Premier Predictions (Week 08)

2 Games on Friday night this week, 4 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday before another International break.
* First game on Friday starts at 5:30pm *

Big game of the weekend is City v Liverpool, have been frustrated with City this season as they pass the ball around for fun, but never look like scoring? Liverpool's new star Jota could undo them.
Everton v Man U, both teams are either very good or very poor.
West Ham v Fulham, can the Hammers keep up the form they've showed in the last 6 against top teams, or will they forget it all against a team they should beat.

Brighton v Burnley
Southampton v Newcastle

Everton v Man Utd
Crystal Palace v Leeds
Chelsea v Sheff Utd
West Ham v Fulham

West Brom v Tottenham
Leicester v Wolves
Man City v Liverpool
Arsenal v Aston Villa

Good Luck All  😀

Think John Terry has gone a bit early  😆

Premier Predictions (Week 07)

Another 4 day week starting on Friday.
One game Friday, 3 on Saturday, 4 on Sunday and 2 more on Monday.
Saturday games look the best with Sheffield and Burnley winless at home to Man City and Chelsea who both play in Europe either side of this.
Hopefully Antonio will be fit for the Hammers against Liverpool.
Man U v Arsenal was a big game 10 years ago now it's a bottom half game, and the other 2 winless teams play each other on Monday.

Wolves v Crystal Palace
Sheff Utd v Man City
Burnley v Chelsea
Liverpool v West Ham
Aston Villa v Southampton
Newcastle v Everton
Man Utd v Arsenal
Tottenham v Brighton
Fulham v West Brom
Leeds v Leicester

Good Luck All  😀

Unrelated good news, Southend managed to pay their latest tax bill so are saved until the next bill. Currently the strongest team in the EFL holding the other 91 teams up 😢

Also good to see European football this week with fans in the stadiums (I remember those days).

Premier Predictions (Week 06)

Week 6 and the games are spread over 4 days.
Kicks off with 100% Villa against Leeds, 4 games on Saturday, 3 on Sunday and the last 2 on Monday.

Man Utd v Chelsea is totally unpredictable as you have no idea what either team does from one week to the next.

Can West ham produce a huge shock or at least stop City hitting 4 or 5 like normal?

last 5 home meetings - West Ham 1 Man City 22

Aston Villa v Leeds
West Ham v Man City
Fulham v Crystal Palace
Man Utd v Chelsea
Liverpool v Sheff Utd
Southampton v Everton
Wolves v Newcastle
Arsenal v Leicester

Brighton v West Brom

Burnley v Tottenham

 

Good Luck All  😀

Summer Transfers 2020 Complete

The transfer windows have finally shut so here's where the Premier league cash was splashed during the summer break.
Info based on the best sources I could find (no sensationalist newspaper figures), includes squad and youth players .
Several Undisclosed figures which I've counted as Free transfers until I hear different.
A lot less players this summer than last year, and also only 2 over £50m but overall a similar amount of cash splashed as a lot of pretty average players were going for over £20m.
Brighton seem to be following the Chelsea and Man City scheme of buying in lots of youth players and loaning them out, but for a lot less outlay.

The Chart:

Total Spend - £1,346,890,000,000
Most Players In - Brighton 18, Fulham 18, Leeds 15, Man Utd 15
Most Players Out - Chelsea 47, Man City 47, Brighton 37, Wolves 37
Most Money Paid - Chelsea £223.38m, Man City £146.97m, Tottenham £99.5m
Most Money Received - Wolves £73.4m, Man City £68.36m, Chelsea £50.4m
Largest Profit - West Ham £4.77m, Crystal Palace £1.13m
Largest Defecit - Chelsea £172.98m, Leeds £98.26m, Tottenham £86.45m

