 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Technology Partner
Community Partners |
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. ====================================== Visit the Prof's 2008/09 season archives. Previous analysis A fate worse than Relegation? Black humour is alive and well in the seafaring city of Portsmouth, even as the local football club struggles to stay afloat. The joke going round is that their club will have more owners than wins this season. With Owner No. 4 (who assumed control of the majority shareholding Feb. 3) already looking for someone to sell to, it’s a fair bet. The two things that link all four are that A) they have no previous connection with Portsmouth, and B) no experience of running a football club. Two questions: why did any of them get involved, and more to the point, why did the FA allow them to? The answer to the first question is that they’re all businessmen, and there’s a lot of money to be made in and around the Prem. They, and several others now in charge of Prem clubs have only a passing interest in Cups, championships, or adventures in Europe – except as a conduit to profit. I don’t care who owns football clubs as long as they don’t mess them up for the fans, but the Pompey faithful have been badly let down, not only by the owners, but also by several managers, especially the financially reckless Harry Redknapp. The second question shames the administrators of the English game. They have allowed themselves to be conned into approving a succession of devious business people as club owners. The fans who objected violently to the arrival of the Glazers, Gillett and Hicks are already entitled to say “Told you so” as the finances of Man. Utd. and Liverpool become more precarious with each passing month. West Ham are another club who fell disastrously into the hands of money men. They have been rescued, temporarily at least, from the brink of ruin by a couple of new investors who were investigated for fraud and false accounting during their time as owners of Birmingham City. The time for the FA to review it’s test of who constitutes a fit and proper owner is overdue. Until the 1980s, club ownership was rarely a subject of discussion. The Chairman of each club’s Board of Directors was usually a self-made local businessman who was prepared to abandon his normal commercial good sense to pour money into his local team because he had always been a supporter. Few made a profit, or expected to. Not many fans knew their benefactors. The Edwards family (successful in the meat trade) controlled Man. Utd. At Liverpool, John Moores (football pools) and his relatives were in control. The famously cantankerous Doug Ellis (holidays) and patrician John Hall (property) ruled the roost at Aston Villa and Newcastle respectively. They and most other ‘old-school’ owners are gone, at least among the big clubs. The only one where an old regime still clings to the reins is at Arsenal, but even there, a bid is expected imminently as U.S. tycoon Stan Kroenke is within a few shares of the 30% he needs to challenge the majority shareholders, diamond-dealer Danny Fiszman and the aristocratic Nina Bracewell-Smith. What caused this ownership revolution? Partly the extra attraction of the English league caused by the increase in money coming in from TV, and partly, in my humble opinion, as a result of Jack Walker (steel), demonstrating in 1994-95 as patron of Blackburn Rovers, that even a small club from a run-down industrial town could win the league if they had sufficient backing. Walker spent a large part of his 300 million-pound fortune rebuilding Blackburn, both team and ground. When he died in 2000, he left in place a trust fund that will support Blackburn in perpetuity. Oh for a few more like him and the less successful, but equally generous Sir Jack Hayward at Wolves. Just as the share price of a badly-run company falls, so does the value of a failing football club, hence the recent succession of owners at Fratton Park. The money tap was turned off a year ago and survival since has been achieved by flogging the assets: every decent player who could get out has fled. The nautical metaphor of rats deserting a sinking ship comes to mind! Portsmouth’s immediate prospects are bleak: of their two fixtures this week, the one versus Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the High Court on Wednesday was the more important. They were given seven days to come up with proof that they can pay their debts, an amount in excess of 35 million pounds. If they fail to do this, they will be Wound Up, in the legal sense, that is, become bankrupt and forced to close down. Prem-wise, the point they took from Tuesday’s match against Sunderland doesn’t do much to ease their other crisis, that of top-tier survival. They remain six points adrift of the 19th placed club, and the Bookies have them as 1/8 favourites for relegation – if they are still in existence come May. If Pompey are sinking fast, who’s going to replace them? Newcastle and West Brom are neck and neck at the top of the Championship. Mind you, the Albion would be ahead if midfielder Graham Dorrans didn’t keep missing penalties. It’s five in a row after last Saturday’s miss against Plymouth. Albion manager Roberto Di Matteo is clearly a very loyal chap – or the rest of his squad are even worse from the spot! Four points behind the leaders come Nottingham forest, currently experiencing a renaissance under the leadership of manager Billy Davies. There’s then a seven-point gap to Cardiff City and Swansea in fourth and fifth respectively. With both the leaders employing first elevens little changed from those which were relegated last season, there has to be a question mark over their prospects for Prem survival if they go up. And if they’re 10 points ahead of fourth and fifth, what hope have the Welsh pair? Forest as the unknown quantity would at least have Surprise on their side. Predictions alert! Those 50+ of you who got your predictions in early for Round 27 (week commencing Feb. 20th), please note that an extra fixture has been added recently. You have been given a 0-0 score for this game (West Ham – Man. Utd) so you may want to amend that.