All teams have now played 36 matches, leaving what was originally to be rounds 37 and 38 which will be played at midweek and next weekend to end the season with congested fixtures.

Stay well everyone,

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 37.doc (67.5 KB, 1510 views)

Here is the last round for the season. All fixtures are congested.

Good luck and good health to all of you,

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 38.doc (67.5 KB, 1496 views)

Hi Ray. Hoping your great models are well rested and ready for a new season 👍 Looking forward to your weekly predictions

Hi Fatcat. Good to hear from you again.

I have deadlines to meet for some sports research. It will take a few weeks to catch up and get my predictions started. Usually, the first few weeks are pretty iffy anyway, as new teams get started and rating settle a bit from where we left off last year.

All the best to everyone!

.

Hi soccer friends.

I had some sports research deadlines that made me late getting started. I was really happy about my Tokyo Olympics analysis. Not only did the swimming and athletics gold medal winners do better than the Rio winners, they improved more than the Rio and London winners, in spite of COVID. They did their best and they succeeded. There is a lesson about not letting the difficult beat you.

The EPL is doing its best too. There is normal scheduling. There won't be any congested fixtures until late November through the New Year, but that is always the case.

Newly promoted Brandtford and Watford are mid-table, talk about perseverance!

I ran the first three rounds and my higher rated teams won 77% of the games not drawn. We are off to a good start.

There is a week off before Round 4.

Good luck!

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 4.doc (68.0 KB, 1209 views)

At the start of each season, I advise being cautious with betting and watch ratings adjust for the first four rounds. On one hand, after four rounds, my favourites have won 74% of the matches not drawn. That quite high for this early. On the other hand, I am concerned that newly-promoted Brentford and Watford may be overrated after early upset wins. They both lost during round 4. We should wait a few more rounds before thinking about betting on them to see how they do. Arsenal has done very poorly and is close to relegation, so their rating dropped a lot. We better wait a few rounds to see if they are going to rebound.

As for round 5: Chelsea, Man U, Man City, Liverpool and Leicester all play Champions League or Europa League matches this midweek. That means they have congested fixtures for upcoming round 5. Worse than that, the entire EPL plays mid-week League Cup matches between round 5 and round 6 so rounds 5 and 6 have congested fixtures for all teams.

Cheers,

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 5.doc (68.0 KB, 1189 views)

Do you feel really busy right now? Think about Man City, Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester and West Ham. At the end of Round 7, they will have played 7 matches in 21 days for Champions League, Europa League, League Cup and EPL competitions.

In mid week before Round 6, all the EPL teams will play League Cup matches so Round 6 has congested fixtures for all teams.

Cheers,

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 6.doc (68.0 KB, 1175 views)

Hi Ray,
10/1 Man Utd to win the League, worth a punt now that they've recruited Ronaldo ?

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Ta me go maith

Hi Paddy,

On one hand. Man U lost their last EPL match, last Champions League match and last League Cup match. On the other hand, Ronaldo has been scoring and he might light a fire under them for losing to Aston Villa. If you have that feeling, what he heck, take a flyer and enjoy the challenge.

Good luck,

Ray

If you didn’t already know that all the fixtures were congested for Round 6, the four draws and the fact that betting on all the underdogs would have created a profit certainly tells you that the fixtures were congested.

For Round 7, fixtures are congested for Man U, Chelsea, Leicester, West Ham, Liverpool and Man City due to mid-week Champions League and Europa League matches.

Good luck,

Ray Stefani

Attached Files

EPL Round 7.doc (68.0 KB, 1166 views)