Chelsea, Chelsea

Wonder which one's Longy :)




Thanks to Pete and Gobby :)

Premier Predictions (Week 22)

Another 3 day week this weekend with 7 games on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and 1 on Monday.
The big game should be Sunday's Chelsea v Man U clash although that's lost a bit of it's sparkle, Pardew comes back to Upton Park and Pulis takes on Stoke.

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

Good luck all :)

Premier Predictions (Week 21)

A bit later than planned here's this weeks prediction contest, games over 3 days with 7 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and Villa Arsenal on Monday.

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

Not looking forward to tonight's game, always a slight chance the Hammers could pull off the shock result of the season but after the last few games I fear an absolute disaster :(

How Low Can You Go

Forest away was going to be a tough game even if we had a full strength team, with them flying high and our form as poor as it has been in many years.
Great to see some of the kids given a go, but didn't expect that many all at once?
Debuts for Danny Whitehead, Callum Driver and Sebastian Lletget and only a handful of games for Moncur and Potts.
The formation looked a bit strange with a back 3 including 2 right backs and a central midfielder? but other than Moncur's poor challenge giving away a penalty it was only 1-0 at half time, and there was still hope.
Downing, Jarvis and Maiga are all regulars but they were all very poor today, a few of the kids looked alright I didn't think Driver and Whitehead played too bad and Turgott looks promising, the rest might have been OK as part of a stronger team but they were all on the back foot from the start.
Couldn't believe Fat Sam took off Diarra who was the only experienced head in the defence, and after that Forest had the freedom of our penalty box.
Ravel Morrison showed some good touches early on but seemed to lose interest and was a passenger for most of the 2nd half, Maiga was a disgrace, Downing who'd looked good at Fulham seemed content to sit on the wing hoping for a pass and didn't contribute much and certainly wasn't captain material.

It's ended up 5-0 which is a disgrace, you've got to feel sorry for a few of the younger players but the manager deserves all the bile heading his way for a poor formation to start and again some strange substitutions which contributed to this embarrassing thrashing :(

Footy Nostalgia

Finally got around to updating my footie nostalgia blog - http://footynostalgia.blogspot.co.uk
reposted a few bits from this blog and added some new stuff.
Hopefully will be adding some stuff soon if I can get my scanner to work again :)

Give it a look :)

Eusebio RIP

Sad news that one of the all time greats died last night aged 71.
Due to his exploits in 1966 he was one of the first world stars I had heard of, and he fitted in to that small select group of legends of the game with Pele, Moore, Best and Charlton.

Fantasy Nightmare

Fantasy football (Telegraph version) is becoming hard work this year, I've never known a season where so many top players have had so many injury periods meaning having to use the available transfers just to keep 11 players playing.
This week has the added problem of top sides resting players for cup matches.
The above side has 5 players injured, 1 suspended and most of the rest likely to be rested, it's not worth making transfers as the replacements I would likely use might be rested as well :(

Overall I'm having a bad season with my best team down in 1.395th place and only 2 teams in the top 20k, the work league is going well so far which is good for bragging rights at least :)

A Wet Day In Fulham

Firstly huge thanks to Gobby for the tickets :)
Took my youngest son who lives in Leytonstone, which meant I could park there and get the tube :)
Despite getting soaked through walking from tube to ground I was really enjoying the experience and the tickets in the Hammers end was a nice bonus.

We started the game really well and after Diame's early goal it looked like being a comfortable victory hopefully by several goals, Nolan missed a good chance just after but it was still looking good.
About half an hour gone and Noble stayed down after a tackle and had to go off, Fat Sam for some reason brought on Rat to add to the 4 defenders we started with and from that moment we lost all direction and minutes later we conceded the equaliser. Just before half time Nolan had another mad moment kicking the Fulham defender off the ball for his second stupid red card in 4 games (someone should check his bank account) and that pretty much sealed our fate :(
The second half went as expected with us hanging on, Fat Sam took off Diame? but good to see Downing back earlier than expected, and he did look our best player for the rest of the game.
Sadly Fulham got their second goal from Berbatov and it never looked like we'd get back in the game Carlton Cole came on but was never going to beat anyone for pace.

Allardyce walks off for the last time??
I've tried to give Fat Sam the benefit of the doubt, as I don't think there are any available managers who could do a better job but I'm really starting to wonder now, the substitutions were strange again and even when we are short of players he won't risk younger players? I thought Leo Chambers would start today as we didn't have any central defenders but he didn't make the squad.
The team looks tired and stale, Downing came on and did the things the rest of the team failed to manage in the whole game, the simple ability of running with the ball, passing to a teamate and actually looking forward.
Been an armchair fan this season and found it hard work to be a Hammers fan, in the flesh it is even more frustrating.

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