FTL League, Erskine Cup And Month Winners And Losers (January)

My Mother, risk averse to the extreme, often accuses me of  "tempting fate", and were she to read my last blog post, she would probably say the same about my comment on my Erskine Cup opponent @ValueBankFooty's treble shots.

Three Away wins in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon, and all three in @VBF's away treble. +22.0958 points in one fell swoop! Well done indeed.

Yet again, it was another collectively tough round for the FTL contestants, with an overall loss of 27.04 points, and into the red overall for the first time this season. The entries making or losing five points or more were:

TFA_Raz's disaster cost him the January monthly prize, which went to Mortimer. If Mortimer would like to let me know his preference for a payout either now or at the end of the season, I shall be pleased to oblige. Here are the profitable January entries:

No single entry has yet won more than one monthly prize, but Fairfranco has achieved the distinction of becoming the first contestant to have the worst point total in more than one month, going back to back in December and January, and yet is in second place less than 0.5 points behind the leader!

As well as the monthly competition, the Erskine Cup was also live this weekend, and as good a weekend as Mortimer had, it wasn't good enough to see him get by Talkies Tips. Here are the results and the line-ups for the Quarter-Finals in four weeks:

@ValueBankFooty demolished XX Draws with his Away EPL treble hitting, and faces an XX Unders opponent in the next round, gunning for revenge. XX Unders made a decent profit, and came up against an off-form Football Elite. Drawmaster continued his poor run, and lost to Randolph who spent the weekend eating crisps and drinking beer on the sofa. Fairfranco and Jamie A both had bad weekends, and Jamie A advanced despite losing 6.29 points. Randolph will face Jamie A in the next round.

In the bottom half of the draw, Talkies Tips picked a good weekend to score well, and will face another crisp eating, beer drinking sofa surfer in Abromo next round. Online Trader lost out by 0.75 points in the closest contest of the round. Club Havana made the smallest of profits, but it was enough to get past TFA_Raz who as mentioned earlier, had a poor weekend, and the final tie saw Gecko eliminate another lazy devil (Betcast) by making a 1.92 point profit from his 28 selections. With prize money for reaching the semi-finals, the quarter-finals are the money round.

Back to the actual league then, and the race for the title has tightened considerably. The overall profits have also evaporated quite dramatically. Every month from August to December was in profit, but January saw a loss of 71.13 points.

The leaders who are up by ten points or more are:

All to play for one might say, and with the top six separated by less than three points, it could hardly be much closer. Leader Randolph hasn't had a selection since November! Quite a coincidence that Fairfranco and TFA_Raz both had one winner from 13 selections, and finished on the same number even though their winners were different. Draw Picks moved up four places with a solid profit on the weekend, and leads the draw portfolio, which isn't performing too well  right now after a promising start:

The 'in profit' club lost two members at the weekend - Drawmaster and TFA Draws - and the number drops to 18. The remainder of the 'in-profit' entries are:

OverGoalify's 0.74 points elevated him four places up the table, while Jamie A and football Investor were the big droppers, down five and four places respectively. Three of the four Bounty Boys are in this group, and Skeeve was the only profitable one, reducing his bounty liability by £50 courtesy of climbing two places.

The remaining red section of the table looks like this:

Talkies Tips moved to within an inch of profitability climbing up seven places, with Mortimer and @ValueBankFooty also raising their game and placings. The latter's 16.86 was a record for one round. The only other profitable entry in this group was Cassini Value Selections who made a small profit. Sjosta was the big points loser down 8.82 points, and three places, but dropping four places were Drawmaster, TFA Draws and Mountain Mouse. And there we have it. There are a few leagues with midweek action, notably Germany and the Netherlands, so there will be a little activity to report on in a few days.

Back to the topic of beer and crisps, Marty asks:

What's the sporting equivalent of sitting out? I'm thinking O'Sullivan vs Robidoux

A reference to the 1996 controversy when a young righty Ronnie O'Sullivan played several shots as a lefty against Alain Robidoux and was accused of being disrespectful, to which he replied:

"I didn't give him any respect because he didn't deserve any"

Well OK then. Marty has a good memory.