SPUG EPL Prediction League - Match Weekend 26 - 27 Aug 2006

Congrats to Everton for being the only 6-pointer this weekend and deservingly rewarded for his loyalty to his namesake as he climbs to the top.

Welcome to Fusiongear88 and Dua_Kee. Better luck next time together with cool402. Hopefully you guys can break the duck next week.


SPUG 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) Nobody Yet!

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)

SPUG Blackout
Also, this is a mirror for the SPUG Server where the actual prediction game is being carried out at http://www.spug.net/showthread.php?t=85183. In the event SPUG server goes down, we will automatically carry on the prediction game at this blog site.

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 Outlook (26 Aug 2006)

Watford vs Manchester United

"...As heartless as the media may make him (Alex Ferguson) out to be, he has also proven to be a faithful and loyal gaffer who stood by Cantona, Ferdinand and Solksjaer...."

- JayWalk, 26 Aug 2006

ManUtd has gotten off to a delightful start and the moans of losing van Nistelrooy, just a mere fortnight ago, seemed like a distant memory. This is where Fergie stamps his class of which I am in awe. He doesn't take any bullshit from anybody, be it a superstar or otherwise. For those who have been around since Fergie took over from Ron Atkinson, we saw him kicking out McGrath, Whiteside, Ince, Kanchelski, Stam, Beckham and van Nistelrooy along the way. As heartless as the media may make him out to be, he has also proven to be a faithful and loyal gaffer who stood by Cantona, Ferdinand and Solksjaer.

Their opponent this weekend is none other than Watford and it brought me memories of the old Division 1 days where John Barnes terrorised the midfield and Luther Blisset top the scoring board. Did you know that Elton John was once a chairman of this football club? Well, he was until 2002 when he stepped down to make way for someone else who was able to devote more time into the actual running of the club, rather than some honorary figurehead.

The good news for Watford is that they are the strongest of the 3 newly promoted clubs and as such stands the strongest chance of survival. The bad news is that they still don't stand a chance of survival against ManUtd today.

JayWalk The Talk: Rooney and Scholes will be serving their 2nd of 3-match suspension and it seemed that the team are operating surprisingly well without them. Luck of the fixture would also have to be factored in here as the 3 matches were against relatively easier teams with the exception of Tottenham Hotspur next week.

Saha will be operating up front with Giggs supporting slightly behind. Park and C.Ronaldo will be running the flanks leaving Fletcher in the middle and perhaps an opening there for the Carrick's premiership debut? Vidic, Neville and Heinze are still on the injury list means that Brown and Ferdinand will again hold down the fort for the Red Devils.

On the Watford side, Ben Foster will not be starting today as the goalie was a loan from ManUtd and there was a rule in place that prevents Foster from playing against his parent club. That means that Watford will have to make do with second-string goalie Richard Lee to stand between the sticks. I can forsee quite a number of balls passing him today.

JayWalk The Walk: With Chelsea sputtering at the start, what better way to go into this weekend than to have ManUtd going 3-for-3 today. Expect the visitors to take The Hornets apart at Vicarage Road. It would be Watford's greatest mistake if they think of aiming for a draw by playing all-defensive. Judging from the percentages of long balls from Watford's past 2 games, it looks very likely that Watford will be sticking to the same formula.

The last 3 games that ManUtd played Watford was between October 1999 and October 2000 from which ManUtd won all three (4-1, 3-2, 3-0).

It may be as far back as 6 years ago but I think history will repeat itself with ManUtd continue to pile up on the score tally.

Despite playing away today, bookies give ManUtd a -1¼ ball handicap with a decimal odds of 1.9 to overcome it. I predict a 3-0 whitewash and so take ManUtd to give the handicap.

Disclaimer: The above views are purely my own two-cents' worth. In other words, I cannot and will not guarantee that my predictions are accurate. If you want to bet on the game, do so at your own risk. Also, please bet responsibly and within your means regardless of how "sure thing" that game may appear to be. As the old saying goes, "The Ball Is Round". Good luck.

MidWeek RoundUp (23 Aug 2006)

Despite ManUtd without the services of Ruud van Nistelrooy, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney, the Red Devils were still able to carve Charlton apart with a majestic 3-0 performance.

