Fog Dude

4 minutes ago, MVP RULZ said:

Shouldn't I have picked up 2 bonus points as well for predicting West Ham and Chelsea to be a draw?

Right you are! My bad.

That puts you above Rory on alphabetical order, but still not a very strong start for a defending champion. Not about to re-upload and re-link that slight change to the table right now, but the amendments will be reflected in the next update.

The results went into the opening post on Sunday night, and at last we have a table now! Shy Dad still leads, but mainly based on his performance in the previous round after matching the weekly average this time. Top scorer ultimo is up into second spot where he ended last season. Shockingly, the person who pipped him to the post to deny him a Double, MVP RULZ, was the worst scorer and is two points below anybody else who made their picks on time both weeks. Plenty of points to play for still.

Speaking of which, please do try to make this part of your routine for the next 40 matchdays. It's a season-long commitment, not just a fleeting late summer whim. Rather like how puppies are for life, not just Christmas (unless you're Jerry Lawler, in which case they're for middle school induction day). One person who managed to play the two rounds so far still hasn't DMed me, whilst one who has whiffed on posting this time out.

If we do end up with 8 players instead of 10, then the FPL Cup groups still work out neatly, plus it gives the D2D turns a tad more breathing space. And on that note... 

TildeGuy got his D2D bet wrong as his beloved Blues somehow succumbed to a 2023 David Moyes team at The London Stadium. Losing away to a side in Europe is basically consistent with last season's Chelsea form, but with a decent new manager and all that money spent, they were probably expecting better. Four of the other seven participants correctly bet against him to claim their bonus points.

The 'wildcard' fixture was match #10, the only visit abroad on the card. Everybody predicted an away win for PSG, but it ended up as a score draw so no extra bonuses there. Elsewhere, victories for Liverpool (albeit my a much narrow margin than the 9-0 a year ago), for Man City and – just about – for Ross County all proved fruitful.

The comfortable nature of Brighton's success at Molineux meant it was good for one-pointers at best, whilst guesses for the matches at Spurs and Craven Cottage, plus the Women's World Cup disappointment for the Lionesses, turned out to be more of a mixed bag. Meanwhile, Celtic's early exit from the Viaplay-Betfred (?) Cup emphatically caught the whole field out.

A new gameweek will be up at the top of the thread in just a few moments. 

5 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Cheddar AFC committing to their name here.

They've been committing in other ways for a while, to be fair. Saw them in a pre-season friendly in the 2000s and already back then, their mascot was a bloke dressed as a block of cheese. 

8 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

 

This was when it was decided that Holsten couldn't be displayed on youth shirts* and extended to the youth teams, so Sega was on them, randomly.

There can only be around 30 of these in existence, meaning they are incredibly rare.

That's a great story, a brilliant idea of what to do when the main sponsor isn't allowed to be advertised to kids, and those shirts look utterly gorgeous.

Having said all that, I reckon nobody wore the name of a console manufacturer on their chest better than Batigol: 

Women's World Cup Final

England 0-2 Spain (@ Stadium Australia)

Premier League

Fulham 2-1 Brentford
Liverpool 3-0 Bournemouth
Wolves 1-1 Brighton & Hove Albion
Spurs 2-2 Manchester United 
Manchester City 1-0 Newcastle United 
West Ham United 0-0 Chelsea w/TildeGuy

Scots League Cup Round of 16

Airdrieonians 0-3 Ross County
Kilmarnock 1-3 Celtic 

Ligue 1
Toulouse 1-2 Paris Saint-Germain

2 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

The Dreamcast was never ever going to compete with the PlayStation. It never had a chance at all.

In fact, the one kid that did have one at my school had the piss mercilessly ripped out of him big time (kids are weird) 

Did that have anything to do with this though?

Well, it's that awkward first week when there's no table to link to yet. Full disclosure: you're all still listed on my spreadsheet in the order you entered, not by who scored the most points this time. Was nice to have a full house by Friday night though. The main beneficiary of the lack of a table is seph, who begins with a 5-point haul. Vegeta also failed to get an exact score so lands on 7, with RoryFice finding a different route to the same amount. 

