After months of misplaced optimism, most of our 32 participants were at last rewarded with a correct result for the Ladsââ¬â¢! At the top, Man U, Chelsea & Man City came up with well backed wins, but Arsenalââ¬â¢s defeat at Bolton means 4th spot could be the best they can achieve, whereas Spurs must be looking nervously over their shoulder at Liverpool for 5th place after failing to take all the points against a resurgent West Brom. Overall a high scoring week and ââ¬Ëmackem911ââ¬â¢ takes the plaudits with an admirable 8/2, though a special mention must go to ââ¬Ëmitchthemakemââ¬â¢ for his 4 correct scores in second spot. Unfortunately ââ¬Ëchatsnoirsââ¬â¢ is well adrift at the bottom with 1/0 and has a week of reflection on the naughty step. 8/2 mackem911 7/4 mitchthemakem 7/3 John@safc 7/2 baggiesfan One Chance Asamoah vincemac 7/1 cyprussydsafc MrRAWhite 6/3 Sidthemackem 6/2 Dorset Mackem gadgiejthemakum HilpertonianSWINDON jdsafc mackemwelder Men_Drown_in_the_Willow_Pond 6/1 argus CountyDurhamMackem safcycharlie talcnturnip 6/0 Gordon Armstrong 5/2 Super Gyan 5/1 Myrtle oldblackcat RIP Bartons Tash Wherewereyou 5/0 WE_LOVE_TYPICAL_SUNDERLAND 4/1 BeautifulGame91 master-simpson 4/0 wressleturbine 3/0 jerseymackem whitburnlad 1/0 chatsnoirs
Thanks Argus - it always cheers my day up a little bit when you post the results (I wouldn't even mind it if I was on the naughty step)
Yes.. First ever win..Would take the naughty step next week,all day though, if the lads beat Fulham. No guts,no Glory!!! Cheers Argus.KTF
No! Not that! The bottom rung! And for my birthday too! Argus, you can't do this to me! I have my international reputation to think of! What if this gets out?! Gone, the blind respect and admiration I have from my family, work superiors and neighbour's dog! How can I enter the Lady Godiva (it's a pub! - note the definite article before the name, you gutter-minded pervert! [I don't mean you, of course]) without ridicule and scorn being poured upon me! My thinking was that of a sound and sane man when I went for the results: ManU 1 Everton 3: Manchester United have to crack at home some time. Well, maybe it'll be against Schalke (but don't quote me on that as you too may be bottom-runging it sooner than you think). Villa 4 Stoke 0: Surely Stoke were going to be hungover from their FA Cup semi-final mawling and lose 4-0, even though Bent was going to go off with a career-threatening injury in the first minute. How was I to realise that Sunderland are the only team capable of amassing four goals without any forwards on or anywhere near the pitch? Blackpool 0 Them 4: I love Blackpool. Great beach and tower but surely their team has to be found out once and for all. And of course fate had to decide that Newcastle would be the ones to reap the glory, the points and the enhanced goal difference!. But no, the tangerines hang on. But all fruit fall from the tree eventually, don't they? L'pool 2 Brum 2: Birmingham are the luckiest team in the league at the moment. How did they not lose 5-0 to that valiant team from the north-east the week before. Totally outplayed for 75 minutes and win 2-0! So their luck would continue to be ridden at Liverpool. But no. Liverpool sell one Spaniard who has stopped scoring and they find another one who scores a hat-trick. You couldn't make it up, could you? The Lads 0 Wigan 0: Now, I went for the goalless draw at the SOL. Clean sheet to stem the tide with a good win against Fulham to follow. But no, we lose all our players who are allowed into the opposing team's penalty area, they are Wigan away, and still there are six goals in the game. Talk about extenuating circumstances! (But I wasn't half glad to be wrong about this one!) Spurs 3 WBA 1: Here was I two weeks ago extolling the virtues of one Roy Hodgson and yet did not go for his team to get something against a Tottenham team that really are cracking up after a big cup defeat. This one I should have seen coming. I'll admit to that. Wolves0 Fulham 2: Fulham haven't won away all season so I went for them to win at Wolves so that they wouldn't be looking to break their duck against us. Even though I love Mick McCarthy (Oh no, hasn't someone else [everyone else?] already said that somewhere else [everywhere else?] on this forum?), I had to sacrifice him for my club. Chelsea 5-0 West Ham. Now that's what it's all about. Here's where I got my 1/0 in the Argus predictions. How they didn't score five was even beyond the realms of comprehension for Alan Shearer so I should have had a perfect score for that one! Bolton 1 Arsenal 3: Surely Bolton were going to be hungover... oh, I've already used that excuse. Surely Arsenal were at last going to take full advantage of ManU's earlier slip at home to Everton and finally make the big push and become league winners. Surely Wenger wasn't going to be left again to complain to the Match of the Day microphones that their goal was offside and ours wasn't. Surely, he wasn't about to vent his testoserone-gorging aggressiveness on another half-empty bottle of (non-sparkling, of course) mineral water. WRONG!! B'burn 1 ManC 0: I don't like Blackburn. I really hope they go down after what they, like some others I don't wish to refer to, did to Big Sam (whom I don't want to see back at the SOL, except as manager of Servette de Genève in the semi-finals of the Champions League). I was saying, I don't like Blackburn but I don't like Manciti either and as I'd already gone for a 0-0 (at the SOL), I threw a coin for who would get the 1-0 win but before it landed, I decided that I didn't want money to decide the destiny of a football match so went for Blackburn. So please believe that I am of sound and sane mind (Mind you, many will say that my being a Sunderland supporter throws that argument out the window.) My analysis of the games was thought out and pondered over (over a sensible quantity of red wine) in full respect of the time and energy that Argus puts into this weekly adventure. If ever I hit the bottom rung again, then I will be considering my future on this forum but for the time being, I am undeterred, nay even encouraged to come out fighting next time. So, Saturday April 30th. Blackburn vs Bolton: I don't like Blackb... No, you're going to have to work it out for yourselves. I'm not going to give away the fruits of my top-rung understanding.
Chatsnoirs, I've analysed your reasons for total failure last week and I think I have a solution to your problem. You obviously have far too much time on your hands and you give too much thought to your efforts. My advice is to forget logic or form and take an educated guess like the rest of us - it usually provides better results. Try it this week and I guarantee you will see an improvement in performance. Alternatively, as a last resort you could copy the forecast of someone else which would ensure you couldn't end up on the naughty step in isolation.
I have a very precise method... I think of the first two numbers that come into my head and type them in!
"Educated guess"? I went to Quarry View. No guesswork allowed there! And certainly no copying off anyone else! No, I think the only way up for me is to predict 0-0 for every match. Then if you can just slip into the rules (in very small print) without anyone noticing that it's not the final result that is taken into consideration but the result after ten seconds' play. Can you do that?
Bill Shankly would never have accepted that reasoning, Syd. Football is more than life and death ... and he would have found the Argus Predictions more important than football, I'm sure.
But the first two numbers that ever come into my head are 19 and 73. And nobody's going to win 1-9 or 7-3, are they? Hang on, didn't somebody once win 9-1 away? Maybe you're right after all!
