Prem Man City
Championship Watford
League 1 Ipswich
League 2 Bradford City
Conference Wrexham

Its that time of year again to start the prediction league!!  Everyone no doubt thinks their signings will make them HMS PTL but its time to sort the adults from the children in the world of football predictions!!  Zin and I will once again do the scoring and as we are both now in the same league he will be scoring both of us in the PL.

Here are the line-ups for this season

Premier League

Undoubtedly going to be a tough league this season with three big hitters coming up to join the established players, can any of them pull off the upset or will Derby suffer a "BBB" in his title defence!!

Derby
Sanjay
SCO
Minizin
Silver
Snooty
Blue Baggie
Stairs
Zinman


Championship

BBB drops down a league for the first time and if BaggieOne can find his form of two seasons ago it could be competitive, can one of our Ladies challenge this season?? 

BBB
BaggieOne
AAA
Salop - He PM'd me to say he wasn't taking part this season.
Themaclad
Dingle
Amelia
Twerton
Lady Jane

First week of predictions will coincide with the first week of the PL, so Saturday 6th of August will be the first games.

No rule changes at this point, mainly because we have been too busy to think about it!! 

It would be great to see some new players come in, look at what Blue Baggie achieved in his rookie season!!  Anyone and everyone is welcome, its just a bit of fun!!

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 30TH JULY KO 3:00PM

v

LAST MATCH

So another season in "The Pub League" begins after play off failure last season. Half a dozen new signings and with possibly a few more to come. DM is still in charge though, which could be our biggest problem entering the new season. Most bookies seem to have us as favourites to win the league outright. We do have one of the best squads if not the best squad in the division imo so it is down to DM to figure the rest out, which as I said earlier might be our biggest problem. We have to finish in the top two, we cant afford to go through the lottery of the playoffs.

THE MATCH



So for the first time in a few seasons we start a home with Portsmouth making the journey north. We beat these on the last day of last season 4-1, so a repeat scoreline would be a great start. They are managed by the Cowley brothers and will be looking to make the playoffs this year after missing out last year. They have lost last years leading 2 strikers, Harness signing for Ipswich and George Hirst returning to Leicester.

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 27
PORT 27
DRAW 15

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                               

PORT               -                                       

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

SEBASTIAN STOCKBRIDGE
Oliver Bickle and Declan Ford
Fourth Official : Scott Simpson

THE TEAM

Stockdale
Heneghan Iorfa Ihikwe
Hunt Byers Bannan Adeniran Johnson
Gregory Windass

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

2-1 Gregory

ATTENDANCE

27234

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

BML LEAGUE

Imre 3
Wash 1
Stateside
Maddix
Pieowl
Wereham
SCO
Owlskev

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Rotherham v Swansea City
Middlesbrough v WBA
Derby Co v Oxford Utd
Ipswich Town v Bolton Wanderers
Bradford City v Doncaster Rovers

ADHHH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

The stripes on the sleeves reflect the rise in tempreature over the 151 years they have been in existance however they are sponsored by a car leasing firm, methinks they might get a bit of stick for conflicting message

https://wiganathletic.com/

The DW Stadium is a stadium in Robin Park, in Wigan, within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The ground is owned and managed by Wigan Football Company Limited, which is 85% owned by Wigan Athletic and 15% owned by Wigan local authority. It is used by Wigan Athletic football club and Wigan Warriors rugby league club, the rugby league club having a 50 years lease on tenancy to play games at the stadium. Built and opened in 1999,[1] it is named after its main sponsor, DW Sports Fitness.[5] In UEFA matches, it is called Wigan Athletic Stadium due to UEFA regulations on sponsorship.[6]

The stadium architect was Alfred McAlpine.[7] Wigan Athletic and Wigan Warriors moved into it from their long-term homes of Springfield Park and Central Park respectively. International rugby league matches have also taken place at the venue.

Its current capacity is 25,138—seated in four single-tier stands—and its record attendance was on 11 May 2008 when 25,133 people watched Wigan Athletic play Manchester United in the final match of the 2007–08 Premier League season.[8]


Initials are Dave Whelan apparently he broke his leg once

MANAGER

LEAM RICHARDSON

Managerial career
Accrington Stanley and assistant manager roles
In January 2012, Richardson became the caretaker manager of Accrington Stanley, after John Coleman departed to join Rochdale.[7] On 28 January, Richardson took charge of his first match in charge: at home to Gillingham, which they won 4–3 and briefly moved into a play-off position for the first time that season.[8]

Accrington appointed Paul Cook as their new permanent manager the following month,[9] though Richardson was re-appointed as manager after Cook left to become manager of Chesterfield that October.[10] Originally employed as caretaker manager for a second spell, he was appointed as the manager of the club on a permanent basis from 1 November, signing a two-and-a-half-year deal.[11]