Largest Fees Paid

Kai Havertz [Bayer Leverkusen - Chelsea] £72m
Ruben Dias [Benfica - Man City] £61.2m
Timo Werner [RB Leipzig - Chelsea] £47.7m
Ben Chilwell [Leicester - Chelsea] £45.18m
Thomas Partey [Atletico Madrid - Arsenal] £45m
Diogo Jota [Wolves - Liverpool] £41m
Nathan Ake [Bournemouth - Man City] £40.77m
Leroy Sane [Man City - Bayern Munich] £40.5m *
Fabio Silva [Porto - Wolves] £36m
Hakim Ziyech [Ajax - Chelsea] £36m
Donny van de Beek [Ajax - Man Utd] £35.1m
Alvaro Morata [Chelsea - Athletico Madrid] £31.5m *
Wesley Fofana [Saint Etienne - Leicester] £31.5m
Giovani Lo Celso [Real Betis - Tottenham] £28.8m
Ollie Watkins [Brentford - Aston Villa] £27.72m
Nelson Semedo [Barcelona - Wolves] £27m
Rodrigo [Valencia - Leeds] £27m
Sergio Reguilon [Real Madrid - Tottenham] £27m
Ben Godfrey [Norwich - Everton] £24.75m
Gabriel Magalhaes [Lille - Arsenal] £23.4m
Rhian Brewster [Liverpool - Sheff Utd] £23.4m

Premier Predictions (Week 05)

International breaks done for a month, back to proper games.
Not sure if the latest Covid regs will affect any of the games, guess the Mersey derby might be under threat?  😷
If all go ahead it's 4 on Saturday, 4 on Sunday and 2 on Monday.

Everton v Liverpool
Chelsea v Southampton
Man City v Arsenal
Newcastle v Man Utd

Sheff Utd v Fulham
Crystal Palace v Brighton
Tottenham v West Ham
Leicester v Aston Villa

West Brom v Burnley
Leeds v Wolves

Good Luck All  😀

Summer Transfers 2020

There is a huge list of transfers that have already happened, and today is transfer deadline day.
Although it's not!!
The transfer window for deals between Premier league and EFL clubs is open until next Friday the 16th.
So still plenty of time for Premier league clubs to find another Jarod Bowen or Ollie Watkins.

Will post the list here and update as we go soon

Premier Predictions (Week 04)

This weeks games spread over 2 days due to an International break next week.
2 of the 4 100% teams meet at Villa Park, top of the table Leicester play West Ham and you never know what they will do? 😟
Only guarantee is a few more dubious penalties somewhere, who knows maybe even West Ham will get one?

Chelsea v Crystal Palace
Everton v Brighton
Leeds v Man City
Newcastle v Burnley

Leicester v West Ham
Southampton v West Brom
Arsenal v Sheff Utd
Wolves v Fulham
Man Utd v Tottenham
Aston Villa v Liverpool

Good Luck All  😀

Premier Predictions (Week 03)

Another 3 day weekend with games spread all over it (Covid permitting?)  😷

6 on Sky, 3 on BT and 1 on Amazon?

I think I prefer the option of no artificial crowd noise, Sean Dyche was quite entertaining last week "get your f***ing foot in" 😆
6 of the 7 unbeaten teams play each other, so hopefully some good games.

Brighton v Man Utd
Crystal Palace v Everton
West Brom v Chelsea
Burnley v Southampton

Sheff Utd v Leeds
Tottenham v Newcastle
Man City v Leicester
West Ham v Wolves

Fulham v Aston Villa
Liverpool v Arsenal

Good Luck All  😀

Premier Predictions (Week 02)

Thursday already so here's this weeks spaced out fixtures, (might take me a while to get back into the routine).

I can see Mourinho having a meltdown this week with Tottenham playing in Bulgaria tonight, and if they win having to possibly play 8 games in the next 15 days.

Everton v West Brom
Leeds v Fulham
Man Utd v Crystal Palace
Arsenal v West Ham

Southampton v Tottenham
Newcastle v Brighton
Chelsea v Liverpool
Leicester v Burnley

Aston Villa v Sheff Utd
Wolves v Man City

Good Luck All 😀

Premier Predictions (Week 01)

It's time for the Premier League again, so Premier Predictions 2020-21 is up and running.

Hopefully the regular players will be back and anyone reading this blog is welcome to join in at any point, just let me know a name and club supported so I can give you some colours.
 

Premier league is back on Saturday, but fixtures are subject to change (they have been changed again today). 2 of the games have been postponed supposedly to give the Manchester clubs a rest after the European games, but most of the players played in Internationals last week? Games are all being moved around due to the Coronavirus, the decision seems to have been made that all games will be available to watch on telly so are unlikely to be played at the same time.

T&C's - Usual rules apply
3 Points for a correct score, 1 Point for a correct result.
Predictions League will be decided on weekly wins first, if 2 or more people share a weekly win that will be classed as a draw, if at the end things are still level the total points for the season come into play.
Predictions in the comments please :)

Obviously predictions will only count if they are made before the kick offs, please try and post the whole set at once (but I won't enforce it as these Friday night games catch everyone out including me).