At the other end, the returning ShyDad is back with a bang as your early leader on, but unfortunately he has no screenshot of the standings to frame his 15-point bonanza on, with TildeGuy just behind on 14. I'm further back on 10 points, but that's still enough to be joint third alongside Pete – good to have him on board!

The average score this time was a whopping 9.4 points, which (while still way lower than the theoretical maximum of 30) is huge for an ordinary round. Let's see if we can keep up the high scoring and early picking for the rest of the season. Wins for Brighton, Palace, Parma and Cagliari all proved fruitful, as did score draws at Dean Court 'the Vitality' and Stamford Bridge, with a home reverse for Everton turning out slightly tougher to foresee.

The three German Cup ties were blowouts for the favourites, making them almost universally good for one-pointers but ultimately useless for correct scorelines (can't help but notice that the team from Waldorf is named after a hotel – they 'only' lost 4-0 so somebody might've managed that one). Still, those glorified training exercises do make you appreciate the actual shocks and near misses all the more, but I do acknowledge that's not much help when it comes to a prediction contest. Luckily all rounds apart from the final are now played in midweek so that competition won't be bothering us again until May.

I'm still waiting for a couple of people to PM me with Dare 2 Disagree picks. You've got just under a month to get that sorted, but in the meantime, people who got their act together will get an early chance at bonus points. In line with Seph's original vision that D2Ds should take place roughly every other week (and since nobody had a turn in Week 1), there'll be one among the next set of 10, which will be up in the original post shortly. Wanted to ease newcomers/returners in gently this time, but from next week, of the other 9 matches could also be the 'wildcard' fixture with more potential bonus points attached to it.

I've had one more PM with D2D choices since last night, so thanks for that. Anyhow, here are my picks for this weekend:

Premier League

Bournemouth 1-1 West Ham United
Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0 Luton Town
Everton 1-2 Fulham
Sheffield United 0-0 Crystal Palace
Chelsea 2-2 Liverpool 

German Cup Round 1

Teutonia Ottensen 0-2 Bayer Leverkusen 
Lokomotive Leipzig 0-3 Eintracht Frankfurt
Astoria Walldorf 1-3 Union Berlin 

Italian Cup Second Round
Bari 2-1 Parma 
Cagliari 1-0 Palermo

Hello and welcome to another season of the UKFF Football Predictions League! Sign-ups are long since closed.

The most important rules are unchanged: generally 10 matches per round, three points for an exact scoreline, one for a correct result, various chances for bonus points across the campaign.

The updated table will go on this line throughout the season. And since we're well into the swing of things now, so here it is.

Unlike last season, detailed Fantasy League discussion is generally discouraged this time.

===

Week 38 fixtures 

To be announced.

All games take place on Saturday and kick off at 15:00 unless stated. Times are listed in BST.  [placeholder]

===

FPL Cup Final

To follow next month.

===

Week 37 results

FA Challenge Cup semi-finals (at Wembley Stadium)

Chelsea 0-1 Manchester City 
Coventry City 3-3 Manchester United (AET, Man Utd won on penalties – this counts as a steal draw)

Premier League

Luton Town 1-5 Brentford
Sheffield United 1-4 Burnley
Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-2 Arsenal 
Everton 2-0 Nottingham Forest 
Fulham 1-3 Liverpool 

Scottish Cup semi-final

Heart of Midlothian 0-2 Rangers (at Hampden Park)

La Liga

Valencia 1-2 Real Betis 
Real Madrid 3-2 Barcelona

Thanks for the initial flurry of interest, folks. It's about a week since I started the thread and about a week until the main one starts, so time for an update.

All the entries so far came in before I went away to a family gathering straight after the England-Denmark snoozefest, which I've only just recovered from.

There are six entries by this point, which is probably the minimum needed to make it worthwhile to keep running. However, only four people have D2D teams assigned to them. Please try to get those choices into my inbox before the summer transfer window shuts if at all possible (the European window, that is, not the Saudi one). From then on I'll start naming and shaming, then a couple of weeks later, not having any D2D sides will get you chucked out. Let's not allow it to get to that stage, eh?

