@lenmasterman 🤣 🤣 🤣
Thank you for the update scoring table Powmill. All I can say is, “How Embarrassing”
However, I am being positive and looking at it in the vein of being, the best of the worst.
Lets hope that I stay where I am, and the Boro where they are now.
Many thanks Powmill for the COTS challenge update - I actually only just noticed it after being absorbed by the search for a new manager and writing my oxford preview.
Before looking at the standings I had a quick check of my predictions - I didn't need to read beyond my top six to realise it was going to be bad - Ipswich, Leicester, Southampton, Norwich, Birmingham, Sheff Utd - plus Boro in 12th.
Can't believe I'm not bottom but have to thank Pedro for not posting any under-achievers (other than ourselves) 😉
Well done to OFB and your good self Powmill for being the only ones with respectable scores - at least I'm less than 100 points off the top...
Also just spotted this. Quite happy to be wrong about things because it has created a much more open league. Lets hope that it stays that way although I wouldn't discount Ipswich from ending up top of the league.
UTB
Great work on this Powmill.
A bit like watching England in the Ashes this morning, against all logic I believe I’m still in it!
Unbelievable, Jeff! But well done as you have had the trust in Boro. I just wonder if you were in the hospital at the time of your predictions ....I don’t beleeeve it !
Its obviously a fluke on my part and can’t see it continuing!
many thanks for organising it appreciated 👏👏👏
OFB
ANyway, thanks for Powmill. This is a good competition to follow. Up the Boro!
Thanks Powmill for the update. I just hope my poor predictions continue and it results in the good season that Boro is currently having prevails to the end of the season. 🤞😎
Well are you psychic ????
I did have a long time to ponder the results and I’m being transferred !
No fee involved !
So I’m joining the toon for a short while either just before or just after Xmas.
The Freeman at Newcastle is going to take over from the Boro !
I’ve bought black and white striped pyjamas so I’ll blend in !!!
OFB
@original-fat-bob Good luck in the Toon, OFB - don’t get too close to the Dark Side, we need you backing the Boro.
@original-fat-bob Good luck in the Toon, OFB - don’t get too close to the Dark Side, we need you backing the Boro.
yes...
Barcodes3 just doesn’t have the same authentic ring to it
Best of luck, Bob. I hope your spell out on loan is brief and that you are back on our books early in the New Year. We need you for our promotion run-in.
I was planning to put out a COTS update after 30 games played, having posted the first update on the season after 15 games played. However, Exmil’s prompt has encouraged me to put aside that mild attack of OCD behaviour and instead to post the current standings after a mix of 25 and 26 games played and before we resume league hostilities following the FA Cup fixtures over this last weekend.
I also have a confession to make. As I have been checking the current standings, I noticed that I had made an error in KP’s and Chris from Barlby’s entries. For both of you I had duplicated one of your predictions for the top 6. For KP I had Coventry listed twice, instead of Coventry and Leicester. For Chris I had Southampton listed twice instead of Southampton and Leicester. I have corrected this now and also I have corrected the standings I had posted in November after 15 games. Chris, your total improved by 5 points and took you up the standings from 10th to 9th, KP, I am sorry, my mistake has cost you 20 points taking you down from 9th to 13th. I have included the revised 15 game table below.
Regardless of my mistake, after the first 15 games it has to be said that collectively our forecasting for the season was still looking a little shambolic. So unexpected was the poor early form of so many of the fancied teams, allied with the surprisingly good form of last season’s also rans, meant that most of the COTS entries (11 out of the 15) were showing negative points totals. If we compare that to last season at a similar point, after 11 games there were only 4 entrants in negative territory, which were Werdermouth, Martin Bellamy, Exmil and myself. On the other hand out at the top on 112 points at this point last year was Pedro de Espana, with several others showing in the 60s and 70s.
I am pleased to say that now, after 25/26 games played, things are looking a little better for most people than after the first 15 games. That said, no one is scoring remotely as well as at the similar stage of last season. At this stage last year it was Len who was racing ahead on 119.5 points, with Pedro, KP, Clive and Selwyn all in the 90s. In fact there were only three entries scoring below 50 (myself on 25.5, Exmil on 0 and FD’s randomly selected entry on minus 35).
