A Bunch of Fives

So when all is said and done, we analyse where, when and the quantity of times a ball has landed in the back of a net, past and present, or failed to, and somehow deduce why it was destined to be so. That’s the unenviable task of our resident expert Professor Statto, who brings us the benefit of his incisive intellect allied to half a century of football scholarship. And not least, his wry sense of humour.

He leaves the predictions to others, but he’ll provide you with the ammunition to sustain your challenge through your Score Five campaign. He’ll keep you up-to-date with what’s happening in the competition. He’ll lead you along byways exploring weird and wonderful facets of the game past and present, but always in his own inimitable style.

Some comedian once suggested that “98% of all statistics are made up”, but the Prof. cordially invites you all to verify any information he presents – if only because he does most of the calculations in his head. Professor Statto and his amazing statistics.

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Visit the Prof's 2008/09 season archives.

Previous analysis

Banking on Man. City, and their garden gnome impersonators

Welcome back pals,

No introductory distractions this week – let’s get straight into the weekend’s action.

Weekly highlights

No Part 1, no Part 2, no leftovers from last week, just a nice, tidy, all-done-in-the-weekend round such as we haven’t had in ages. Only eight games on account of the League Cup Final, but hey, let’s be grateful for that. If it all goes wrong for Portsmouth in court next week, there won’t be any more 10-game weekends this side of August!

The essential details first: basic points were 15.31, and with Banker, 18.84. Average correct results were 52%, Perfect 5s were 13.3% and Bankers were a low 70.6%….no need to explain that, I think.

From a ScoreFive viewpoint, the weekend began badly with only 2% of you foreseeing Man. City’s win at the Bridge. There wasn’t a single 2-4 prediction, but Danidani and Manucfc10 were half right with their 1-3 punts – a City win by two goals. Also pocketing result points was Trish with her 4-5 bet. Only two points for the three of them, but Dirica picked up three with his 2-12! A keying error? Maybe, but given that he picked up points with another 2-12 forecast back in Round 7, and a 2-13 in Round 4, I’m not so sure!

With Portsmouth’s win at Burnley coming as a shock result to 92% of you, it was left to Birmingham and Bolton to improve your Saturday. Both were heavily backed and delivered over 20% Perfectos. Picking up 10 pts from Bolton’s win were the Skullies, our local representatives of Hamburg’s other team, St.Pauli, and Bolton fan Alex Collier.

As afternoon gave way to evening and the 90th minute ticked away at the Britannia Stadium, never-say-die Stoke City were keeping a marauding Arsenal at bay, with 15.22% of you trusting they could hang on for the 1-1. But no, there’s a penalty, and suddenly 39.45% are poised to pick up five points for the 1-2. Four minutes into added time, and a different group are cheering – the 11.07% who predicted 1-3. How quickly things change!

There were no surprises in Sunday’s three games, which all served to inflate your points totals, though there weren’t many Perfectos from the Sunderland-Fulham game. Though 47.5% of you rightly went for the draw, a meagre 3.81% said 0-0. It continually baffles me why 0-0 is so neglected when it accounts for 30% of all draws. Rolls-Roys was brave enough to select this game for his Banker. Since joining the competition late, Rolls has quickly honed his technique and is gradually climbing the Global Ladder.

The other notable Banker success came at Chelsea, where one player was swimming against the tide, sawing against the grain and spitting into the wind all at the same time by putting his shirt on the visitors. It was none other than my favourite lunatic, Statistical Norm, beloved by bookies from Melbourne to Manchester. Sad to say, his other predictions followed the same path of tipping upsets, and he finished the weekend with 11 pts. Norm, you’re nuts!

Top Players of Round 28

This week’s Top 10 includes three players who arrived late at this season’s party, but are all now into the swing of it, and charging up the Global Rankings. GuoBe from Nigeria who began in Round 16, is now up to #328. He amassed 27 pts. Going one better was BlueBoy21 from Serbia. He started in Round 9 and has reached #363. Winner of a three-way tie-break with 30 pts is Aikulise, another Nigerian. That’s a very handy score for an eight-game round.

The only leading player to post a big score was 240574 whose 30 pts took him to 10=. Last season’s runner-up, Lano23 is now in sole possession of second place, while those Seagulls and Trevorsio share third spot. Letjcl had another good week: he and the steadily improving Tomhen now sit in 5th and 6th places respectively. Curiously, the only one of the top five who hasn’t won a Round is our leader AndreasJaeger, which tells us something about his consistency. His lead is now nine points.

The Tipsters competition

Most of the world’s broadcasters and newspapers employ footballers, both current and former, to offer their ‘expert analysis’ of the game. This has always puzzled me: how does the ability to play the game enable them to formulate or express an opinion or make a prediction any better than The Man In The Pub? The majority of footballers aren’t educated beyond the basic minimum. The eloquent few stand out like sore thumbs. The BBC’s Lawro and Hansen are among the better ones, but even their considerable knowledge, gained while accumulating numerous trophies at Liverpool, has not enabled them to predict results much better than the average ScoreFiver.