On 30 April 2013, it was announced that Richardson had left Accrington in order to re-unite with Paul Cook, becoming his new assistant manager at Chesterfield.[12] The two would later move on to manage Portsmouth in 2015, winning promotion to League One in 2017.[13][14]

Wigan Athletic
On 31 May 2017, Richardson once again followed Cook to Wigan Athletic, once again acting as his assistant manager. [15] He and Cook oversaw Wigan's promotion to the Championship in their first season in charge, and kept them there for two seasons.[16]

Following a takeover in mid-2020, Wigan collapsed into administration and were relegated after being punished with a –12 point deduction. Cook resigned as manager on 4 August 2020 and Richardson was appointed to take charge of training duties until further notice.[17] John Sheridan was appointed as the club's new permanent manager, but he left after just 15 games to join Swindon Town, and Richardson was named caretaker manager.[18] Following Wigan's takeover in March 2021, the new owners stated that Richardson would continue in his caretaker manager role until the end of the season.[19]

Despite this, Richardson was appointed as the permanent manager of the club on 21 April 2021 with three games still remaining. Richardson confirmed that Cook, who had recently been appointed manager of Ipswich Town, had asked him to join him in Suffolk as his assistant again, but he declined so he could remain at Wigan. He insisted however that there was no ill-will on either side and that they remain on good terms.[20][21] He was able to keep Wigan up, avoiding relegation to League Two.[22]

In November 2021 Wigan striker Charlie Wyke collapsed during training after suffering a cardiac arrest. Following his discharge from hospital Wyke praised Richardson's swift initiation of CPR saying: "...my life has been saved by the actions of the gaffer [Leam Richardson] and the club doctor Jonathan Tobin..." [23]

On 24 April 2022, Richardson was named the 2021–22 EFL League One Manager of the Season at the league's annual award ceremony.[24] Later that month Richardson led Wigan to promotion into the Championship as they finished the season as League One champions.[25]

Ins and Outs

http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=11390

Wigan Music



LAST TIME AT THE DW

Huddersfield Town v Vincent Kompany's Burnley
The Sky Bet Championship
Friday July 29th - 20:00 ko
at the John Smith's Stadium

Huddersfield Town welcome Vincent Kompany's Burnley to the John McAlpharm Stadium on Friday evening for another match televised live on Sky Sports Huddersfield Town, channel 403.

We are on the brink of a new era if only........

Carlos is gone, Danny Schofield is the new Head Coach. Is this a wise move? Who knows? We certainly over achieved last season. The football played in the Corberan era was no great shakes, but it was effective. We relied probably too much on set pieces and definitely need to improve with chances created in open play.

The pre season friendlies have as usual, shown nothing to get excited about, but at least we didn't lose at Fleetwood, like we did twelve months ago. No, we lost at Harrogate and Doncaster.

At least we looked much better on Saturday at Bolton, drawing 1-1 with a Danny Ward goal in first half injury time cancelled out by a Trotters' equaliser in 2nd half injury time. Earlier in the day though, we won 4-1 at Tranmere. So not all bad news.

The squad was split in two for those matches though, which was a bit daft really. But as we all know, the results mean sod all.

Vincent Kompany's Burnley meanwhile have beaten Rochdale, lost to Wolves and had three 45 minute games with Newcastle, losing all three.

Since getting relegated, they released a boat load of names including the likes of Aaron Lennon, Dale Stephens, James Tarkowski, Wayne Hennessey and skipper Ben Mee. They have also sold Nick Pope to Newcastle for ten million and Nathan Collins to Wolves for twenty million.

Some of that money has been reinvested though, bringing in Scott Twine from MK Dons (£4m), Luke McNally from Oxford (£2m), goalkeeper Arijanet Muric from Man City (£3m), ex Bantam Josh Cullen from Anderlecht (£3m), Samuel Bastien from Standard Liège (£685,000) and CJ Egan-Riley from Man City (£350,000).

GET YOUR BLOODY CHEQUE BOOK OUT, HOYLE! 

Head to Head



Burnley lead the head to head with 33 wins to Town's 28, with 14 draws.

The last time we played them was last season in the FA Cup, which of course we won. It didn't start well for Town when Carlos Corberan made a boatload of changes, one of them leaving out altogether the inspirational goalkeeper, Lee Nicholls and replacing him with the young, unreliable Ryan Schofield. He was at fault for the opening goal, coming out for a cross and getting nowhere near, allowing Jay Rodriguez to score.

Scrotum faced Burnley chief, Sean Dyche was missing due to having Covid 19, but had already got his excuses in, saying his team was hard hit with injuries. Yeah right! Their line up was full of internationals and experience of the Prima Donna League, whereas ours was full of lower league freebies and we had a junior goalkeeper on the bench, who had never made a first team appearance before. That was Nick Bilokapic and he was called into action in the 40th minute when Schofield got crocked by the lanky streak of piss, Chris Wood.

