I was this close (makes small gap between thumb and index finger) to sticking down all 1-1 draws this week, as it did look a really tough of fixtures to call. That strategy would have yielded 157 pts (after four 1-1 draws and a 0-0), but it still would have fallen quite a way short of Channel 5 Publicity Legend, Nick Dear, who wins this week's £50 with a great score of 194. Up front, there is barely any change as they go conservative, though Nick Romero is the only person in the Top 20 to post a 100+ score, and moves upto 6th
Bonus team: Arsenal, 9 mins v Manchester City. 15 players picked up 28 bonus pts each. A pretty low number by recent standards, but not surprising with City unbeaten at home before this. Surprising however to see that former Spurs skipper, Gary Mabbutt, was one of the 15! Liverpool were the most popular choice this week, with 59 of you going for them v Sunderland.
Predictions Cup Round 2: For the half of us left in, it was another Cup Week and the full results, and draw for Round 3, can be found in the link on the right hand side of the blog. Tie of the round? Probably Roger Jenns' 98-95 win over Jayraj Jatania though there was an interesting game between Paul Blacker and Gordon Dickson. The former forgot to send his scores and got a 0, and Gordon's scored minus 1! Hard luck also to anyone who scored 100+ and lost and to Craig Gogay and Simon Hargreaves, who both drew their games, but lost on Countback. I got stuffed, so well done to Dave and the other 127 of you who progress. Prediction Cup glory is still a possibility!
And Finally...I asked myself (work is slack!) how would the Big 4 be faring if they were in their own minileague? Based on all the head-to-heads last season and those in the first half of this one, this is how that table would look:
| THE BIG 4 | ||||||
| PL | W | D | L | GD | PTS | |
| Arsenal | 9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 16 |
| Man Utd | 9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 15 |
| Liverpool | 9 | 2 | 2 | 5 | -1 | 8 |
| Chelsea | 9 | 1 | 5 | 3 | -3 | 8 |
Now, let's see what happens if you add a random team to this league, say for example West Ham, and do the same:
| THE BIG 5! | ||||||
| PL | W | D | L | GD | PTS | |
| West Ham | 12 | 6 | 0 | 6 | -4 | 18 |
| Arsenal | 12 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 17 |
| Chelsea | 12 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 17 |
| Man Utd | 12 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 15 |
| Liverpool | 12 | 4 | 2 | 6 | -2 | 14 |
The table never lies! :)