Prizes - Just the admiration of everyone who plays 😎

First set - Saturday 12th September to Monday 14th September (Just 8 Games)

Fulham v Arsenal
Crystal Palace v Southampton
Liverpool v Leeds
West Ham v Newcastle

West Brom v Leicester
Tottenham v Everton

Sheff Utd v Wolves
Brighton v Chelsea

Postponed Games
Burnley P Man Utd
Man City P Aston Villa

Football Nostalgia

Finally got round to updating one of my other blogs - Football Nostalgia

I've got box loads of old football memorabilia so decided to scan a pile of it to share with others, and remind myself of happier times.

Covering a whole range of teams (but including a lot of old West Ham stuff), give it a look if you have nothing better to do

Blog -  Football Nostalgia

Twitter - Lee's Footy Nostalgia

Season 2020/21

It could be another really weird season with the Coronavirus problems, nobody really knows what the next 9 months hold on that score? Even if everything was normal it would be a really hard job to predict what is going to happen this season.
The title looks like a 4 horse race?
Liverpool won by a mile last season, but were really lucky with injuries to key players that all the other contenders seemed to get. They haven't added to their squad yet and got rid of a few squad players.
It will be down to the other teams improving on bad seasons to put pressure on them.
Man City probably have the best squad but losing Sane and Silva will weaken them, and some of Guardiola's tactics last season make you wonder if he's as good as he thinks he is.
Man Utd looked good at the end of last season and Fernandes was the best buy last year, the defence still looks weak so would need to improve a lot.
Chelsea have spent big already with £200m of players coming in, but will they knit together and how will some of last year's breakthrough youngsters react to losing their place, and will they sort out their goalie problem?

The other possible contenders are Arsenal, Wolves and Tottenham.
Arsenal seem to have revived under Arteta and should have a good season, Wolves went off the boil a bit last season but did play a lot of games, will miss Doherty. Tottenham still don't look a force, got some good players but can't see them challenging for the title.
I would guess Leicester, Southampton, Newcastle and Sheff Utd will be mid table.

At the bottom it's any 3 from the rest.
Can't see any of the promoted sides doing a Norwich, but don't think they will set the world alight.
Possibly a season of struggle for West Ham, Burnley, Palace, Brighton, Villa, Everton and the 3 promoted teams.
Things looked bright a couple of weeks ago for West Ham with Diangana back on the left to supply Haller, and Bowen improving all the time, but the sale of Grady to a rival has really put a dampner on everything.

Prediction Time (with a lot of bias)
Top
1 Man City 2 Liverpool 3 Chelsea 4 Man Utd 5 Arsenal
Bottom
20 Brighton 19 C Palace 18 Fulham / 17 Burnley 16 West Ham

Fantasy Football 2020-2021

The Nothing Better Than Football fantasy leagues are up and running again  😇  Both are free to play again

Fantasy Premier League (FPL)

This one is pretty straightforward, hardly any changes apart from a lot of strikers are now classed as midfielders, and vice versa. Here's the info:

Hello, For the 2020/21 Fantasy Premier League why don't you join my mini-league "Nothing Better Than Football"?

Joining the league couldn't be easier. Simply use the link below and you'll be added automatically after you've entered the game.

https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/f4f3ik

League Code: f4f3ik - Looking forward to playing against you this season!

 

Telegraph Football Fantasy Premier League (TFF)

They have made wholesale changes to this one with multiple gliches and also making it impossible to invite all previous players to my league, unless I actually know your e-mail addresses or hopefully you are reading this?

Anyway, if you do fancy joining the league here's the info:

Great, now that you have created a league, invite others to join. 

Your unique league code for Nothing Better Than Football is: US4D6ZR2

Hopefully we'll get a decent amount of players in the end as I only finished 7th last season and need some revenge  😄

Season Over

 Well the 2019/20 season is finally over after the Champions league final last night.

Bayern Munich deservedly won beating PSG 1-0 in a pretty dull final (aren't they always).

The 2020/21 season has already kicked off in a variety of leagues, with Scotland and many European leagues on the go and this seasons Euro competition qualifiers into the early rounds.

The English leagues all start on September 12th, the Charity shield is being played next Saturday.

The Nations league begins in early September along with the first round of the League (EFL) Cup.

One last table to complete the Fantasy Football.

TFF Euro Super League

Not sure how many people played this, started out with about 30,000 teams.