If you're thinking of taking part, then you can jump in anytime up to the first international break, but you'd be advised to be earning points right from the offset. 

Without peeking behind the curtain too much, after much tinkering with various weekly cards last night, I think we're finally set for matchday 1, but there are still fixtures for as early as Week 2 where we don't have the kick-off times established yet. Sort your seconde journée out already, Ligue 1! 

Somebody asked in a PM about internationals. As I said, they are permitted as D2D picks, but with only four international breaks per season, there's a limit as to how many of those choices we can use. There's also the issue of non-European matches generally taking place as Thursday-Tuesday double-headers these days. I used to delight in including games from six continents during those rounds, but that hasn't been possible in recent seasons. I've decided that on international weekends only, Tuesday matches will also be eligible for inclusion among the set of 10. That gives us the option of including, for instance, England-Italy in October and the Scotland-England women's Nations League clash in December.

Which doesn't mean we'll actually make use of that new rule, but at least it widens the possibilities for those weeks. I freely admit I hadn't given this enough thought before I began the thread a week ago, but I have now.

Anyway, without further ado: keep those entries and PMs coming, folks! See you all in week for the real thing... 

Where did the summer break go, eh? Feels like we only just saw Sheikh Mansour finally win ol' Big Ears in Istanbul, and now it's already just two weeks until the first card for next season goes live.

But that'll be in separate thread, as usual, where we won't be mixing it up with Fantasy League stuff this time. Here's how it all finished up by the end of the last campaign. 

I've toyed with bigger changes during the off-season, but have decided to keep to 10-match cards as a rule (Christmas/New Year/Easter/the final day still being the permitted exceptions). With the Women's World Cup on at the moment, I'm conscious of trying to feature more women's internationals, and also the need to include at least one women's domestic game during the men's international rounds. 

The other big difference is that Monday matches are now allowed as standard, but Friday night (again, apart from Good Friday) & Saturday lunchtime remain off-limits to give people as much time as possible to make their picks. This is important because it relates to a guideline for... 

Dare 2 Disagree (D2D)

Yup, we're still doing this too. Three teams each sent via PM please, and depending on numbers & overlaps, we'll use either one or two of them for special bonus point bets spread across the season. I've cleared some space in my inbox (alas, "Do you like Rachel Stevens?" we hardly knew ye) so you all know what to do. 

The sole rule for D2Ds is no reserve or youth sides, A-teams only. Apart from that, anything goes: national teams, women's teams, mega-clubs, fallen giants; any country, any division.

The strong guidelines mentioned above aren't hard and fast rules per se, but it'd make things easier if you could stick to them: 

• try to avoid too many teams from leagues or competitions where kick-off times aren't known until very short notice, or where it's difficult to find information about that; or
• similar to the above, please attempt not to choose teams from where it's tough to find results (somebody once requested that Seph include a match from the Faroese league, which would've been a logistical nightmare 15+ years ago) or where entire rounds of fixtures change or swap around only weeks before they're due to take place; and
• endeavour not to pick lots of teams from the French, German or Italian second & third tiers, as whole swathes of fixtures in those divisions are routinely brought forward for early starts.

Full disclosure: I freely admit to holding a penchant for sides in that last category myself, but to be fair, I am actually looking for a ticket to a German third-flight match for the autumn at the moment.

The FPL Cup will also be returning. Format depends as ever on how many people play and what sort of teams they choose for the D2D, because I don't like to put FPL Cup rounds in D2D weeks so that my ageing sleep-deprived brain doesn't get too frazzled. 

Right, enough rambling. Let's get on with this! 

It might be a low bar to clear, but I'd say Angel Has Fallen is better than either Olympus or London. 

Decades ago, a Boost was my chocolate bar of choice from the vending machine on a Friday (the one day I didn't bring in a packed lunch) but I recall my friend who I was studying A-level German with made a bloody convincing case for a Lion bar as well. 

