Predictions – Page 6 – Under The Hammers

The Lawro Challenge Week 3

We continue to do battle with the thatch headed one.

Lawro Crystal Ball Lawro may be “steamrollering” his invited guests, band members, comedians etc. (none of whom seem to be particularly skilled in the art of predicting football matches) in the first two weeks of the season but he’s not having his own way against us. This week on the BBC website he faces Laura Trott, the well-known football tipster.

Early days of course, but last week’s scores were Rich 8, Lawro 8, and Geoff 5.

This makes the cumulative totals after two weeks, Rich 17, Lawro 14, Geoff 13.

This week’s Lawro:-

SATURDAY	Rich	Lawro	Geoff
Tottenham v Liverpool	2-1	1-1	2-1
Chelsea v Burnley	3-0	2-0	3-1
Crystal Palace v Bournemouth	1-0	2-1	2-2
Everton v Stoke	2-1	2-0	2-0
Leicester v Swansea	2-1	2-0	2-0
Southampton v Sunderland	2-0	1-1	1-0
Watford v Arsenal	1-2	0-2	0-3
Hull v Man Utd	1-3	0-2	0-2
SUNDAY
West Brom v Middlesbrough	1-1	2-0	2-1
Man City v West Ham	4-1	2-0	3-1

The Lawro Challenge Update 1

The first update to the season long challenge sees Lawro bring up the rear.

Lawro Crystal Ball It is just possible that maybe this predictions malarkey is not as easy as it might at first seem if the first week’s attempt is anything to go by. Naturally, we both did better than the luckless Lawro but that really isn’t such a proud boast is it? We have to believe that our indifferent performance was a down to an interrupted pre-season causing a lack of match fitness and that we will be far sharper in the coming weeks.

Below is the current state of play based on our own scoring system of 1 point for the correct result plus 2 bonus points for the correct score. As you can see we all got at least half the games completely wrong although Rich has managed to sneak into an early one point lead

	Lawro	Geoff	Rich	Actual	Lawro	Geoff	Rich
Hull v Leicester	0-2	1-2	1-2	2-1	0	0	0
Burnley v Swansea	1-1	2-1	1-1	0-1	0	0	0
Crystal Palace v West Brom	2-1	3-1	2-1	0-1	0	0	0
Everton v Tottenham	1-1	0-2	1-1	1-1	3	0	3
Middlesbrough v Stoke	1-0	1-1	0-0	1-1	0	3	1
Southampton v Watford	2-1	1-0	2-0	1-1	0	0	0
Man City v Sunderland	2-0	4-0	3-0	2-1	1	1	1
Bournemouth v Man Utd	0-2	1-3	0-2	1-3	1	3	1
Arsenal v Liverpool	1-1	2-2	1-1	3-4	0	0	0
Chelsea v West Ham	2-0	2-0	2-1	2-1	1	1	3
					6	8	9

New TV scheduling means that the weekend starts here on a Friday evening this week with the Zlatan circus at Old Trafford and ends on Sunday with the Hammers hoping to find 11 fit players to put out against Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth. Worryingly, all three of us are forecasting a home win to christen the league debut at the Olympic/ Tesco/ London stadium.

		Lawro	Rich	Geoff
Friday 19th August	Man Utd V Southampton	2-0	2-1	2-1

Saturday 20th August	Stoke V Man City	1-2	0-1	0-2
	Burnley V Liverpool	0-2	1-3	1-1
	Swansea V Hull	2-1	2-0	0-0
	Tottenham V Crystal Palace	2-0	2-0	3-0
	Watford V Chelsea	0-2	1-2	1-1
	West Brom V Everton	1-1	1-1	0-1
	Leicester V Arsenal	1-1	2-2	1-3

Sunday 21st August	Sunderland V Middlesbrough	1-1	1-1	1-0
	West Ham V Bournemouth	2-1	3-1	3-1

Our Challenge Lawro-athon

Our own season long Lawro challenge. Who will win?

We all know that Lawro is a thatch headed, know nothing West Ham hating Muppet who couldn’t predict the sequence at a set of traffic lights, right? After all based on his predicted results last season we would have finished in 17th place having avoided relegation by just a single point.

Well time for us to put our money where our mouths are as we kick-off our season long Lawro challenge. Every week we will go head-to-head with the much maligned pundit in the field of guesswork to see if we know better than him. Our own scoring system will be one point for getting the correct result and three points for getting the correct score and result.

Predictions for the opening weekend are below and there is in not much optimism as far as the Hammers are concerned with none of us expecting Stamford Bridge to fall down on Monday night. Personally, I would be more than happy to be wrong here but in such situations my “hope for the best, prepare for the worst” philosophy tends to take precedence.