The Clarets were so crap that the young lad didn't have anything at all to do. Our defence kept them quiet and when Carlos brought Sorba Thomas on after 69 minutes, the game began to go our way. First he played a great one two with Duane Holmes, out paced the geriatric Burnley defence and sent in a low, teasing cross that Josh Koroma converted at the far post.

Then in the 87th minute, he swung in a corner that met the head of Matty Pearson perfectly and the ball was in the net. Matty scoring the winner against Burnley, just like he had a few years earlier when he scored an extra time winner for Accrington Stanley against them in the League Cup.

Get on him for the winner for this one.

So that was last season in the Cup, before that, we had two seasons with them in the Premier League. Of the four games, three were drawn and they won one of them. The first season, 2017/18 had two goal less draws. The first one at Turf Moor had Christopher Schindler as man of the match, but the talking point afterwards was the character assassination made by Dyche on Rajiv van La Parra. He accused him of diving and all the arseholes on Match of the Day all agreed with him. Maybe he did go down easily, but where are Gary Linekar and his mates when Harry Kane or Raheem Sterling dive a million times every game? Pricks!

Oddly, Dyche didn't have much to say in the match at our place when Jeff Kendrick went down in the area, claiming a penalty when it was a clear dive. Well he did have a lot to say actually, claiming it was a penalty, obviously. Two faced rat bag. I hope we never see him back in the game. Arsehole!

So to 2018/19 and playing first at Turf Moor. Sam Vokes gave the Claret Jugs the lead but it was that man Schindler heading home the equaliser in the second half. The return game in January didn't go well though for Schindy. He was sent off by dozy Mike Dean, one of the worst referees ever to blow a whistle.

That came after Steve Mounie had given us the lead and the streak of piss Wood had equalised. Ashley Barnes got a late winner, before the ref levelled up the numbers in the 90th minute, sending off Robbie Brady.

So what's going on down Harry Potts Way? Managed nowadays by Vincent Kompany, a Belgian geezer who turned out for Man City a few times.

He's 36 years old now and this is his second managerial job, having done a player/manager role at Anderlecht when he left the Emptihad. He was born in Uccle and started his playing career with Anderlecht in 2000, signing professional with them in 2003. He had a couiple of seasons in Germany as a Hamburger, but then joined Man City in 2008.

Having won the Belgian First Division twice, he then won a sackful of medals at Citeh. He won the Prima Donna League four times, the FA Cup twice, the League Cup four times, the Community Shield twice, most of these as captain.

He's a good bloke, unlike his horrible predecessor and does a lot of stuff for charity. He's an ambassador for FIFA for the charity SOS Children and has invested loads in Congo for charities working for children in poverty.

Now if you were wondering why, having escaped from Manchester, did he want to come back and work in deepest, darkest Lancastershire, well that'll be because he married a Manc in 2011 and they have three kids. Fair enough, Vince. But Burnley?

So Vince is a good guy. If you're looking for somebody to BOOOOOOOO!! He's got Craig Bellamy in as his number two. 

Quote:
His qualities are exactly the ones we look for in one of our central midfield roles within our game model. David brings fantastic energy to the pitch, can carry the ball well and has great defensive instincts too. When we met him, it was very clear what a great attitude he has; he shares our ‘Terrier Spirit’ when it comes to hard work.

The next signing then was a new manager, after that blummin' Carlos walked out. That man was ex Town striker Danny Schofield. He was in charge for that just mentioned Millwall match, but also took control of the Derby game at the start of last season when Carlos had Covid. Was he in control? Nah!

He is now though and so the lad brought into the club by Peter Jackson in 1998 from Brodsworth Miners Welfare in the Northern Counties East Football League for a massive fee of £2,000, has now worked his way up from non league player to manager of the greatest football club in the world.

He scored 46 goals in his playing days with the Terriers and now stands in 31= place in our all time goal scorers chart, hopefully to be overtaken by Danny Ward before long. Wardy's on 36 so far.

https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/article/hi...ich-city-0

Only a friendly match, but a Hibs striker, Melkersen, delivers a morale-boosting win for Hibs this afternoon! David Marshall and Chris Cadden both sidelined with sickness and injury respectively while Porto given the skipper's armband - is Johnson occasionally reading my threads/suggestions lol??? A more telling stat is the fact that lotsa scoring opps created and all of them squandered apart from the winning goal by the Norwegian lad. The striking issue is IMO a serious one esp in tight games where a solid temperament and guile are required as well as the natural ability to score crucial goals. I don't think Hibs have these attributes yet and the days are counting down to the start of the Scot Prem season. One can only hope Melkersen "kicks off a successful striking campaign" from today onwards!! Doidgy definitely not got it as far I can see - disnae move like a predatory striker gambling on diagonal runs or "ghosting" into great scoring positions. Bring in Sparky, a free agent, on a pay as you go contract basis (or similar!) with bonus payments on goal deliveries??? And bin the sanctimonious stuff!!? WE NEED A PROVEN STRIKER!

