Weekend Review - 29 Jan 2011

Southampton vs Man Utd

Did anyone inform about Blackpool that Man Utd will not give up until the final whistle is blew? And by not doing that, Man Utd came back from 2 goals down to win 3-2, and lead the table by 5 points.

This week is a welcome distraction as we head to St Mary Stadium for FA Cup 4th round. Will we get to see boy wonder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in action tonight?

Southampton Team News: Full team to choose from.

Man Utd Team News: Full team to choose from.

Odds and Analysis: Man Utd is giving 1.25 handicap. I expect Man Utd to win the handicap and proceed to 5th round.

Disclaimer: This review is entirely on my own views and opinion. I didn’t point a gun at you to ask you to follow. If you want to bet on this game, do so at your own risk. Pls bet within limits. Good luck.

Fixture Focus - Spurs (31 Jan 2011)

Fulham FC vs Tottenham Hotspur
(FA Cup 4th Round)

Currently we are embarking on 2 roads to Wembley, one which we go all around Europe, and the other all around England and Wales. This weekend's fixture will be focused on the latter, ironically on the last day of the transfer window. Our fourth round opponent is Fulham, and this season we had already completed a double win over them.

Our boys would be making a short trip to Craven Cottage, without our boy wonder Bale due to a back injury. Good news is that Gomes, Palacios and Assou-Ekotto are back with expectation to play. Last but not least, with news (or rumours?) that Krancjar is staying, he may be in this game as well, along with Sandro, who made his debut at Craven Cottage earlier in this season.

Fulham will be without goalie Schwarzer as he is on international duty at the Asian Cup, and our ex-striker Zamora is still out, along with Briggs and Senderos, due to injuries.

This year is 2011, and note the "ones" digit, it is a "1". Need I say more?

COYS!!!!!

EPL Prediction League 10/11

There is no prediction leagues matches this weekend due to FA Cup.
*shake fists* I WANT TO RECLAIM MY TOP SPOT!! GRR..

Midweek Outlook (25 Jan 2011)

   Blackpool vs Manchester United  

Blackpool reminds me of debutantes in the likes of Charlton Athletic, Wimbledon and Ipswich in the past where they jammed themselves at the top of the Premier League table early in the season shocking everybody.

Just when we are always under the impression that noob clubs are expected to struggle at the bottom-end of the club, these few exceptions started scalping big clubs from the get go.

However, as it is with all the past clubs, and I have mentioned time and time again, their shock victories were only because of the element of surprise. Incumbents who have never played these clubs before, did not know how to handle them. Get the tactics wrong and it's the wrong end of the the game outcome for them.

Unfortunately, fairy tale runs only last a little while as the following factor sets in:

• Other clubs will eventually figure you out and have the right tactic to lock you down. Most of these debutantes are one, at most two, -trick ponies. Even the big boys are not spared. Just look at Chelsea and their shocking fall from grace this season. What happened? Simple. Ancelotti just isn't that good a tactician as compared to Fergie, Wenger or Mourinho. The Italian lacks creativity and ideas.
  
• Clubs coming up from the Championship League are mostly smaller clubs relative to the big boys in the Premier League. Here we are talking about resources and squad depth. As fatigue sets in, injuries and suspensions piling up, the smaller clubs lack the luxury of a deep squad rotation. Look at ManUtd, plagued with injuries right from the start of the season. They struggled all the way until now and yet still managed to hang on to the top of the table.

So here we have Blackpool who started off the season at the top of the table only to slide to the bottom half after losing 4 consecutive games.

Charlie Adam just handed in his transfer request which is likely to drive the morale of the club even further down towards the abyss. The transfer window closes on 31 Jan 2011 which is just a mere 6 days away. Either Charlie plays today or never for Blackpool again, unless of course, he is able to do a Wayne Rooney 180 on this one. Still, I doubt Holloway will field Adam today. You end up with a player less if you put one with no heart onto the pitch.

Over at ManUtd, Park is doing well in his international swansong over in Qatar for the Asian Cup. The Korean captain will received his 100th cap today in their semi-final game against Japan.

Ferdinand, Carrick, Hargreaves and Valencia won't be featuring today. I think Rafael will be back from suspension and Scholes should have a chance to get onto the starting sheet in place of Carrick.

Bookies are putting a handicap of 1-1/4 ball in favour of Blackpool and an optimistic decimal odds of 1.825 for ManUtd to beat it.

I have my doubts here as ManUtd has yet to completely shaken off the away-game jinx. We have played 10 away games this season so far and I need of remind that out of these 10, we only got 2 wins.

Granted we are at the top of the table undefeated thus far, it is an exaggeration when people liken the current ManUtd to that of the Invincible Arsenal of 2003/2004. Honestly, we are far from them by a mile. We are just lucky that the other teams imploded at the right time and the right place to push us up to the top by sheer dumb luck.