1 hour ago, SuperBacon said:

Well this will pop at least 2 members on here

WWE oughta book the SkyDome and see if they can outsell British Uprising 2004. 

As we know, WrestleMania tends to take place in late March or early April, which is close to the men's footie international break so Spurs or West Ham (or Arsenal) wouldn't have a European game around that time. Wembley might want to host an England home match instead though.

The FA Cup semi-finals are generally a good few weeks later than that these days, so there's no issue with Wembley there. Some people have managed to find logistical barriers where none actually exist. 

27 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Take a look at the online jobs market, in paritcular admin jobs. You'll find a reasonable standard of English is pretty much the bare minimum to be considered for many jobs, that's before you even get to things like telephone manner or knowledge of Microsoft products.

If you're suggesting my voting choices are based on grammar then you're mistaken. I have the misfortune to live (or in the future potentially so due to bondaries being redrawn) in a marginal seat so my vote goes to Labour without any consideration based on the suitability of any of the candidates. That said, I remember getting a local election leaflet for a potential Tory candidate that had over 20 spelling and grammatrical errors in, starting with the hilarious "Since been elected" as the opening of the first sentence.

Once again, I'm not criticising Dorris per se. I'm making the broader point that people running the country aren't capable of communicating using a level of English that would get you a minimum wage jon as an administator.

Oh, mate... people in glass houses and all that. "It's" isn't always a contraction of "it is" by the way. What's it short for in the phrase "it's still got plenty left in the tank" for instance?

Besides, possession or otherwise of qualifications or traits which are required for most jobs are not a measure of someone's dignity. The only qualification for being an MP is to get voted in, and rightly so (although Culture Secretary probably was on overpromotion for the lawmaker in question here).

Punctuation aside though, yes Dorries has hardly covered herself in glory this past week. But the whole melodrama over whether she gets a peerage and when she's actually gonna step down and what Johnson promised her is just a distraction from the wider Conservative civil war from which we're all suffering, as well as the increasingly cruel and extreme policies the whole party still seems to be getting behind. 

At least if this blue-on-blue action were happening after a Tory election loss it'd be a bit funnier for the rest of us. Then again, without a functioning opposition who knows what a government of another stripe would try to get away with. 

6 hours ago, Mr_Danger said:

Sounds like a bellend.

Well, for a guy born as late as 1986, it is more than a bit suspicious that his middle name is Adolfo. 

Well, it looks like this season will go down in history as the one where The Colossus of Boggo Road denied Sheikh Mansour the Quadruple. 

On 6/7/2023 at 11:05 PM, TildeGuy~! said:

2nd to @MVP RULZOnce again

Congrats.

Hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you dropped to third place behind ultimo at the very end there mate. 

I know it can be difficult to find the link to the standings among my usual wall of text, which is why we embed it into a post at the very end of the season. So on that note, here is the final classification for the record books: 

Not much more to say about this, but it's notable that Stinky's season fell away somewhat as he sank into mid-table behind a returning seph, so he appears among both the positive and negative stats. The champion is unsurprisingly found twice there, with my own username also to be seen three times on the right-hand side. Again, not exactly shocking.

The only other noteworthy thing to add would be that ultimo would've won the whole thing if he hadn't skipped 3 entire rounds. Even though he hasn't missed a round for months, and last time he did it hardly looked like he'd be in title contention, it just goes to show that it does pay to stay on the ball and make posting your picks part of your weekly routine. 

Keep in mind that partial missed weeks are not accounted for when working out the averages. Shy Dad and Nicko make a return in this archived version of the table. The former would be welcomed back with open arms next season, the latter would be treated with a tad more suspicion. Oh, and we're definitely not following any whims in August that by March were clearly utter brainfarts, i.e. the thread will be just about the Predictions and Fantasy League discussion will have to go elsewhere again. Adding a write-up about that every week added to my workload and it felt so futile when it was clear fairly early on that nobody else was about to provide even occasional updates as to how they were going. 

