle.
Celtic have little chance but will hope they can give Barcelona a tough time again.

Premier Predictions (Week 3)

Just the 9 games this week, 6 Saturday and 3 Sunday
So hopefully we can all up our game :)

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

Lighten Up

FIFA 14 is so realistic that if you play as Tottenham in career mode and make a bid for a player they automatically join Chelsea

Premier League officials have stated they'll block any proposed sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, as league rules clearly state the Premier League must be a 20 Team competition.

This Rooney hating thing has gone too far, Outside Old Trafford there's a guy burning small effigies of Rooney and selling them to fans ...
Oh hang on, it's a baked potato stand.

Went shopping with the wife today, told her she could buy whatever she wanted, but after hours of browsing the shops, she never bought a thing?
Now I know what it feels like to be an Arsenal fan.

Joe Kinnear has been on the radio this afternoon and was asked what he thought about wonga?
He said "he's probably the best manager arsenal have ever had"

If Luis Suarez signed for Arsenal he could be paid £7m a year which after adding on bonuses for winning trophies would come to a total of £7m a year.

Did you hear about the Conservative MP who was found dead in a Chelsea strip? The police had to dress him up in women's underwear in order to save his family from the embarrassment.

£90 million for a football transfer?
When I was a kid they used to be free with chewing gum.

Roberto Martinez has promised to bring Champions League football to Goodison Park.
He aims to have Sky Sports installed by September.

It's taken Arsenal five years to replace Flamini, but there is a rumour they've finally managed it by signing ... Flamini

It's great to see "the special one" back in the Premier league ....Ian Holloway's a star.

As Good As It Gets?

I'll post this quick as I guess it will be the highlight of my TFF season?
2nd place out of about 250,000 teams thanks to my Chelsea back five and a few inspired picks :)
Also the personal superleague is sitting in 4th place, among a host of major footy forums.

I know it won't last as the large Chelsea contingent go to Old Trafford next week then don't play again until mid September, meaning I either have to blow a big pile of transfers or sit tight while I drop about a 100,000 places.

The NBTF league still needs at least 7 more entries, so if no-one else is joining I will add in a few more of my own teams, anyone already in can add more if you have them.
Going to try and get some of the work mates to join first.

Premier Predictions (Week 2)

Nearly forgot to post these, it's early in the season :)
Here we go for week 2

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

7 games Saturday, 2 on Sunday, 1 on Monday
Good luck all.

Fantasy Leagues Week 1

Not much of a response to the fantasy footie leagues so far, thanks to "runcorn reds 1892" and " part vole" for joining the Telegraph one (please introduce yourselves if your not a regular) :)
Just me in the Premier league version so far, so at least I'm winning that one :)
Telegraph Week 1 - 1st part vole 55, 2nd runcorn reds 1892 47, 3rd  mad eyed screamers 36

Overall I fared a bit better with my 20 TFF teams, leading the works league and getting one in the top 100.
I've highlighted the team I put in the NBTF league, not a good choice :)

Ex Hammers

Steve Lomas doing a good job so far :)
Goalie Steve Bywater has also joined to do his bit.

Club Sponsors

A few decades ago when sponsors names first used to appear on the front of our players shirts, you would usually have heard of the company or brand, like Crown paints or Dagenham motors.
But today's names on shirts tend to asian companies, betting organisations or financial institutions that most of us have never heard of?
So here's my take on today's premier league sponsors.