Ironically, star-studded Chelsea fell 1-2 to unfancied Middlesbrough.

Perhaps there is something we can infer from this?

Perhaps ManUtd's lacklustre performance last year was due to over-reliance on Rooney and van Nistelrooy which as a result, got too comfortable to want to break out of the realm of familarity? The lack of creativity proved to be ManUtd's demise as they keep sticking to the formula of feeding the ball up front and let the strikers do the rest of the work. Having figured that out, opponents were able to cut off the ball supply to the front and time and again frustrate the strikers. As frustration grows, more bodies get thrown forward leaving the back vulnerable to counter attacks which costs us valuable points in the running for the title.

The absence of Rooney, Scholes and van Nistelrooy, this time round, is just proof of the fact that Fergie needed a new strategy as a work-around. This certainly paid dividends as Charlton weren't able to handle the new attack strategy of ManUtd.

The keyword is Creativity. As soon as your game gets figured out, you are finished. Just as Beckham, during his last season at Old Trafford, was neutralised by Real Madrid during their Champions League's clash. It was finally figured out that Beckham only knows how to run down the flanks and provide the perfect cross. So as long as the flanks get locked down, Beckham is useless as unlike Zidane or Figo, this ex-Captain England, can't dribble for nuts.

Another prime example is Ipswich when they first burst into the EPL. They did very well for the first season, even getting a place in the UEFA Cup tournament at the end. However, it was only 2 seasons before the Tractor Boys ran out of ideas and was easily taken apart after that. Ipswich was relegated only after 2 seasons in the top flight.

Another keyword is Continuity. Middlesbrough deserves full accolades for the scalp over Chelsea. This is a team of 16-strong where over half of them rose from the junior ranks of the academy. As disastrous as Bryan Robson did when he was manager of Boro, this is one area he did right as part of his re-organisation efforts of the backroom before McClaren took over.

Looking at the squad lists of both Boro and Chelsea, we learned that simply splashing the cash to buy in superstars isn't the real way to go. Not in the long run, at the very least. Superstars don't always gel very well right away but academy juniors do as they have been playing together since way back. The partnerships of Neville brothers, Beckham, Scholes, Giggs as well as the second generation of juniors of Fletcher, Brown and O'Shea are exactly what separates a great team from a good one. Financially, it is also most prudent for how many Ambramovich can there be in this world?

Let's keep the game of football beautiful and not stink of money.

Anyway, get ready for Fergie's 3rd crop of academy graduates making their mark in the EPL this season.

SPUG EPL Prediction League - Match Weekend 26 - 27 Aug 2006

We have an excellent kick off to the new season with a nice total of 25 people signing up. As the season is still young, we expect to see more participants. Play now while the lead is still small!

Submit your predictions over at http://www.spug.net/showthread.php?t=85183 . Sign up for a SPUG account if you haven't.

EPL3: SAT 26/8 Tottenham vs Everton on ESPN at 9.55pm SIN/HKT

EPL4: SUN 27/8 Aston Villa vs Newcastle on ESPN at 8.55pm SIN/HKT

Good luck and good game!

SPUG EPL Prediction League - Match Weekend 19 - 20 Aug 2006

Welcome back everybody!

Congrats to limyengchuang for taking the initial pole position!


SPUG 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) Nobody Yet!

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

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

As usual:

1) If got 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 Outlook (20 Aug 2006)

Manchester United vs Fulham

"...the fact that Van Basten also dropped the striker from the world cup is validation of Fergie's foresight..."

- JayWalk, 19 Aug 2006

Welcome back to another season of the EPL!

It wasn't a good world cup for the ManUtd player during the World Cup but it seems that the team has bounced back with a good showing during the pre-season friendlies. Bad news however is the fact that we have picked up quite a number of injuries along the way.

We will be missing Ruud van Nistelrooy starting this season but I doubt if it would be a great loss to us as the fact that Van Basten also dropped the striker from the world cup is validation of Fergie's foresight that the Dutch striker is over the hill is right on the money. The Spanish raved about van Nistelrooy during his pre-season games but I think it would just be a flash-in-the-pan.