As for the question from our champion, I'm not the best custodian at this as on my current laptop I've only got the archive from the past 4 of my 15(!!) seasons of running this. Plus, we had to switch image-hosting sites for the table from Photobucket to imgur somewhere along the way, so quite a bit was lost at that point too. But regardless, @MVP RULZ has definitely won 3 of the last 4 with only my complete anomaly somehow preventing 4 in a row, and instinctively I feel like he won at least one more back when there were quite a few more people taking part. 

So that's it then. For somebody who said they were so totally done with the current season, I was still enough of a football junkie to be tuning into the Conference League final on YouTube (via the smart TV, natch) and checking the Irish play-off results this past midweek.

If nobody else comes forward to organise it, then I'll start a sign-up thread week commencing the 24th of July, with the main thread following on the evening of the 9th of August. In the meantime, either enjoy the men's Champions League final and the internationals plus the preliminary rounds of next season's UEFA club competitions, or else just take a break from footie for a while if that's what you prefer.

Me? I'll be trying to find a stream of the Spezia v Verona relegation playout on Sunday night, then adding some Premier League fixtures to the 2023-24 spreadsheet by Thursday lunchtime... 

1 hour ago, Your Fight Site said:

He’s an absolute cunt, so not surprised to see him “succeed” as a Tory MP.

Not an MP, he's got one of those nonsense 'regional mayor' jobs – in his case on Teesside, where he's frequently mentioned in Private Eye in relation to very dodgy dealings involving the 'freeport' up there. Which I guess in his eyes makes him a success. To most people that sounds like unbridled corruption. 

The InterToto was an infinitely superior competition. And West Ham actually (jointly) won that in 1999 too but it apparently doesn't count as a trophy.

Was utterly baffled by above post last night (unless Barry is some kind of sitcom about Fantasy Football or predictions that I need to check out?) but it saves me from double posting, so I'll take it. I'll aim for earlier Wednesday posts next season, but tonight once I didn't get this out before the Conference League final started I knew it'd have to wait until afterwards.

Anyway, the top of the thread was updated for the final time last night, so the table has since been updated and uploaded too.

Without further ado, it's my pleasure to announce that MVP RULZ has retained his title and is once again the UKFF Football Predictions League Champion! Huge congrats to him. This one's for 2022-23 although I'm sure he's losing track of the years by now like the rest of us. To sweeten his victory even further, his beloved Owls achieved promotion with a record points total for a third-place team in their division, managing to knock a Champions League-bound team out of the FA Cup and produce an all-timer in the comeback stakes along the way. Fortunately for Wednesday, that inexplicable defeat to Big Dunc's vegan army over the March international break didn't quite come back to haunt them.

The symmetry continues as I finished last for the second year running. Kind of calls into question my credentials for even selecting the fixtures week to week, doesn't it? That one year I actually won looks more like a total fluke all the time. 

Unusually, there was actually one bit of movement on the last day. Worst performer this time out, Tilde, was overtaken by this round's top scorer ultimo in the closing stretch, which means the latter has ended up as runner-up in both our predictions competitions this season. Always the bridesmaid, eh? 

In terms of the matches, highly anticipated wins for *deep breath* Barça's women, Man City, Celtic, Leipzig, Inter, Lazio, Juve's men, Porto and Flamengo each proved fruitful. The Spanish results and the Italian women's game yielded a mixed bag of guesses, whilst the French outcomes plus two stalemates across the pond caught most people out.

All of the season-long stats should be embedded in one big climactic post which is currently tentatively scheduled for Friday, which is also when you can find out details on when to expect the sign-up and main threads to go live over the summer.

In the meantime, gratitude and feedback/suggestions are both equally welcome as usual. Thanks to all for playing!

On 6/2/2023 at 8:17 PM, Fog Dude said:

The regular round-up to this week's action might appear earlier than usual since I'll be in Manchester on Tuesday.

Well, I thought I goofed here so it's good to know I didn't make any promises! This isn't the big announcement of this season's champion, but it has turned into an announcement about next season that the regulars should be interested in.

I added the Brazilian match to the provisional final 'bumper' week a couple of months ago. I then spotted nearer the time that it'd been put back to "0:00" today and interpreted that as midnight last night. I didn't want to swap it out for and took a chance that it meant the hour I initially thought.