In the main, I think it is the current top six that has caught most people out this season. While all 15 of us have Ipswich in our top six predictions, only 7 of us has Coventry, 4 have Millwall, 3 of us has the Boro, 2 have Watford and not one of us has PNE (apologies, surely, to our friendly contributor Dave from Preston). Everyone’s points total has also been dragged down because the more fancied top six predictions (Leicester, Soton, Sheffield Utd, Birmingham and WBA) are not only outside of the top six, but currently are all in the bottom half of the table. This means that COTS points are being deducted for all of us.
Talking about the bottom half of the table, at the very bottom most of us did at least predict Wednesday (14 picks) and Oxford (10 picks), but only Jarkko called out Norwich.
The biggest movers in the COTS table since the 15 game mark have been Werdermouth (improved by 54 points) and AndyR (improved 51 points). Most of the rest of our scores have improved between 18 and 36 points. Only OFB’s points total has fallen, by 3 points. This means (embarrassingly to say) that I am now top of the pile with the grand total of 59 points, helped enormously by Ipswich having had their last game postponed so my prediction of Boro to finish 2nd is still rewarding me.
But, enough of this waffle. I am sure you would all like to see how you are doing, so here are the current standings after 25/26 games played, alongside the previous (and corrected) standings after 15 games:
Thanks for all of this splendid and dedicated work, Powmill ,and congratulations on being so far ahead of the field. Had I been you I would have been publishing these tables on a weekly basis.
Frankly I'm amazed at being in the play-off places, as my predictions were way off and I even had the Boro in the relegation zone. Despite the years of knowledge and experience available on this blog, it seems that collectively we would have been better off using a pin for our predictions. A salutary lesson.
Many thanks for that update and analysis, which is quite pertinent in describing how the Championship is shaping up this season - plus congratulation for hitting top spot and I can take comfort at being the Morgan Whittaker of the challenge as the most improved performer - my predictions are often slow burners...
Are you suggesting some people were not using their lucky pins 😉
@powmillnaemore Thank you for the updates, eventhough I am just above the relagation zone. And just in black. I need to keep the Spanich lads and Selwynoz behind me in the latter part of the season. And to avoid a sacking ...Do we get relegated to a Sunderland forum? I need to improve.Up the Boro!
Now there's a threat to consider 😉
@powmillnaemore. Thanks for the update PNM.
I am taking a Trump view of these figures, my numbers are up across the board, they are better than anyone else and no one has a chance of catching me!
Or perhaps not!😉😎
Thanks Powmill-Naemore for the update and for the amount of work involved, even though I have slipped one place from fifth to sixth, at least I am in the playoffs for the time being 😂😂😂.
Come on BORO.
@powmillnaemore - What a magnificent piece of work! Not the predictions but the format, the working it all out etc. It is a pity that our clairvoyance skills fail to match the concept. We can hope for improvement as the season progresses but, hopefully, I will lose points on Boro's place in the final table!
Fabulous work, Powmill. Thank you.
I’m comfortably mid-table at present, which is a little better than where I predicted Boro to finish! I am delighted to have been proven so wrong thus far!
Thank you Powmill for not mentioning me and my dreadful predictions, and further thanks for the terrific work putting it all together.
It looks rather like I am going to be the Sheffield Wednesday of the league and to be relegated into another Forum!!! The only saving grace I guess, is I have halved my negative points.
Thank you to everyone for the very generous comments. The hard work was a couple of years ago, coding up all the right formulae into my spreadsheet. Now, literally all I have to do is copy all the predictions into the spreadsheet at the start of the season (trying not to make any mistakes 🙄) and then once every dozen games or so to copy the current league table into a separate worksheet and the scores appear like magic. It is very satisfying for a spreadsheet geek such as me 🤓. I am only pleased that so many people get fun out of it... Thankyou all.
Of course, if we get promoted, I may need to reassess the categories and points system to work for a Premier League!
@powmillnaemore Great work on this Powmill and pleased to see I'm on the rise after a dodgy start!
I'm a bit of a spreadsheet geek myself but I think your powers are far in excess of mine!