…never wide of the mark…
Just a quick post this week of the picks and results
And the weekly standings. Its a bit cheeky really because the winners this week didn’t actually pick but took Mark Lawrenson’s default picks. I’ll have to rethink this as it seems unfair to reward people for not thinking…. then again, it seems week after week there are predictions which clearly show we aren’t thinking!
This weeks winners posed for a photo
Another round another dollar – quite literally for the Premier league.
This week Manchester City wrapped up second place and, more importantly, won their appeal against the Champions League ban. Apparently a corrupt organization calling a team corrupt based on illegal hacking didn’t win enough support.
The posts since the restart have been mostly lackluster but that reflects the season as a whole. Matches are like pre-season friendlies and lack any true intensity or atmosphere. The games seem tedious and boring and perfunctory.
I think Liverpool’s season reflects 2019-20 as a whole.
We’re going to win everything. Aston Villa 5-0
We’re going to be the invincibles. Watford 3-0
We’re going to win the treble. Chelsea 2-0
We’re going to win the double. Atletico 2-3
We’re going to score 100 points. Arsenal 2-1
We won the league!
One of the interesting things I’ve noticed this year in doing this picks is that the weekly scores of people is inversely proportional to the amount of guesswork taken. That is, when people finish towards the top of the weekly table there’s a lot of skill involved and when they finish bottom “had no time and just guessed”.
The scoring for the week was a little bit up and it’s still tight with just two games left to go.
I think there’s a lot to be said for the randomness of picks when you see that first place this week was a 11 spot jump from last week and the top two spots plummeting down the table! Super-computers are spread across the table but once again #2 leads the pack.
Other News
Real Madrid won the Spanish league. They said he was crazy. They said he should be fired. They said he couldn’t do it with a second rate squad. Bow down to the great Zidane.
Weekly Comments
ME: “Tough calls again. VAR is still causing issues…. when are referees going to view the incidents for a better informed final confirmation?”
That’s what they’re what they are doing every time. They’ve done it against every team and, I guess, just recently got around to Spuds. That said, everyone agrees:
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/53357841 except OGS who has been well advised on how to comment by his mentor and doubling down on what everyone else knows to be wrong.
I am fairly confident that I had posted the results to this week but looking through my site I see no such evidence so I assume I must have had a dream where I could actually manage to keep up with all the games.
This was a train wreck of a week. Supercomputer 1 managed to correctly identify one result which not much worse than my attempt to get more than 2 results. I’ll have to look at records but I am fairly confident that this is a weekly total aggregate low score record. The Watford game accounted for roughly over one-third of the total points!
Weekly Comments
AA: “Probably shouldn’t change, but I will. To be fair, I have no idea what I picked last time.”
I won’t score your old picks so you’ll never know how well you would have done!
AM: “First time in a while I’ve been back through my selections and changed nothing. This surely means BIG points this week!? :-)”
Not big points but you’re sitting on top of the pile this week
Fast and furious and unable to keep up. Week 33 seems so long ago because it’s been about a week which is an awful long time in Coronavirus Premier League time.
This week Mark Lawrenson had his best week of the year. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this a week that BB and LJ decided to default their picks to the pro.
More picks and more results and more things to post
I could say that I spent ages picking results this week but are you kidding? No chance. I do think that AM is going to be disappointed at a 10 point differential on the week!
Weekly Comments x 2
ME: “We all hope Watford will stay up and I expect this will be a hard fought 3 points..fingers crossed!”
BE: “Must win for Watford! And for IOTJ…”
JE: “Cmon moosemen!!!”
Look at that. A little love and they pull out a victory
Just the predictions this week as it’s taken me time to set up the forms and remember how to do this! Looks like a bad start for the week for ME thought (provisional leader) as he once again confidently picks the Potato Chickens for the win … only to see them not win again.
Lots of people with an early 1-1 exact on the Spuds and United game though.
So the Premier League is restarting and it turns out I’m already behind!
Two make up games this week and those have been factored in and week 28 is in the books. Started in February and ended in June!
Seems this week I forgot to plug in SuperComputer 2 and SuperComputer 1 stole all the horsepower from SuperComputer 3 as they went first and last (and always if you like the Sisters of Mercy)
Week 29 was already completed but I didn’t do the picks or the summary. I’m not going to do that this week either – I’m just going to present the table. How the Hornets beat Liverpool 3-0 and then lose to the Palace, I’ll never know.
A good week for many but this week I apparently gave all the horsepower back to SuperComputers 2 and 3 as SuperComputer 1 faltered terribly.
Just the picks – my laptop has no power because an unknown creature that I will call “Cliff” took a liking to my power adapter cable.
Looks like I forgot to put up picks, results, tables, analysis and any information regarding the fixtures from the 22nd of February… perhaps this is an indication that it’s getting harder and harder to care when one team is 20 points clear and the team you support barely has more than that in total.
And looks like a tie between LJ and JE with poor old AA languishing at the bottom looking like a forlorn Canary, Deer, or Hammer.
Weekly Comments
JE: “Lots of 2-1s ok my and from memory I have quite a lot of those… what is the most common scoreline? Is it 2-1?”
It’s not but looks like this week the tactic worked well!
AA: ” I never noticed how lovely Mikel Arteta’s eyes are. He’s not Gazzaniga, to be fair, but still “
That is important!
So the schedule has been messed up by the so-called “mid-season player break” but I’m trying to keep up with things. I know that Watford don’t need this because they have a “mid-game player break” every week.
Here are the picks:
Weekly Comments
AA: ” In under the wire for Watford (who have become my sentimental favourite this season btw.) “
Please don’t do this. Life is already hard enough without adding that to it!
That’s it!
Why Picks Are Hard Part 2
Picks are hard because it’s almost impossible to predict the mental state of 22 players at any given time. No one knows when a player will launch into a red-card lunge… when a player will holds their hand in an unnatural position in a box for an opposing team to kick the ball into. No one knows when a player will fall asleep and let a striker in…
The key is to focus on exceptions like:
Current Standings After 3 Games
Some variety in there!
Just the picks for now – BB is today’s Mark Lawrenson award winner