However, my hunch was wrong and the match still hasn't kicked off at the time of typing this. So, that means we won't have all the results in until 2am. By which time I need to be asleep before getting on the train to Manchester tomorrow. Meaning the initial round-up is now not due until Wednesday, with the final blurb following goodness knows when.

It's quite likely we've got a mathematical winner already but I don't like to figure out the 'ordinary' points (as opposed to bonuses, which there aren't any of this week anyway) until all the scores are in. I'm sure the top three could figure it out among themselves if they're really getting impatient. 

"But how does all this relate to future seasons??" I hear you ask. Ah, well you see, it gives me the chance to make two key changes known: 

First of all, Monday games will be available for inclusion on the card as standard, not just on Bank Holidays. It's always been a silly rule, since Monday Night Football has been well established for decades now. Besides, cup ties that get postponed can have results featured as long as they're completed within a few days. Friday night and Saturday lunchtime matches will continue to be ineligible (except at Easter – I'm looking at you, ultimo) to give people the widest possible chance to make their picks in time. And that's even more important than before, because... 

... the other change is that I'll aim for the weekly round-ups and posting the new set of 10 in the initial post on Wednesday evening, instead of last thing Tuesday night at present. For ages I prided myself on slipping that in before midnight, but you've probably noticed that it's been a couple of hours later than that more often, and that's not healthy for me or the competition. The only people it's perhaps unfair to are Tilde and Vegeta who tend to pick early, but it makes sense to wait until most teams' midweek matches are over so we know how the form book stands. 

Plus: inadvertently, you're all getting a preview of both those changes this week! Rather like when teams wear the subsequent season's home shirt in their last fixture of the season so they can sell a load of them over the summer.

Right, that'll do for the moment. Thought it'd be good to say that now rather than rain on the eventual winner's parade with a bunch of admin and housekeeping.

On 5/31/2023 at 8:51 AM, Fatty Facesitter said:

Morning all, posted this in the main footie thread but if Mark Field (AKA Tomiyasewy) can drop me a PM, he has won the coveted Official FPL UKFF 'Chippy Tea League' - and thus not only has he won the league, but also as per I promise I made earlier in the season, he's won a free chippy tea on me 👍

Congrats to him, and to the winner to the Chippy Tea Cup. Proud to have been runner-up in the latter tournament even if I finished absolutely nowhere in the main league competition. Hope Tomiyasewy enjoys his meal! 

===

Full disclosure – I did consider rounding out the card with the men's A-League final, but of course a Saturday night game in Australia is a Saturday morning one here, and that's too soon a start for us so you were all spared one last trip Down Under. 

The regular round-up to this week's action might appear earlier than usual since I'll be in Manchester on Tuesday. Not for a football thing, but it does feel apt since it's the first-ever Manc derby FA Cup Final a few days prior.

That'll hopefully be followed by the big final blurb to finish off the thread before next season's EPL fixtures come out, which is just 4 days after the men's UCL final. No respite for ol' Foggy. 

Women's UEFA Champions League Final

Barcelona 3-1 Wolfsburg (at the Philips-Stadion, Eindhoven)

FA Cup Final
Manchester City 3-0 Manchester United (@ Wembley)

Scottish FA Cup Final
Celtic 4-0 Inverness Caledonian Thistle (@ Hampden)

DFB-Cup Final
Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 RB Leipzig (at the Olympiastadion, Berlin)

Primera División
Villarreal 2-2 Atlético Madrid 
Celta Vigo 1-0 Barcelona 

Serie A
Torino 1-1 Inter
Empoli 1-2 Lazio 
Udinese 2-0 Juventus 

Ligue 1

Auxerre 0-0 Lens 
Monaco 3-2 Toulouse
Nice 3-3 Olympique Lyonnais
Stade de Reims 0-1 Montpellier

Portuguese Cup Final
Porto 2-1 Sporting Braga (at the Estádio Nacional, Oeiras)

Women's Italian Cup Final
Juventus 0-2 Roma (in Salerno)

Campeonato Brasileiro
Vasco da Gama 1-3 Flamengo 

MLS
Seattle Sounders 2-2 Portland Timbers 
Colorado Rapids 1-1 San José Earthquakes

Right, let's round up the Fantasy League for the last time, then we can focus solely on the Predictions next week. And indeed, next season as we can hopefully agree never to speak of this sordid tryst between the two FPL threads ever again. 

