This is the logic behind Mark Lawrenson's predictions and table (which fits with the rest of the MOTD view of football) http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20715607 The position of every club on there is directly related to the size of each club. It's almost as if the score line for each match comes from a calculation of how many trophies each team has won in their history. This is shown clearly in the link below: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_clubs_in_England_by_major_honours_won With the exception of Aston Villa, the top 10 teams are almost exactly the same as the historical record in the above link. The other two exceptions are Sunderland and QPR. These two teams are there for different reasons. In Lawrenson's eyes, it would be impossible for Martin O'Neill to mange a team that are not in the top half. Presumably Lawrenson also includes QPR as he assumes it would be impossible for a team to be as rich as QPR and not performing well. His predicted table is so unconsidered that if I were his line manager, I would ask him to keep a log of how much time he actually spends watching and analysing football, and how good players actually are and how well they play as a team. He instead seems to spend his time looking at the individual player's salaries and how well the clubs have done historically. Mr Lawrenson might enjoy his job more as a 'football expert' if he actually started watching football.
Hi AC, it took a while to let you in, the site operates a security policy of not allowing links to be posted until you have posted 10 times, basically to stop spammers! Having read your post and checked the links I requested from our super-mod that you be allowed in, which he readily agreed to! Welcome to our family and I look forward to your future input!
not that i'm defending lawro here, because quite clearly the bloke is a poor pundit, but the prediction table is a false one. its true, that is the table if all his predictions had come true, but it doesn't take into account the fact that he is judging games on a week-to-week basis. therefore, qpr are higher in the table, not because he thinks they are the 9th best team in the league, but because he felt their first win was just around the corner and predicted it on a regular basis. its not as clear-cut as people make out, even though, as i say, he's a poor pundit. the prediction league is not the thing to hit him over the head with - its his general persona and lack of imagination, as well as his lack of insight when analysing. his comments regarding our game with wigan where he said something along the lines of 'i can offer no logical, footballing reason for why i've predicted wigan will beat norwich at carrow road' says it all welcome to the forum by the way!