Arsenal - Fly Emirates - EMI challenging Virgin in the record company to airline market.
Aston Villa - Dafabet - Betting company specialising in stupid bets (like Villa to win the league).
Cardiff - Visit Malaysia - Self explanatory, go to the far east it's warmer than Wales.
Chelsea - Samsung - Record company specialising in old recordings of Mr Allardyce when he's drunk.
Crystal Palace - GAC.com - Gravy and chips.com, promoting Northern dishes to uneducated southerners.
Everton - Chang - Chinese bell company.
Fulham - Marathon - Company selling old style confectionary like Opal Fruits and Spangles.
Hull - Cash Converters - Home for old crap that nobody wants.
Liverpool - Standard Chartered - Company employing people who are experienced at being average.
Man City - Etihad - Support group for people that have lost aliens.
Man Utd - AON - All or Nothing, company that advises people to take out huge debts in the hope they will make a fortune, or possibly go bankrupt.
Newcastle - Wonga - Company run by dodgy French loan shark Arson Wonga.
Norwich - Aviva - Car company that sells old Vauxhall's.
Southampton - AAP - Motoring organisation helping people find rest rooms.
Stoke - Bet365 - Betting company for people that like to bet all year round except in leap years.
Sunderland - Biovest - Clothing company that makes undergarments resistant to chemical attack.
Swansea - GWFX - Movie special effects company that creates Global Warming disaster films.
Tottenham - HP - Old fashioned loans company helping you buy stuff for weekly payments.
West Brom - Zoopla - Dangerous sports company, A game where you have to throw rings over wild animals before they eat you.
West Ham - Alpari - New alcoholic breakfast cereal combining mueseli and Campari.

Premier Predictions (Week 1)

... Imagine the sound of trumpets ...

Here we go again, Premier prediction time. Week 1 of about 38?
Usual rules (see post below).
All readers welcome (anyone new, just let me know your name or alias so I can keep track of your score in the super duper league table on the right).

As last season we start with an extended week with a bonus Chelsea game due to them having a weekend break in Prague later in the month, so a delayed final result in week 1.

This weeks games - 7 on Saturday, 3 on Sunday, 1 on Wednesday

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

Predictions in comments please - just copy/paste the fixtures and add your score :)

.... and good luck to all who take part :)

Predictions and Fantasy Football

The New Season is almost here so time to think about all things Premier.

Season 4 of the Nothing Better Than Football Premier predictions competition is about to get under way :)
Usual format, I post the weeks fixtures, you predict the scores in the comments.
3 Points for a correct score, 1 point for a correct result (Home, away, draw), 0 points if game is postponed.
The league table will be decided on -
1st Outright weekly wins,
2nd Shared wins,
3rd Total points scored.

Hopefully the 5 regulars that played last year will play again, and anyone else that visits here is welcome to join (just let me know your name and which team you support).
Seasons 1-3 have been a Chelsea Bluewash so the rest of us need to up our game, congrats to Biopunk for winning last season after deposing 2 time champion Longy.


A bit of added interest this season - Fantasy Football

I've been playing various Fantasy football games for the last 15 years.
So far I've only won about £200 but have a bundle of league winners medals and cups.

Most of the popular ones are run by newspapers, Sun, Mirror, Telegraph etc.
You don't have to buy the newspapers as the games are all online :)

I think the Sun dream team one is the most widely played but I find it boring as you get stuck with injured players for weeks waiting for transfer windows.

The Telegraph game tends to be the most popular amongst Fantasy football managers as you can tinker away all season with 30 transfers allowed and make changes to your team right up till the first kick-off of the day.
You can have as many teams as you like, the first team is free but if you want more you can upgrade to either 5 teams for £5 or 20 teams for £20.
Many different cash prizes if your good enough.

The Premier league runs it's own game "Fantasy Premier League" and it is free to play.
You choose a squad of 15 players in your budget, then pick a starting XI for each game, transfers are available during the season - 1 is free, anymore cost you points, wildcards are available twice a season to let you ship out several players at once if half your squad get sold to Real Madrid in January.
You can only have one team each, but you can put it in multiple leagues.

So if anyone who reads this blog wants to join in this season?
I have set up "Nothing better than football" leagues in the Premier league game and the Telegraph one.

-----------
Fantasy Premier League 2013/14
http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb.html
League name: Nothing Better Than Football
Code to join this league: 225975-270358
-----------

Telegraph Fantasy Football 2013/14
http://fantasyfootball.telegraph.co.uk/
League name: Nothing Better Than Football
PIN: 8043485

(You can have as many teams as you like in this one, I've put in one for now but need at least 5 teams to make it an official league, so if I don't get 5 by the end of August I'll add a few more of my own .. but hopefully I won't need to)

The Premier league game is open to everyone worldwide (as there are no cash prizes), sadly the Telegraph game is UK residents only :(