Every football preview on the web is predicting a huge win for ManUtd but I remain cautiously optimistic.

Perhaps a draw to go 3-points clear as we fail to beat the away-game jinx again.

JayWalk's 2010/2011 Track Record to-date (25 Jan 2011) :  P93-W50-L43

- Voxeros

Results - Game 22 - 23 Jan 2011 EPL Prediction League 2010/2011

Disastrous weekend for both cool402 and I as the ex-pole leader score a big fat zero as fat as mine where I forgot to predict Sunday's game.

Arrgghh... I lost 4 points thinking that I had already predicted a 2-1 result.

Congrats to Mr White for recapturing the lead and redherring and Bedokian who each chalked another one on the Marksmen Board.

Be sure to scroll down and check up the update.

Housekeeping Notes:

All of this season's tables will be kept in Flickr's photoset. Click Here.

EPL Prediction League "Perfect Score" Hall Of Fame
Perfect Score = 2 correct-score predictions in a single weekend and hence the award of the full 10 points.

1) 8plus1 (28 - 29 Aug 2010)
2) KingMeng (02 - 03 Oct 2010)
3) ihawk98 (02 - 03 Oct 2010)
4) ollopA (16 - 17 Oct 2010)

Marksmen Board (Number of Exact Predictions)
6 Games - ihawk98, Mr. White
5 Games - KingMen, Bedokian
4 Games - redherring, Everton
3 Games - 8plus1, ollopA, Voxeros
2 Games - cool402, ianrush, edwinsng, weimeng
1 Game - Arrenn, necroastr


Scoring System
3-Points for a correct outcome (Win, Lose or Draw)
1-point each for correct score on each side.

Double Entry
Later submission shall override earlier submission.

Penalty
No points for submission after kick-off. (Disqualification)

Blogspot Blackout
The EPL Prediction League will be played here but if in the event Blogger/Blogspot servers go down, we will automatically carry on the league over to my personal blog at http://www.jaywalkonline.com/. Please bookmark this or at the very least stay in touch with one of us as we will also be helping all stay in the loop via the various channels like MSN, Skype, email as well as SPUG Off-Topic Chat.

Prediction League Past Winners

Copa America 2004 - WeiMeng
EPL 2004/2005 - Friday13
EPL 2005/2006 - ianrush
World Cup 2006 - EdwinSng
EPL 2006/2007 - Voxeros
EPL 2007/2008 - Cool402
Euro 2008 - Voxeros
EPL 2008/2009 - Everton
EPL 2009/2010 - ihawk98
World Cup 2010 - Raynaldo

As usual:

1) If you have spotted a mistake, please let me know where and what so that I can amend them accordingly.

2) Please check your scores for accuracy as soon as possible before I update the table during the next round of scores. Once the table has been updated, the old table will be overwritten.

3) In case you are still seeing the old table even if I have announced a new update, please refresh your browser to reload the table.

Weekend Review - 22 Jan 2011

Manchester United vs Birmingham City

I find this season transfers more like a circus and having publicity stunts going overdrive in this month. Blackburn trying to sign one marquee name and all is by-past dates. Juan Roman Riquelme, Ronaldinho and David Beckham? Darren Bent going to Aston Villa at 24 millon pound!!

Luckily, there isnt any rumors for Man Utd despite the fact that Wayne Rooney mentioned that Man Utd current team is not good enough for him, and Man Utd management instantly issue 100 million war chest to Alex Ferguson. Not that Fergie is desperate to use it, but i dont think there is a need at the moment. And no matter how much Man Utd mangement give, it will still lose out to Man City's unendless pit of wealth.

The league table at the moment, we are currently leading with goal difference and 2 games on hand. And we can move away from Man City if we win the midweek game against Blackpool.

Man Utd Team News: Rafael is suspended for this game.

Birmingham Team News: James McFadden is out of this game.

Odds and Analysis: Man Utd gives 2 ball handicap. A win on the cards, but no punt on the handicap.

Disclaimer: This review is entirely on my own views and opinion. I didn’t point a gun at you to ask you to follow. If you want to bet on this game, do so at your own risk. Pls bet within limits. Good luck.

Fixture Focus - Spurs (22 Jan 2011)

Newcastle United vs Tottenham Hotspur

A busy, busy month of transfers, and we have already signed Pienaar and Khumalo, so who will be next? That we do not know.

What we know is, we will be going up to Tyneside this Saturday, and historically it's not a very good ground for us.

Assou-Ekotto and Palacios are doubtful for this game, though we might see our latest purchase Pienaar in action in our lilywhite jersey against the Toon Army. This means the squad would be roughly the same as that against Manchester United last week, with the exception of Pienaar taking Palacios' place.

