Football rollercoaster - help pleeeeeeease!

[rivered]

OK, bit of fun this, but I've been asked by a colleague to enter a competition with his football buddies... the format is great!!... you lot might've already come across this but it's new to me, and i need help cos i'm useless at choosing winners... here's the deal...

everyone sticks in a tenner.  you then have to pick on premiership team to win out of all the prem teams playing in games this sat/sun/mon.  If you win you're thru to the next round (week) - everyone through has to pick a new team the following week, BUT you can't pick the team you had the week before... this keeps going until there's one winner....

In the past they've told me it's gone on for up to 8 weeks.  Last weekend was the first week in the round, and a girl picked birmingham... all the guys picked chelsea and all the other big guns... sure enough they all drew or lost and the girl won £330 straight off.

So what i want to know is who you would pick this week, bearing in mind you can never pick em again if they win and you get through.  once you're out, you're out - you have to wait until someone wins before everything resets again...

Great idea eh?!... pleeeeze help... here are the games...

Saturday
 
Birmingham - Arsenal
Bolton - Wigan
Everton - Man C
Man U - Fulham
Middlesbrough - Aston V
Newcastle - Portsmouth
West Brom - Blackburn
West Ham - Sunderland
 
Sunday
 
Chelsea - Liverpool
Tottenham - Charlton

[Graham C]

Sounds a good idea

Id go for either of

Man U to beat fulham
West Ham to beat Sunderland

[yt]

Man u.
good idea this though i will try it with my work mates.

[henrik777]

West Ham or Newcastle.

Sandy

[mystery721]

west ham is your best mate, people are gonna be picking the big guns early on to get through a few rounds, but later on they cant pick them, take west ham this week and keep the big guns for later on

[rivered]

thx guys, West Ham (as much as i hate them) was the most popular response, so i've gone with them....

[Ironside]

sunderland

[jammer]

Through examination of game-theoretic analysis and regression-based statistics I have come up with a fool proof strategy:


pick whichever team is playing sunderland that week.

[Indestructable]

Or Boro (unless they are playing Sunderland).
 

[SKIPPYSKIP]

West Ham 

[rivered]

THanks to you all for the help... west ham won and I'm through to the next round!!   

now for this weekend's games... who do ya reckon will win?!?! Here are the picks....  I'm tempted to go Spurs, although I could use up my Chelsea pick, as this should be a dead cert.... but wouldn't mind saving them for a rainier day...

Saturday, 11 February 2006
Arsenal v Bolton, 15:00
Aston Villa v Newcastle, 15:00
Everton v Blackburn, 15:00
Fulham v West Brom, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Chelsea, 15:00
Portsmouth v Man Utd, 17:15
Wigan v Liverpool, 12:45

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Sunday, 12 February 2006
Man City v Charlton, 16:00
Sunderland v Tottenham, 13:30

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Monday, 13 February 2006
West Ham v Birmingham, 20:00

[Graham C]

West Ham again if you can have them, if not I'd go for Man City.  I think spurs will draw this week.

[rivered]

nah, not allowed to pick the same team again... that's west ham used up for me now... so that's one vote for man city...  keep em coming 

[Jackkat]

Tottenham for me Sunderland are probably in the top 3 worst prem/Division 1 team ever
I think I'd even back the mighty Blackpool v Sundeland 
Good luck anyway

[Pombo]

I'd probably plump for either of the Sunday games and go for Citeh (only home team I'd pick) or Spurs......can't see Sunderland winning again....ever.

Maybe Manyoo....might be a waste using them early on though.