On the opposite side of the token, ManUtd is seeing some second wind from the senior players in the squad. Paul Double-Vision Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer are putting in some fine performances pre-season and hopefully they would be about to pull off a winning start to the season.

Towards the end of last season, Chelsea started to show signs of weakness which may suggest that the honeymoon period for Mourihno may be over. However, looking at the strength of the current ManUtd squad, I doubt if this would be the year for the Red Devils. While I am not totally writing Fergie's army off, I remained cautious and a slight thinge of pessimism.

JayWalk The Talk: We have quite a long list of injured players with Vidic, Heinze, Smith and Carrick expecting to miss the season opener. This may means a chance for Liam Miller to start his 100th appearance for the Red Devils. Good news is that Rooney is passed fit to start with Saha up front and we would all be looking out to see if Ronaldo and Rooney are able to gel back together again after the World Cup fiasco.

Fulham on the other hand has a relatively healthy squad with only Jensen and Elliot injured. Player to note is Malbranque who had been cold-storaged by Coleman for his defiance. Malbranque's career at Craven Cottage is officially over.

Despite the fact that ManUtd has more players missing, I believe the remainder of the squad head-to-head will still be too strong for Fulham

JayWalk The Walk: ManUtd has always been sluggish at the start and at times, this is the very thing that would cost them the title at the end of the season. Granted that Coleman's team is weaker and ManUtd has a fantastic showing during pre-season, one must still be cautious with ManUtd's inconsistency at the beginning. Bookies placed the odds for ManUtd to give 1-1/2 ball to Fulham and a decimal odds of a mere 1.85 for Fulham to fulfill it.

The way I see it, I think ManUtd will win their season opener in front of 69,000 fans but with just that one goal more than Fulham to clinch their first 3 points and lose the handicap. Still, I won't be confident enough to place my wager on Fulham as a extra goal from ManUtd will easily overturn the punt.

Seeing that I was lucky enough to avoid betting on Liverpool as they were held to a draw, I say that I sit this one out and start my wagering season proper from the next weekend.

Disclaimer: The above views are purely my own two-cents' worth. In other words, I cannot and will not guarantee that my predictions are accurate. If you want to bet on the game, do so at your own risk. Also, please bet responsibly and within your means regardless of how "sure thing" that game may appear to be. As the old saying goes, "The Ball Is Round". Good luck.

SPUG EPL Prediction League - Match Weekend 19 - 20 Aug 2006

Let's kick off with the first match weekend! Submit your predictions over at http://www.spug.net/showthread.php?t=85183 . Sign up for a SPUG account if you haven't.

EPL1: SAT 19/8 Arsenal vs Aston Villa on ESPN at 9.55pm SIN/HKT

EPL2: SUN 20/8 Man Utd vs Fulham on ESPN at 8.25pm SIN/HKT

Good luck and good game!

SPUG EPL Prediction League 2006/2007 - Note

In case you guys are still wondering where to sign up to play the League, goto http://www.spug.net/showthread.php?t=85183.

If you are not already a registered member of SPUG, just go right ahead and sign up for an account (Free!) and drop a note in the above forum thread to say Hi! and you're in!

See ya there!

SPUG EPL Prediction League 2006/2007

Well folks, it's time again for a new season of the SPUG EPL Prediction League!

For the newbies, joining us for the first time, may I suggest you check out the previous thread for past gems and tips on how to play this game.

Click Here for Season 2005/6 and Click Here for Season 2004/5.

As for the rest, the scoring system remains unchanged with:

3-Points for a correct outcome
1-point each for correct score on each side.

Again, I shall be the ever-suffering scorekeeper while I assume weimeng to be the ever-suffering HOF scorekeeper and ihawk98 the ever-suffering match picker.

SPUG 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.

SPUG EPL Prediction League Past Winners
2004/2005 - Friday13
2005/2006 - ianrush

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)

SPUG Blackout
The SPUG EPL Prediction League will be played at http://www.spug.net/showthread.php?t=85183 and the purpose of mirroring over here serves as a back-up. In the event SPUG server goes down, we will automatically carry on the league over here.

As usual:
1) If a mistake has been spotted, 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.

Cheers.