Mark Lawrenson Premier League Prediction Results

Prediction vs Reality
Predictions here

Mark Lawrenson is a BBC football pundit who makes weekly predictions on the results of football matches, so he really ought to get these things right. Correct predictions are in bold.

Home Team	Away Team	Predicted winner	Predicted score	Actual winner	Actual score
Tottenham Hotspur	Manchester City	Spurs	2-1	Draw	0-0
Aston Villa	West Ham United	Villa	2-0	Villa	3-0
Blackburn Rovers	Everton	Draw	1-1	Blackburn	1-0
Bolton	Fulham	Bolton	2-1	Draw	0-0
Sunderland	Birmingham City	Sunderland	1-0	Draw	2-2
Wigan	Blackpool	Wigan	2-1	Blackpool	0-4
Wolverhampton	Stoke	Draw	1-1	Wolves	2-1
Chelsea	West Bromwich Albion	Chelsea	3-0	Chelsea	6-0
Liverpool	Arsenal	Draw	1-1	Draw	1-1
Manchester United	Newcastle	Man Utd	2-0	Man Utd	3-0

Mark's winner prediction success rate: 4/10
Mark's score prediction success rate: 1/10

My favourite football team in the whole world (Manchester United, are you surprised?) won their game 3 – 0, with a great performance from a long-time player Paul Scholes. Other teams who did well this weekend were Chelsea and Blackpool – who beat Wigan by a great margin and were the surprise win.
Mark Lawrenson so-far has a 10% score prediction success rate, and a 40% winner prediction success rate. While scores are hard to get right, I hope his winner predictions improve.
Next week: more Premier League football.

New Premier League Rules

Today the English (and Welsh) Premier League - one of the best football leagues in the world - kicks off. Naturally, I've been flicking through the handbook (PDF), inspired by an article in yesterday's Metro. It seems that a new rule is coming into effect this season to limit squad sizes.

Each team is limited to 25 over-21-year-old players, eight of which must be 'homegrown', although they are allowed more; that is, have been registered at an English or Welsh squad under the age of 21 for at least three years. The teams are also allowed an unlimited amount of under-21s.

I am not sure what happens if a squad has less than 25 over-21s available to them (for example Arsenal has only 22 over-21s, and Chelsea have 21). I believe that then they do not have to worry so much about the quota, but there is a limit of up to 17 foreign players (ie: who aren't 'homegrown'). So Chelsea, who only have five homegrown over-21s, are okay because they also only have 16 foreigners.

Probably a better way of wording the rule is: there are twenty-five squad places available. There is a limit of up to seventeen non-homegrown players on each squad, and under 21 players are not included in this count so a team can have as many as they like.

Manchester United are a big squad, with 43 players of which 15 are under 21s. There are fewer foreign players than Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal or Manchester City, and plenty of homegrown talent to choose from. However, some of the less-well-know homegrown players (they have 15 to choose from) may be lost.

Sources are: Metro, Premier League website.

English Premier League 2010/11 Season Preview

August 14th – this Saturday – is the first day of the English Premier League 2010/11 season. I have debated over it, and finally decided that I'll post on the football as well. [At the very least it will give me something to blog about over the winter when there's no Formula 1]
All twenty teams will be playing over the weekend, and I'll be covering various statistics. The usual ones should be:

• Average goals per game (over one weekend)
  
• Average cards per game (over one weekend)
  
• Top goalscorer (of the weekend)
  
• Total goals (whole season)
  
• Total yellow cards (whole season)
  
• Total red cards (whole season)

There are ten matches each weekend, but there will be no games when England are playing as so many teams will be losing key players across the world. Each team plays the other nineteen twice, so in total that will be 10*19*2 games or 380. Most matches take place on the Saturday, with a few on Sunday and (rarely) Monday.