\ While we’re on the subject of predictions, note that we’re experiencing something of a goal drought. Since the goals-per-game average peaked at 3.08 (after Round 13, Nov. 25th) it has been falling sharply. In my Christmas column, I pointed out that none of Rounds 14-20 (up to Dec. 19) had seen 30 goals. In fact, they averaged 2.65, and the rounds since have averaged a miserable 2.29. This mirrors the drop-off in Dec/Jan last season. Anything below 28 goals in the 12-game Round 26 will continue the trend. Weekly highlights. An absence of away wins and Hull’s shock win were the standout features of Round 25. The essential details: basic points averaged 16.90, and 21.38 with Banker. Correct results averaged 50.85%, Perfectos, at 7.65%, were at their lowest for four months. Correct Bankers, at 89.54%, were the third highest of the season. The games at Birmingham, Chelsea, Liverpool and Stoke were the most productive towards your points harvest, though only Brum had a double digit ’fivers count, at 19.61%. Maybe we should consider Stoke’s three goal win a shock – they’re usually happy with one. It’s no surprise that only one player, StrettonShrew, had ventured the 3-0. Until today, successful 5-0 forecasts have been as rare as hen’s teeth, but given the difference in class between the Old Trafford combatants, there were plenty of you who had tipped ManU to run up a nap hand against Pompey. Although Burnley were backed by the minority, the 2-1 result was the third favourite tip, at 13.07%. The 4-5 prediction of Bigboyslittleboy was quite the maddest we’ve had this season: yes, both these teams have porous defences, but their attacks ain’t too sharp! Sunderland’s game with Wigan was another where the result provided a decent level (18.63%) of Perfectos, but only 26% of correct draw forecasts. Last week I was asking why so few players predict 0-0s. We had two games with that score, at Bolton and Tottenham, and though each had 40% of players backing the draw, less than 3% went for the goalless option. Given that Tottenham and Villa have good scoring histories this season, I can understand your reluctance in that game, so the players who saw the 0-0 coming were particularly astute. Let’s hear it for NW2425, Chebs, Airplane and Adrenalin. And so to the week’s banana skin at the door of the Tenners Club – the paupers of Hull sending the gazillionaires of Man. City home pointless. Archers Philps and Andeebuboy deserve a mention for backing Hull, but top o’ the shop this week for his 2-1 prediction is LynchM. I suspected he might be a serial upset-tipper a la Norm, but no, this was his one wild tip of the week, so it’s all the better for that. We salute you, sir! Top players of Round 25 Graeme Duncan becomes this season’s second weekly winner from the Dublin Jack league, and he joins Ebunosky as the only players to win a round in two competitions: Graeme was the top dog in the last Champion’s League round in December. For the second week running, Andyinholland is among the elite group: he has risen over a hundred places on the global ladder in six weeks to reach the top 20. AthloneBoysLeague are also on a charge.
Having displaced Wakodarena, AndreasJaeger has opened up a clear lead at the head of the Global ladder. Lano23 continues to advance – he’s beaten the average score for five straight weeks and is challenging for a top three spot. Trevorsio, Danch and Scratville are refusing to step aside. There’s still a long way to go and the competition is wide open. Postscript to Round 24 When the updates were completed after the Wednesday night Fulham-Portsmouth game, the stats revealed that the basic score was 22.60 pts, and 26.53 with banker. Given that we had 12 games, and no shock results, it was reasonable to expect a record average score, but it couldn’t match the 27.20 of this season’s regular 10-game Round 4. Correct results were 52.32%, Perfect 5s an impressive 13.35%, while Bankers weighed in at 78.57%. There are six players with good reason to remember this round: five are new members of the Tenners Club (Joshwah, Ninja, Peterpoulsen, Photoartcreations and CathyD63): good work all! This is the most ever for a round, but bearing in mind that there were 12 matches, it shouldn’t be a surprise. I’m not sure where this leaves Andyinholland, with his 11 results – he’s not on the Tenners list, so maybe the Supremo is building an Eleveners Club? How long before someone becomes our first Twelver? The current Round 26 is another opportunity, with two postponed games rearranged for the middle of next week. I note there are a further six postponed games still to be played, and as they’ll inevitably be tagged onto one round or another, your chances of joining the Tenners or posting a big, prize-winning score will increase in the coming weeks. As the Supremo says “It only takes one round of tipping brilliance to win”. So head on over to the Predictions page…..what have you got to lose? Unlucky 13 It’s an FA Cup weekend, pals. With Man. Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool having already fallen by the wayside, there’s a strong consensus that there is little to stop Chelsea. If not them, then who? I see that Tottenham have a very winnable tie at Bolton after their fourth-round difficulties with Leeds. That wasn’t the first time the men from White Hart Lane have struggled before overcoming lower division opposition in the Cup. There was a celebrated occasion when managerial legend Bill Nicholson took his double-winners-in-training to play tiny Crewe Alexandra in the fourth round. The tie attracted a record crowd of 20,000 to Gresty Road in the Cheshire railway town. Brave Crewe scored a late equaliser on a gluepot of a pitch, so everyone reconvened in north London for a replay the following week, with 64,365 turning out on a raw February night to see if the Fourth Division minnows could defy the odds a second time. It was not to be. By half time, they were 10-1 down! Spurs finished with 13. Les Allen (father of Clive and Bradley, uncle of Martin and Paul) netted five, a club record that was only equalled this season by Jermain Defoe. England striker Bobby Smith’s haul was four, and left-winger Cliff Jones also got a hat-trick. Crewe scored twice, which was some consolation for the hordes who had followed them from the North-West. The final score, 13-2, was the biggest of modern times in the Cup, and was followed by a curious coincidence: after the match the Crewe team (nickname The Railwaymen) left London’s Euston Station from Platform 13 and arrived back at Crewe on Platform 2! It all happened 50 years ago this week. Let’s hope one of our eight Fifth Round ties provides something equally sensational. I’ve a feeling the midweek Round 26 could also provide some fireworks. I’ve seen the Tuesday night scores and they’re incredible! With the kickoff of Wednesday’s six games just an hour away, it’s a pity I need to hit the SEND button on my jottings now. So, until next week, pals, stay well, and good luck with your tips Prof. Statto |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About |
Advertise |
FAQ |
Rules |
Help |
Terms |
Privacy
© 2008-2009 Score Five |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RSS Feed
Calendar