GGTTH

New participants are more than welcome. You can put a top limit on the total or offer a one off amount you are prepared to donate if it helps you join in the fun.

We're off again on our continuing mission to raise funds for hungry kids and the Big Yellow Choppers that are saving lives all over Yorkshire - plus a few in Lancashire, oh and a few Bob for The Jordan Sinnott Foundation too.

£211 was our total last season, a £69 improvement on the season before, thanks in a great part to Town having an unexpected run at the play-offs after 4 miserable seasons at the wrong end of the table. Onwards and upwards folks with an earlier than usual start to the season, another new coach learning on the job and a few new players to pick from.

So we've got five regulars on here and we'd really love to welcome some more on board. I realise money is tighter than ever this year and it's only going to get harder when the price of fuel goes up again. Still, there's far worse off than me and thee and we can do a lot worse than put a decent breakfast in a kids belly before they start their school day. 

So how does it work?

Send a reply to the thread and name a player or players, a team or teams, matches between certain teams or any combination you like and what you are willing to pay for each time they score, win, draw, lose, get a card, score/save a penalty, get an international cap, anything, Town related or not. Have a look at how we've mixed up the bag last season- http://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=10564 - and pick your own choice.

The totals are updated after almost every match (if I don't fall asleep for a couple of games or there's just nowt to report). At the end of the season we pay the money we've pledged per point into Just Giving or donation pages for the above charidees. If requested I'll set them up by Christmas so the strain on your wallet/contactless card is spread a tad more thinly. Set your own limit if you wish. You know you won't win owt  for trying but at least you know where your brass is going. If you'd prefer to donate to another charidee - throw it out there.

So what's not to like? New playaz? Old playaz? 6 different clubs to play against? New shirts too, wow. Such a novelty, you'd think we did that every season.

Can we make it past the 1st Round of the EFL Cup 2 seasons running?

You can also have a pop at the World Cup.

Game on.

ANY NEW PLAYERS WANT TO HAVE A GO, YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME. 

2 points for a correct result
4 points for a correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score      
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Random Badger gives you 2 points

The random badger is used for any random prediction used once in each matchday sequence. For instance, a scorer at a particular match, the number of red cards in the matches or yellow cards or own goals or owt you want really within reason, I do need to be able to check whether it's correct or not. Please don't put stuff like....."Commentator says...."  
The joker   is played for one match in each sequence and if correct you get double points. So if you've predicted 1-0 and it finishes 2-0, you get 4 pts, but if you've predicted 2-0, that's 8 pts. But if you get it wrong, it's minus 2.
Jokers and badgers are optional. You don't have to play one if you don't want.

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. Similarly with the badger, if your random prediction is affected by this, it'll be half the points.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  

End of season Play Offs: The one who finishes top of the league will still be champion, but after the season finishes there will be Play Offs between the top 4, with 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd. This will take in stuff like the EFL Play Offs, FA Cup Final, final day of Prima Donna League, European Finals etc. It will be one matchday for the semis and one for the Final. It will be the individual scores for each matchday against the allotted opponent, with some kind of tie breaker for a drawn match.

The prize for winning will be enormous. Another rep point.


Friday 29th July:
Town v Burnley
Town scorers:
Burnley scorers:

Saturday 30th July:
Blackburn Rovers v Queens Park Rangers
Blackpool v Reading
Cardiff City v Norwich City
Hull City v Bristol City
Luton Town v Birmingham City
Millwall v Stoke City
Rotherham United v Swansea City
Wigan Athletic v Preston North End
Middlesbrough v West Bromwich Albion (17:30)

Sunday 31st July:
Sunderland v Coventry City (12:00)

Monday 1st August:
Watford v Sheffield United

Bonus match:
Community Shield:
Saturday:
Liverpool v Manchester City (17:00)


Last Season's Final Table:

1. Baggiebob(BBB) = 1001 pts
   
2. jjamez = 942 pts
   
3. St Charles Owl = 927 pts
   
4. theo_luddite = 924 pts
   
5. neonfoxinthebox = 897 pts
   
6. Lord Snooty = 886 pts
   
7. themaclad = 882 pts
   
8. SHEP_HTAFC = 835 pts
   
9. ritchiebaby = 807 pts
   
10. Amelia Chaffinch = 724 pts
    
11. WakeyTerrier = 617 pts