E(&W)PL Opening Day Notes

It's a little like the night before Xmas when we were kids. Entries to the Friendly Tipster League have continued to flood in, (well, two more yesterday) and everyone sees action this weekend as the curtain goes up on the E&WPL - more on this later.

Some selections are of course proprietary, (e.g. Skeeve, Football Elite, Premier Betting) but I can reveal that Inverness Caledonian Thistle are tipped by Fizzer to beat Motherwell, and that the Bundeslayga has hit a technical problem. Having layed Werder Bremen at 1.92, they are now out to 2.03 on the exchanges and 1.99 at Pinnacle making them a non-qualifier so far as the FTL is concerned.

Punter's Friend (Neil in disguise) has the two Bundeslayga selections (Moenchengladbach is the other), plus lays of Sunderland, St Etienne and Monaco.

Fedslam goes for Norwich City to beat Everton, draws in the Sunderland v Fulham and West Bromwich Albion v Southampton matches, Over 2.5 at West Ham United (v Cardiff City) and home wins for Swansea City (v Manchester United) and on Sunday, for Crystal Palace (v Tottenham Hotspur). I like that one.

Peter Norsted's Drawmaster is back, and I am pleased to see that he has slipped the surly bonds of having to find exactly three each week from the EPL. He has four this weekend, plus Stuttgart v Bayer Leverkusen. The EPL games are those at Norwich City, Sunderland, Swansea City and Crystal Palace. I like that one too. Just not quite as much as I like Fedslam's,

The mentions of Cardiff City and Swansea City remind me of a conversation I had recently with Mrs. Cassini. Scott (PT) sent me a link to an article about Nate Silver and the likelihood that Scotland will vote for independence next year, (which is slim to none) and I mentioned this over dinner to the lucky lady. "Why won't they want to throw of the yoke of English oppression too like the Welsh did?" she asked, but she may have been getting confused with (part of) Ireland at this point. (She is American of course, and I hear this 'oppressor' line from her a lot).

I then pointed out that 10% of the English Premier League are not actually English teams, at which point she started to get very confused. "Well that's stupid. Why do they call it the English Premier League then"? 

She has a point. I blame the confusion on the cider rather than my explanation. Thanks Scott (who is no Scot) for the link. The majority NO vote at 1.17 looks excellent value on the exchanges.

Not sure I can blame the cider for my early morning mistake a few minutes ago, but I shall explain more tomorrow.

Note to self - wear reading glasses before that first cup of coffee.