Newcastle will be starting without Tiote (suspension), Carroll and Smith (both injuries).

We have been breaking ducks this season, and hopefully we can break our winless visits to St. James' Park tomorrow.

COYS!!!!!

EPL Prediction League Match Weekend 22-23 January 2011

EPL41: SAT 22/1 Blackpool vs Sunderland at 10.55pm SIN/HKT

EPL42: SUN 23/1 Blackburn v West Brom at 11.55pm SIN/HKT

GAME ON!

Scoring System
3-Points for a correct outcome (Win, Lose or Draw)
1-point each for correct score on each side.

Double Entry
Later submission shall override earlier submission.

Penalty
Submissions after kick-off will not be admissible. (Disqualification)

Blog Blackout
This Prediction League will be played here but if in the event this blog goes down, we will automatically carry on the league over to the personal blog of Voxeros at http://www.JayWalkOnline.com. Please bookmark this or at the very least stay in touch with one of us as we will also be helping all stay in the loop via the various channels like MSN, Skype, email as well as SPUG Off-Topic Chat.

Results - Game 15 - 16 Jan 2011 EPL Prediction League 2010/2011

Nicely done for cool402 who pulled 5 point away to lead the table. Chasing close behind is sole recipient of 6 points this weekend, Mr White who caught up with Bedokian to share second place.

Not much participation this weekend as most of us are in holiday mood and a disruptive weekend last, going to the FA Cup fixtures.

Hope to see everybody back next weekend.

Housekeeping Notes:

All of this season's tables will be kept in Flickr's photoset. Click Here.

EPL Prediction League "Perfect Score" Hall Of Fame
Perfect Score = 2 correct-score predictions in a single weekend and hence the award of the full 10 points.

1) 8plus1 (28 - 29 Aug 2010)
2) KingMeng (02 - 03 Oct 2010)
3) ihawk98 (02 - 03 Oct 2010)
4) ollopA (16 - 17 Oct 2010)

Marksmen Board (Number of Exact Predictions)
6 Games - ihawk98, Mr. White
5 Games - KingMeng
4 Games - Bedokian, Everton
3 Games - 8plus1, ollopA, Voxeros, redherring
2 Games - cool402, ianrush, edwinsng, weimeng
1 Game - Arrenn, necroastr


Scoring System
3-Points for a correct outcome (Win, Lose or Draw)
1-point each for correct score on each side.

Double Entry
Later submission shall override earlier submission.

Penalty
No points for submission after kick-off. (Disqualification)

Blogspot Blackout
The EPL Prediction League will be played here but if in the event Blogger/Blogspot servers go down, we will automatically carry on the league over to my personal blog at http://www.jaywalkonline.com/. Please bookmark this or at the very least stay in touch with one of us as we will also be helping all stay in the loop via the various channels like MSN, Skype, email as well as SPUG Off-Topic Chat.

Prediction League Past Winners

Copa America 2004 - WeiMeng
EPL 2004/2005 - Friday13
EPL 2005/2006 - ianrush
World Cup 2006 - EdwinSng
EPL 2006/2007 - Voxeros
EPL 2007/2008 - Cool402
Euro 2008 - Voxeros
EPL 2008/2009 - Everton
EPL 2009/2010 - ihawk98
World Cup 2010 - Raynaldo

As usual:

1) If you have spotted a mistake, please let me know where and what so that I can amend them accordingly.

2) Please check your scores for accuracy as soon as possible before I update the table during the next round of scores. Once the table has been updated, the old table will be overwritten.

3) In case you are still seeing the old table even if I have announced a new update, please refresh your browser to reload the table.

Weekend Review - 16 Jan 2011

Tottenham vs Manchester United

Arren is so going to hate Ryan Giggs for scoring the only goal to knock out Liverpool, again!! And we got an away tie to Southampton for the FA Cup 4th round.

Tonight match against Spurs, where Spurs will try to get a win since the last decade. And Man Utd are still unbeaten this season, abit surprising even for a Man Utd fan. The way Man Utd isnt championship material where they score goals for fun. It's more of "let-score-a-goal-and-park-the-bus-at-our-goalpost."

With 2 games in hand and current leaders of Man City, our away form have to improve leaps and bounds by converting draws to wins. Hopefully the 2nd half of the season, we can prolong Spur's winless streak against Man Utd by another match.

Tottenham Team News: William Gallas, Ledley King, Tom Huddlestone and Jonathan Woodgate are out.

Man Utd Team News: Surprisingly, a full strength to choose from. Where is Owen Hargreaves?

Odds and Analysis: This match is a level handicap. Dont waste time punting this match if it's end in a draw.

Disclaimer: This review is entirely on my own views and opinion. I didn’t point a gun at you to ask you to follow. If you want to bet on this game, do so at your own risk. Pls bet within limits. Good luck.