	Lawro	Geoff	Rich
Hull v Leicester	0-2	1-2	1-2
Burnley v Swansea	1-1	2-1	1-1
Crystal Palace v West Brom	2-1	3-1	2-1
Everton v Tottenham	1-1	0-2	1-1
Middlesbrough v Stoke	1-0	1-1	0-0
Southampton v Watford	2-1	1-0	2-0
Man City v Sunderland	2-0	4-0	3-0
Bournemouth v Man Utd	0-2	1-3	0-2
Arsenal v Liverpool	1-1	2-2	1-1
Chelsea v West Ham	2-0	2-0	2-1

Another season, another reason, for makin’ whoopee?

Top 4, second season Slav syndrome or more of the same?

At the start of last season I was warned to be careful what I wished for and would happily have settled for a more entertaining brand of football while consolidating our place in the Premier League with another mid table finish.

Looking back objectively on the season only the most difficult to please supporter would dispute the view that the on-field achievement outperformed all expectations. A collection of inspired transfers and a more expansive style resulted in a creditable 7^th place finish that included notable victories over Arsenal, both Manchester clubs, Chelsea and a double over Liverpool that finally ended the 50 year hoodoo at Anfield.

The flip side of taking welcome points from teams that we had traditionally rolled over to were the tame defeats to Bournemouth and Newcastle and dropped points against Villa, Norwich, Stoke and the Baggies. Had we beaten the teams we might be expected to beat then it was maybe the golden opportunity to secure the holy grail of a top 4 finish.

Now it is one year later and we begin the new season with relatively short odds for a top 6 finish and well off the radar as relegation candidates. As a long time hope-for-the-best, expect-the-worst type of supporter I wonder whether this optimism is justified considering how much cash is being flashed by all and sundry during the transfer window.

The 2016/17 season has new brooms at both Manchester clubs and Chelsea while Klopp begins to sweep away all of Brendan’s dead wood at Liverpool. Each of these clubs have been spending big as manager’s frantically attempt to build squads in their own image and will likely continue to do so until the window (slams) shut. In North London, Levy’s usual haphazard approach to transfers with all the discernment of a finalist is a Supermarket Sweep competition is now tempered by a competent manager advising him to steer clear of anything past its best before date. Over at Arsenal there is even the possibility of the Gunners making a late appearance at the transfer party as soon as Wenger remembers where he left his ATM card.

We look to have made some shrewd additions to the squad but I don’t believe we have adequately resolved the full back and striker situation. This will be a tough second season for Slaven Bilic as far as Premier League position is concerned especially with the prospect of Europa League to contend with. My heart wants glory but my head sees a repeat of last year’s seventh place at best. Here are my full selected standings.

1 Man City
2 Man Utd
3 Tottenham
4 Liverpool
5 Arsenal
6 Chelsea
7 West Ham
8 Leicester
9 Everton
10 Crystal Palace
11 Stoke
12 Southampton
13 West Brom
14 Bournemouth
15 Sunderland
16 Middlesbrough
17 Swansea
18 Watford
19 Burnley
20 Hull

Where Will We Finish This Season?

My prediction of what the final league table will look like come May.

Last season, one of the country’s biggest bookmakers, William Hill, offered a prize of £50 million to anybody who could (before the season began) correctly predict the final Premier League table. If nobody was successful then £100,000 was on offer to the closest forecast. It cost £2 to make each entry, so they only needed 50,000 entrants to cover their costs if nobody could correctly list the finishing positions of the 20 clubs.

Bookmakers Odds And of course nobody did bag the £50 million. The odds of correctly forecasting 20 different clubs to finish in a particular order is, according to my calculations, somewhere between 2 and 3 million million millions to one. That’s 18 noughts. I’d call it trillions but that’s not strictly correct. Even if you thought that the top six were cast in stone, and the 14 other clubs had no chance of coming out on top, then perming the favoured six in any order followed by the remaining 14 in every combination would still result in around 63 million millions to one.

Yes it’s virtually impossible, especially with surprises such as the final positions of Leicester and Chelsea last season. To make a comparison, the odds of coming up with the Lotto jackpot are around 45 million to one, and the EuroMillions 116 million to one.

Nonetheless for a bit of fun I’ll have a go, so here is my forecast for the final Premier League table next May:

Manchester City
Manchester United
Liverpool
Chelsea
Arsenal
Tottenham
West Ham
Everton
Southampton
Leicester
Swansea
Stoke
Crystal Palace
Middlesbrough
Bournemouth
West Brom
Sunderland
Watford
Burnley
Hull

I’ll challenge my fellow writer, Geoff, to make his prediction and we’ll see who is closest next May. I reckon we’ll finish seventh, the same as last season. I hope that we win it of course, but I’m not sure that we are quite ready to challenge the big boys just yet. But I hope I’m wrong! The bookmakers make us eighth favourites to win the Premier League.