Euro 2012 Qualifying: EST vs FRO summary

FIFA World Ranking points
Remember the formula? In this case, I=2.5 as it's a continental qualifier, and C=1 for all the Euro 2012 matches.
For Estonia, T (strength of opponent) = (200-118)/100 = 0.82, and for the Faroe Islands, T=1.06.
Since the match was a victory for Estonia, they get 2.5*82*3=615 points, and Faroe Islands get no points.

Match summary
The Faroe Islands started well, scoring a goal through Edmundsson in the 28th minute. It didn't stop him getting booked, however, with three yellow cards for his team in the first half. Estonia, meanwhile, also had opportunities on goal, but were less violent in their challenges. It's not easy to tell exactly which team played better when you can only read the UEFA MatchCentre commentary – which is nowhere near as good as FIFA's MatchCast from the World Cup.
In the second half, there were an incredible two last-minute goals from Estonia's Saag and several substitutions. Faroe Islands received a fourth yellow card. The game ended 2-1 to Estonia.

Euro 2012 Qualifying: EST vs FRO preview

Team: Estonia
World (European) Rank: 94 (43)
Players: 24

Team: Faroe Islands
World (European) Rank: 118 (48)
Players: 20

In European rank, these teams aren't much different, but world rank places them much further apart. While the Faroe Islanders have chosen sixteen players from their local league, the Estonians have mostly selected from abroad, with only three of their twenty-four playing in Estonia. Two of the squad members, however, are not signed up with any club.

This islanders are managed by Republic of Ireland footballer Brian Kerr, who previously managed his home side (but didn't get them into Euro 2008).

According to the UEFA website, Estonia's record against the Faroe Islands is won three, drawn one, lost one. I'm predicting them to win again this time, especially since it's a home game.

Edited for new FIFA rankings (Aug 11) and correct FIFA Trigramme for Faroe Islands

Euro 2012 Qualification

Euro 2012 will be hosted by Poland and Ukraine. The first qualification match will be on August 11th, although most will be at the start of September.

Group: A
Teams (world rank): Germany (4), Turkey (28), Austria (60), Belgium (48), Kazakhstan (126), Azerbaijan (106)
Comments: Germany are certain to go through. Apart from that, Turkey are a good team and quite a few good world cup players usually play in the Turkish league. As for Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan being in Europe, they used to be in the USSR and are predominantly Muslim countries, but also are ex-Turkic states, which places them between Europe and Asia. Kazakhstan actually only became a country in 1991, nineteen years ago.

Group: B
Teams (world rank): Russia (17), Slovakia (27), Republic of Ireland (36), FYR Macedonia (66), Armenia (96), Andorra (201)
Comments: Russia are one of the best-ranked countries to not qualify for the World Cup 2010. Slovakia are one of the worst to qualify, but did well. The Republic of Ireland were denied entry to South Africa 2010 by a handball from France's Thierry Henry. Andorra are one of the worst-ranked teams in the world, probably because of a lack of players to choose from. I'd say Russia will qualify.

Group: C
Teams (world rank): Italy (11), Serbia (13), Northern Ireland (59), Slovenia (19), Estonia (95), Faroe Islands (117)
Comments: Italy had a terrible World Cup, and are under pressure to do better. Serbia, meanwhile, managed to be one of only two teams to beat Germany. Slovenia didn't do so well, but they did have to face England and the USA. I'd say Italy may qualify, but they may also end up in the playoffs.
Estonia and Faroe Islands kick off the first game of the tournament on August 11th. I won't be able to watch it, but I'll comment afterwards.

Group: D
Teams (world rank): France (21), Romania (42), Bosnia-Herzegovina (57), Belarus (77), Albania (71), Luxembourg (116)
Comments: France lost to South Africa and had the worst world ranking drop of any good team. Can they beat any of the other low-ranked teams in this group? Romania are a pretty good team usually, although they failed to qualify for the World Cup this year. I will put my vote on Romania.