With 28 rounds of the season gone, neither of this illustrious pair have reached the Global Top 20 at any point. Cascarino has lagged far behind them and appears, in my view, in danger of prosecution under the UK’s Trades Description Act for fraudulently claiming expertise.

ScoreFive’s own Magic Mike has reached the Top 20 this season, though he’s currently going through a bad patch. I think he must be worrying about his beloved Bolton Wanderers. Right now, if I wanted an expert view, I think I’d probably ask Lano23. After 56 rounds of ScoreFive dating back to August 2008, he has more points than any other player. He finished 2nd on last season’s Global Ladder and that’s where he is again now.

Here’s the state of the Tipsters competition at various points in the season, with the average ScoreFive performance included as a point of reference.

The Football Supporters Federation

Sometimes, it’s not easy being a football fan. When there’s crowd trouble, we’re all branded as hooligans, and some are penalised unfairly. Clubs increasingly refer to us as customers, expecting us to turn up, purchase the assorted add-ons to the ‘match-day experience’ then to sit down and shut up for the duration of the game. They want us to be a ‘revenue stream’, not fans.

Until recently, football fans have never had a unified voice to speak on their behalf or to represent their interests, but the Football Supporters Federation is now doing this admirably, and its influence is growing. The FSF covers England and Wales, with seven regional divisions where fans meet regularly to discuss anything from admission prices to overseas travel. At the national level, they have taken up the cases of fans unjustly accused and are currently addressing the issue of heavy-handed stewarding. Clubs, along with the Government and police, are having to take to take notice. We should all support them. You may have noticed that they, in turn support ScoreFive, via the FSF League: greetings to Irish Geordie, NW2425, Ra1anne, RCalvert and Huddo & co.

They have a great magazine (they’ll send you a free copy!) and a monthly newsletter, Fan Mail, which is always a good read (newsletters@fsf.org.uk). Even if you’re reading this in Australia, the FSF will welcome your interest and support – get to know them and join up. Whether you’re City, Rovers, Wanderers or Athletic, we’re all Fans United.

Revenge of the Midgets

Some weeks ago, I wrote about the increasing height of Premier League players. To recap, of the 545 listed on the Prem website, 298 are 1.83m / 6’0” or taller, with the average being 1.85m / 6’1”, and going up year by year. So what about the small guys? Are they destined to fade out along with standing on the terraces, titles for Liverpool and Divisions 3 – 4 ?

Well, some are doing very nicely thank you, as they demonstrated at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon. Three of Man. City’s garden gnome impersonators were prominent in the demolition of Chelsea’s unbeaten home record: Carlos Tevez (1.68m), Craig Bellamy (1.74m) and Shaun Wright-Phillips (1.66m) were at their impish best as they buzzed around John Terry and his tall companions while knocking in their four goals. Those three aren’t the only Citizens of modest stature – they also have Nigel de Jong (1.74m), Stephen Ireland (1.73m) and the loaned-out Robinho (1.72m) all below the 1.75m / 5’9” mark.

If City can challenge for a Champion’s League place with half a team who Peter Crouch could trip over, maybe there is still a future for skilful little ’uns. Only 90 (17%) of Prem players fit into the sub 5’9” category, but the majority of them are to be found towards the top end of the table. Of City’s rivals for the fourth Champion’s League place, Spurs have mighty midgets Defoe (1.69m), Lennon (1.66m) and Modric (1.73m), Arsenal rely heavily on Fabregas (1.75m), Arshavin (1.72m) and Clichy (1.75m), while Liverpool have Lucas (1.73m) and Emiliano Insua, at 1.65m / 5’5” the smallest Premier Leaguer. Everton, Fulham and Birmingham each have a diminutive quartet in which full-backs and strikers figure prominently. A quick perusal of the nano-90 confirms the absence of the two positions that are now reserved exclusively for giants – ’keeper and centre-back.

At Man. Utd, the skyscrapers of Van der Sar, Vidic and Ferdinand are surrounded by the low-rise Evra, JS Park, and Nani (all 1.75m), who nevertheless can look down on Scholes 1.68m, Owen 1.73m and Fabio da Silva 1.72m. Only at Chelsea and Aston Villa are the small ones a rarity, with Deco and Ashley Young the exceptions to the rule.

We shouldn’t forget that Argentina, at 1.75m the shortest team at WC 2006, have two World Cup wins, so clearly being small in itself is no bar to success. At some stage in the forthcoming World Cup, some tall nation (Serbia, Germany, Holland, all around 1.85m) will come up against one of the small – Japan, the Koreas, or maybe Argentina themselves. Hopefully it will provide further evidence to the debate. I’ll be checking….

Until next week, pals, look after yourselves.

Prof. Statto