I did use my last free transfer in the end, bringing in Eze of Palace and captaining him while shipping out Fulham's Reed. The former had a half-chance late on against Forest but ultimately just got the bog-standard 2 points doubled up. 

Scored were down across the board as a lot of players were rested in what was a low-key final day for over half the teams in the league. Of my other 14 players, 8 didn't play, including both keepers. Curse you, Klopp, for resting Alisson just for the fixture list's death throes! And damn Lopetegui too for suddenly giving Kilman a breather. At least my vice-captain Thiago Silva was lucky enough to actually get a full 90 minutes under his belt too.

All that meant I suffered more than most from the changed line-ups and got only 20 points for the round, so I lost the election nerds' Cup final as well as the coveted Chippy Tea one. I made it to my bare minimum target of 2k points with room to spare by finishing on 2,146 points but not winning any cups at all is definitely a step backwards. I was in the top 4m players out of nearly 11.5m globally, and almost in the top 40,000 for Welsh residents.

My squad was worth just £98.3m at the finish line, with £600k in the bank, so I wasn't great at spotting which players were about to increase in value. Used to pride myself on that. Drat.

Selling Kane with a month to go felt like a good bet because Spurs had no double rounds and were out of form. While both those things stayed true, ol' Harry the Tory simply carried on scoring regardless so letting him go was possibly the last big mistake in a season full of lots of little one that all built up as the campaign went on.

My best finish was 4th in the league for neurodiverse people from the Westcountry – even though I no longer live there – and my lowest (not counting huge semi-official leagues of Fantasy Football podcasts), 19th in the league simply entitled 'UKFF'. Not even a bronze medal anywhere in sight. Gah!

Whilst this remains a joint topic, feel free to post your squads or mention how you did in the replies. Make the most of it, because it's not an offer I'm going to be extending to next term's thread.

===

Whew, that ^ took forever. But it's over now. And as a fan of a Championship club who attended only matches in the Welsh pyramid this year, I was so over this neverending season weeks ago already. But I decided that it'd be improper to end it before the last set of EPL games. And as a fusspot, I don't want to end on an even number of rounds. 

So we've still got one week left to go. The only gimmick is that it's a 'bumper' week. No wildcard fixture, no D2D, no FPL Cup, just 18 matches worth 3 points each. So, all to play for still. MVP RULZ leads the table by half a dozen heading into that final day, and can perhaps count himself unlucky that the League One play-off final wasn't featured because he'd probably have picked up at least one more point for that. 

Instead, the clash we did include at Wembley went to penalties so that yielded no points whatsoever. All season long there was space earmarked for two German fixtures, but at the last minute I could only find room for one. And Dortmund blew it, so that was another dud. If I'd have known they'd choke I might've made more effort to keep Cologne-Bayern in after all.

The last 'wildcard' encounter of the season fell at Fir Park, where Dundee Utd's relegation was confirmed as their cross-town (cross-road?) rivals pass them on the way up. There was a point earlier this season when both of those outcomes looked highly unlikely. Football, eh? Anyway, the hosts won by the odd goal in 5 and 5 was also the number of people who claimed a bonus point each.

Elsewhere, wins for Everton, Leicester and the Chelsea, Man Utd and Celtic women's teams all proved fruitful, but not everybody foresaw Villa getting the three points they needed to get an Unai Emery side into Europe. As if that should ever have been in doubt! Yet another cratering of the Leeds defence turned out surprisingly difficult to guess beforehand. Probably because their opponents were Tottenham, plus there are a lot of Big Sam admirers on here.

The conclusive card of 2022-23 will mercifully go live in the opening post sharpish.