Had a good year winning the League of Leagues, the Off to Europe we go league, the Rick's Footy Challenge league and the big one the Nothing Better Than Football League.

Did only come 2nd in the Family league, 6th in the Twitter League, and only 35th in the Facebook league.

Typically there were no cash prizes this season :(

Premier League Predictions will be back in early September, hopefully with enough players to keep it going? see you then.

Europe 2020

I have to say I'm enjoying the current format for the conclusion of the 2 European competitions in this pandemic hit season.

Obviously the lack of crowds is a big downer, but the football has been good and having the games every day has given it the feel of the World cup or Euro championships, without the agony of praying England do well.

 

Obvious highlight was the Bayern v Barcelona game, I like the way Bayern play and dislike Barcelona because of their diving etc so picked the right team to cheer on. The 8-2 result didn't really flatter Bayern who should have got double figures.

Most annoying game was the Man City v Lyon one, I like watching City in full flow and they were excellent against Real Madrid, but you feared what was going to happen when you saw the line up to face Lyon. No Silva's, Mahrez or Foden who was brilliant against Madrid as he chose a defensive line up against on paper the worst team left in the competition?

Yes they could have scraped through if Lyon's 2nd goal had been disallowed and Sterling hadn't have missed the sitter, but because of Guardiola's tactics they deserved to get beaten.

Man Utd have looked good in the last couple of months and I fancied them to get to the Europa league final, but Seville had the knowledge  to blunt their attacks with packed defence and you knew they would grab a breakaway goal at some point. It has happened so many times to English teams who over commit looking for a winner.

Honourable mentions to Wolves who were unlucky to go out to a very late goal, but looked jaded after a very long season. 

Inter Milan are looking good with Chelsea reject Conte and his wig playing some really good stuff, whether Lukaku and co will be able to break down Seville is anyone's guess but I hope so.

Assuming Bayern beat Lyon? I would expect them to beat PSG although it will be a lot closer than most of Bayern's games.

Tables 2019 - 2020 (Part 2)

 A few more tables for the records this season.

TFF - Nothing Better Than Footy League

Not a great season for myself or the League, usually get a Top 100 place but highest position this season was 90th and ended up in 180th.

Congratulations to Sue who hit top spot with 2 weeks to go, and unlucky on Colin who had led most of the season.

 

NBTF - FA Cup Predictions Table

Arsenal got me over the line in the final game.

All Time Predictions Records (All Competitions)

10 Years of predictions on this site, here are the records of everything.

Won, Drawn, Lost only applies to the Premier league predictions,the Played, 3 Point, 1 Point, Total and Points per game include Premier League, FA Cup, World Cup and Euro's that have been played since 2010.

All Time Premier Predictions 

Just the Premier League predictions in 10 seasons.

That's nearly all one competition still going on, the TFF Euro competition.

Having a much better season in that one, just outside the Top 50 individually and the leagues are doing very well, NBTF League is 12th and family league is currently 2nd with just 3 games left to play.

Tables 2019 - 2020

Time for some tables to show what happened in the Predictions competition, and some other stuff (for anyone that is interested) 😏

Still one week to go in the F.A Cup Competition and TFF Fantasy League, so more of this next week.

Final Complete Predictions Table - All The Facts and Figures

Most Wins: Lee 10
Most Predictions: Lee 387
Most Correct Scores (3 Pointers): Lee 49
Most Correct Results (3+1 Pointers): Lawro 190, Lee 185
Most Points: Lee 283
Highest Week Score: Lee & Paulo 15
Lowest Score In A Full Week: Gibbo 1
Best Points Per Game: Lee 0.731
Highest Scoring Correct Prediction: Biopunk & Gibbo (5-0)

Final Table If All The Guests Were Included In The Competition

The FPL (Fantasy premier League) Final Table For The NBTF League

Congratulations to Mike 😀 who held the top spot from week 11, and held me off  😒

Thanks to Mike, Michele, Tommy and DJ for joining in this season.

Premier Predictions (Week 38)

Finally we get to the last week of season 2019/2020 😀
Still a few things to sort out, relegation and Euro spots still up for grabs.
2 from Villa, Watford and Bournemouth will go down, all are away at teams with nothing to fight for, Bournemouth need a win and the other 2 to lose.
Goal difference might be the deciding factor?

