Table after Special European Picks (Euro Picks score in brackets):
Brumbys 339 (12)
Ajc 335 (17)
Downey26 323 (1)
Kwlap 296 (6)
Paulm 295 (16)
RonnieMac 288 (5)
Surge 209 (0)
Arsenal Picks Thread 2018/19
Table after Round 38 (R38 score in brackets):
Brumbys 349 (10)
Ajc 345 (10)
Downey26 338 (15)
Kwlap 317 (21)
Paulm 310 (15)
RonnieMac 307 (19)
Surge 209 (0)
shiit, there are mini battles all through that table.
Table after Europa League Final (EL Final score in brackets):
Brumbys 359 (10)
Downey26 357 (19)
Ajc 355 (10)
Kwlap 336 (19)
Paulm 327 (17)
RonnieMac 318 (11)
Surge 217 (8)
Table after Champions League Final (EL Final score in brackets):
Brumbys 373 (14)
Downey26 372 (15)
Kwlap 359 (23)
Ajc 358 (3)
Paulm 337 (10)
RonnieMac 329 (11)
Surge 220 (3)
So now the scores from our pre-season picks decide the winner... with some interesting tight battles all over the table, not to mention just a point separating first and second...
Coming in 8th was Leighbo, disappeared from the forums at an inopportune time for the picks. Still, just the one player to drop out was a good result I think.
Coming in 7th was Surge. Tailed off at the end but made a return for the euro finals to cross the line and pick up a certificate.
Ends with 230 points, (with an unfortunately measly 10 for his preseason picks...)
Coming in 6th was the mysterious RonnieMac. Was he real? Was he an enigma?
He did make a couple of very rare appearances for proof of identity, but otherwise a silent picker, lurking in the shadows.
The hardened Liverpool supporter bobbed up and down in mid-table but unfortunately lost out to me in our season long tussle, by just a single point.
Ends with 374, including an impressive 45 for his pre-season picks, 2nd highest in the group.
Coming in 5th was paulm.
Yes, this calls for third person.
He started positivitely and threatened the upper echelons of the table in the early part of the season, showing some glimpses of brilliance, before dipping and solidifying in mid-table, and then finishing with a pathetic whimper.
Much like Arsenal then.
Ends with 375 points, and a respectable 38 for the preseason picks.
Coming in 4th was Ajc28.
Started off in the middle and bottom for a stretch, but came on steadily and finished very strong, coming in hot and giving himself a chance for victory right at the death. Unfortunately the Champions League Final points distribution did not go his way and that single game ultimately cost him the title I believe.
A good season, ending with 393, a decent 35 for the preseason picks.
Coming in 3rd was kwlap.
Another big finisher, but had just too much of a gap to close to win the thing.
However 3rd seemed unlikely a few weeks before, so he will surely be happy with that. The Champions League final made a big difference again, but the other way this time - a massive 23 after he picked the halftime and fulltime scores exactly.
Finishes with 402 points, and the third highest preseason picks score with 43.
.
.
.
Alrighty, drumroll for the winner and runner up announcement............
AND THE WINNER IS............................................................................
DOWNEY26!!!!
Trailed brumbys for a long long time leading into the final rounds, but as you can see in the 'invisible' round it really closed up, with 3 or even 4 players having a chance to win at the end.
Downey trailed Brumbys by just 1 after the Champions League Final after hauling him in over the final rounds, but credit goes to his HUGE preseason picks results that handed him victory here. A massive 56, including picking the top 6 in the correct order, and other highlights like picking Arsenal's goal difference for the season, picking Chelsea to win the Europa League, and more.
He finished with a huge 428 points, winning the thing by 23 points.
An unlucky 2nd was Brumbys.
Impressive season, felt like it was his for the taking, but downey impressively closed the gap, and brumbys could not match those nostradamus level preseason picks, scoring just the 32.
Lucked out here badly after multiple hot streaks of form during the season, there were some astonishing weeks there through the middle. Quite reminiscent of his smashing season last year, but just didn't have the legs this time.
FINAL TABLE (preseason picks score in brackets):
Downey26 428 (56)
Brumbys 405 (32)
Kwlap 402 (43)
Ajc 393 (35)
Paulm 375 (38)
RonnieMac 374 (45)
Surge 230 (10)
Love the commentary with the releasing of the final standings. Well done Downey. Can't wait for the next season!
Thanks for all that Paul. Got a bit excited when I saw I was in with a chance of winning but knew my European final picks were no good.
Huge result there Downey, well done lad!
If I was going to get caught up to like that I'm glad it was from such sublime picking from right at the start.
Wow awesome! Had to go back and double check, can't believe i picked the top 6 in correct order, among other things. Though i also picked Morata to be our highest scorer so there's that.
Awesome though, actually really stoked with that. Thanks for all the hard work Paul keeping this all together
So to update our honours list...
2018/19: Downey26
2017/18: Brumbys
2016/17: Paulm
2015/16: Foal30
2014/15: Ajc28
Making it 5 different winners in 5 years... although I'm really gutted we don't have the threads from the seasons before that to complete the full historical record.
Wow didn't realise I'd been doing it for that many years! Was thinking it was only a couple of seasons ago that I won.
I'm pretty sure it actually started a proper 4-5 seasons before that as well, but can't quite recall. Remember when we had the "Arsenal sub-forum"? That was where the lost threads are. When that sub-forum went, so did our older history unfortunately.
I'm already thinking about next season and how we do it. I will simplify the regular season picks just a little, but still keep the special rounds and special picks for the big games etc. I will also treat all the teams that we are fans of equally in terms of picks, i.e. it won't be arsenal centric at all, it will be equally weighted for all teams that participants are fans of. I'm hoping we can get a couple of the ManU guys involved from their thread as they are fairly frequent visitors.
Quality effort, thanks again Paul... and everyone else - it's been fun; even when travelling backwards!
I'm off to start studying... six different winners in six years has to be the aim :)
Have been chatting with RonnieMac. He's an analyst by trade and an absolute guru with Excel, so we're going to work together to create an awesome system for next season where I can pump results into a formula and have the tables etc updated via pivot tables, and we'll add some other tables to gather some cool stats and graphs etc. This will make it 1) a lot simpler to update as we go, and 2) give us some cool trending data etc. Not sure what it will all look like but will update closer to season kick-off, when I start a new thread.
Dope Paulm. I've done a lot of work in Salesforce this year and had considered whether I could nab us a dev environment that could spin up a mobile friendly version of all of this!