mrclubbie

Below 5 for me

When it comes to the end of the season, it is fascinating to watch how the teams perform to avoid relegation. For a start, anyone fancy a surprise result from Cardiff this weekend ?

Any opinions on Bolton-Boro match ? Both teams are in a dire situation... Boro lost 6 in a roll, scoring only 3 and conceding 12... Bolton crisis, winding-up threat, and they lost to bottom table Ipswich...

Arsenal vs Burnley Interesting to wonder how will Arsenal respond to successive defeats in all competitions as they welcome out of form Burnley to the Emirates. Burnley nearly got a point after frustrating Tottenham last weekend so I believe Dyche will more likely to maintain the similar tactics for this match. Bookmarkers offering hdp +2 is tempting for me. Here's an interesting stat I found out: Arsenal are unbeaten against Burnley in all the last 10 encounters (9 wins 1 draw) - Arsenal is also on a 8-match winning streak against Burnley in all competitions. This is the 2nd time that this has happened - The 1st time was between 1967 to 1971. Similarities: 1) Both streaks consisted of 7 league matches + 1 cup match 2) Both streaks saw Arsenal keeping 5 clean sheets out of the 8 matches The 8-match winning streak approx. 50 years ago ended with a loss for Arsenal in the 9th meeting.

Newcastle vs Fulham Though both are simply out of form teams, I felt that anything other than a simple Newcastle win will be a surprise here. Ranieri has yet to turn things around other than the 3-2 win over Saints in his first opener match with Fulham and I believe Fulham's away form is the worst out of the top 4 tiers of the English league. But having said that, bookmarkers offering Newcastle -0.5 seems to be kind of very generous for pundits...Hmm... I will probably stay away from this match in case Newcastle self-destruct again

Nottingham vs QPR QPR has never won at City Ground - Lost 16, draw 11. Record may continue to hold as Nottingham continues to push to reach the top 6 for a chance for promotion

Wolverhampton vs Liverpool Hmm...A top-table team extremely on form against an average mid-table team Noted that Wolves so far only lost once to top table teams: 25/8 Wolves 1-1 Man City 22/9 Man Utd 1-1 Wolves 04/11 Wolves 2-3 Tottenham 12/11 Arsenal 1-1 Wolves 06/12 Wolves 2-1 Chelsea Here's some other stats I checked: Wolves have won 3 in a row in all competitions - The last time they won 4 in a row was back in Apr'18 Wolves have not win 3 consecutive home match since 2017 Wolves have not record consecutive wins in all competitions against Liverpool since 1980 Wolves lost 0-3 in their last 2 home matches against Liverpool (2011, 2012) - The last time they lost 3 consecutive matches at Molineux against Liverpool was in the 1970s (1976, 1978, 1979)

Since I had plenty of spare time, I decided to look at the past performances for each team during this festive period. Of course, the relevance is subjective here. Performance for the match prior to Boxing Day (orange = lose)

Seems that the market is backing Crystal Palace to win, their 1st home league win for this season, against Burnley ?

I checked - Bolton full squad and playing at Bolton

I am also curious on Bolton match.

Trivia: Mourinho has not lost his 1st league game of the season since the days with Porto (10W 5D) EPL has seen 5 consecutive seasons of TG odd in the last 5 league openers Leicester has seen 5 consecutive seasons of over 2.5 in their 1st match of the season

Everton vs Southampton Am I missing something here ? Things are not so in favour of Southampton but they are having a slight edge over in-form Everton based on the odds. 1) Everton have not lost at Goodison Park against Southampton since 1997 (8W 3D) 2) Everton have won their final home league match in 9 out of the last 11 seasons Some other far stretching stats: 1) Mark Hughes winning stats against Everton - 6W 9D 9L - But 5 of the wins was at Goodison Park 2) Mark Hughes stats against Big Sam - 8W 7D 4L Hmm...

Another sweeping victory for Liverpool with Mo Salah on fire ? Liverpool have not lost a league game against Stoke at Anfield since 1959 (though they lost a league cup match at FT in 2016 - Stoke's 1st win at Anfield in all competitions since 1959)

It is ridiculous, yes. It is not like as if Everton is at the bottom of the league table. Or has Man City been overrated by degree too much based on their good form this season ? Thanks