Group: E
Teams (world rank): Netherlands (2), Sweden (35), Finland (51), Hungary (62), Moldova (89), San Marino (202)
Comments: San Marino are worse-ranked than Andorra! Netherlands and Sweden will probably qualify, but the Sweden-Finland game should be nicely competitive.

Group: F
Teams (world rank): Croatia (15), Greece (12), Israel (37), Latvia (50), Georgia (111), Malta (152)
Comments: England and Croatia aren't in the same group, so they will definitely face in the finals (it always happens. England stopped Croatia getting to the World Cup). However, Greece will get into the playoffs.

Group: G
Teams (world rank): England (7), Switzerland (18), Bulgaria (43), Wales (84), Montenegro (72)
Comments: Guess who I'm supporting? Switzerland did okay in the World Cup, but with the other teams (usually) much lower-ranked, and England still being reasonable at football, England surely cannot fail to qualify.

Group: H
Teams: Portugal (8), Denmark (29), Norway (22), Cyprus (63), Iceland (79)
Comments: Portugal are most likely to qualify, but Denmark are a good team, even if Norway are currently better-ranked. There is another Scandinavian clash between Denmark and Norway here.

Group: I
Teams: Spain (1), Czech Republic (31), Scotland (41), Lithuania (52), Liechtenstein (140)
Comments: Yes, Euro and World Cup holders Spain do have to fight to hold their title. I have no doubt that they will do so. Sorry, Scotland, but you will remain the butt of England's football jokes. As for Liechtenstein, they managed to hold England down to only 2-0 wins in 2004. It was a great disappointment for England.

How does qualification work? In each group, the winner qualifies for Euro 2012, which is nine teams. They will join Poland and Ukraine (the hosts) in the group stages. The best runner up in groups A-F (six team groups) will also qualify, and the other eight runners up will enter the playoffs for the final four competitors. The four top-seed (best UEFA ranked) teams will play against the other four to decide who also qualifies to get into the top sixteen European teams. The UEFA ranking is found by cutting all the non-European teams out of the FIFA rankings and renumbering. This makes England the fourth-best team in Europe!

Formula 1 Race Twelve: Race

Rubens Barrichello is a lucky man. Lucky to be alive. Schumacher definitely deserves the 10 place grid penalty in Spa, but a lot of people will think he ought to be out of motor racing after such a bad move!

Red Bull had the car of the day. It was a second per lap faster than any other car, and Ferrari were faster than all the other teams. Vettel started in pole, and just kept Alonso from getting into first place off the line, although Webber fell into third. Then the safety car came out because of a lost part from Liuzzi's front wing, and all havoc broke loose. Only Vettel pitted for Red Bull, and ended up second as Webber kept going. With the road clear ahead, he shot far into the lead, and when his gap was wide enough, he pitted and continued in pole. Vettel, however, had a pit stop drive through penalty for falling too far behind his teammate under the safety car, and ended up third. He was unable to overtake Alonso for most of the race.

But Red Bull weren't the only team messed up by the safety car. As every team tried to get in their pit stop, Renault let Kubica go just as Sutil was coming into the Force India garage. They collided and Sutil retired, with Kubica retiring later. Meanwhile, Rosberg had a tyre come off, going flying through the other team garages, and fortunate to miss other drivers. Mercedes and Renault both get $50,000 fines, and Rosberg also retired. The other retirements were Alguersuari and Hamilton with various problems.

Aside from that, both Kobayashi and De La Rosa had good races, with De La Rosa getting his first Formula 1 points of the season. Now only the six drivers from Hispania, Virgin and Lotus have no points, but they also had a good race, with none of their drivers retiring.

Incidentally, there is a new phrase coming into F1 terminology: “do a Kobayashi”. After Kobayashi pitted very late in Valencia, other drivers seem to be spotting the advantages of this. With the faster-wearing Pirelli tyres, we're unlikely to see this in 2011, but Barrichello did it today, and his lucky escape meant he got a point out of it.