The Champions league spots are down to 2 games, Man Utd need a draw to stay above Leicester, Chelsea need a point or a Man Utd win to guarantee top 4.
Awkward for Chelsea as Wolves need a win to make sure of a Europa league spot.
Other factors might change all this as Wolves and Man Utd are still in the Europa league this season, and if either win they will get the 4th Champions league spot even if they finish outside the top 4, and Arsenal can take the 3rd Europa league spot by winning the F.A Cup.

It's all very confusing!!

Thanks to everyone who has played along this season
Happy to say after 10 years of this I've finally won it 🏆  Second place still up for grabs though.


Week 38 - 10 games - All Kick off at 4pm

Arsenal v Watford
Burnley v Brighton
Chelsea v Wolves
Crystal Palace v Tottenham
Everton v Bournemouth
Leicester v Man Utd
Man City v Norwich
Newcastle v Liverpool
Southampton v Sheff Utd
West Ham v Aston Villa

🏆
Just to complete everything for this season, the F.A Cup final is on the 1st August.
Title is still up for grabs all very close - Myself and Biopunk have 45 points each and I'm just ahead by virtue of having 1 more correct score, so all to play for (90 minute score only).

Arsenal v Chelsea

Good Luck All  😁

Hopefully back for next season whenever that is starting, might not be long?
This seasons European competitions start again on the 5th August through to 23rd August, so our remaining teams will be hoping for a break.
That was a long post  😀

Premier Predictions (Week 36 + 37)

No breaks between games, so here we go with another double bill Week 36 and week 37 fixtures (even though week 35 is still running).
These games were announced after I had posted the previous selection.

Week 36 has 10 league games spread over 4 days.
Week 37 has 10 League games plus 2 F.A Cup semi-finals spread over 5 days (all games count - cup ties 90 minute score)  🏆

Will post the final week around the 23rd July.

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

Week 36 - 14th to 17th July
1 game on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, 4 on Thursday and the big relegation 6 pointer on Friday.

Chelsea v Norwich
Burnley v Wolves
Man City v Bournemouth
Newcastle v Tottenham
Arsenal v Liverpool
Everton v Aston Villa
Leicester v Sheff Utd
Crystal Palace v Man Utd
Southampton v Brighton
West Ham v Watford

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

Week 37 - 18th to 22nd July
2 games on Saturday, 3 on Sunday, 3 on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday.
(F.A Cup games 90 minute score only, so a draw is possible)

Norwich v Burnley
Arsenal v Man City (FAC)
Bournemouth v Southampton
Tottenham v Leicester
Chelsea v Man Utd (FAC)
Brighton v Newcastle
Sheff Utd v Everton
Wolves v Crystal Palace
Watford v Man City
Aston Villa v Arsenal
Man Utd v West Ham
Liverpool v Chelsea

Good Luck All  😃

On a sad note - R.I.P Jackie Charlton who died on Saturday, another of the 1966 England team who has sadly gone  😢
Jack played his entire career for Leeds and managed Middlesbrough, Sheffield Wednesday and his favourite team Newcastle. Although he was an early football pundit he will be best remembered as the manager of the Republic of Ireland.
Thanks to his policy of picking up players with Irish ancestory he turned the Republic team into a real force and qualified for 2 World cups and the Euro's once.

Premier Predictions (Week 33+34+35)

A Triple bill as all the games are so close together.
30 games in the space of 10 days.

Week 33 - 4th to 6th July
5 games on Saturday, 4 on Sunday and one on Monday

Norwich v Brighton
Leicester v Crystal Palace
Man Utd v Bournemouth
Wolves v Arsenal
Chelsea v Watford
Burnley v Sheff Utd
Newcastle v West Ham
Liverpool v Aston Villa
Southampton v Man City
Tottenham v Everton

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

Week 34 - 7th to 9th July
3 games on Tuesday, 4 on Wednesday, 3 on Thursday

Crystal Palace v Chelsea
Watford v Norwich
Arsenal v Leicester
Man City v Newcastle
Sheff Utd v Wolves
West Ham v Burnley
Brighton v Liverpool
Bournemouth v Tottenham
Everton v Southampton
Aston Villa v Man Utd

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

Week 35 - 11th to 13th July
5 games on Saturday, 4 on Sunday and one on Monday

Norwich v West Ham
Watford v Newcastle
Liverpool v Burnley
Sheff Utd v Chelsea
Brighton v Man City
Wolves v Everton
Aston Villa v Crystal Palace
Tottenham v Arsenal
Bournemouth v Leicester
Man Utd v Southampton

Good Luck All  😃