Gameweek 8 Roundup

After the most readable week of the season came the hardest. Only 32% of predictions called the right result in Gameweek 8, the lowest of the year so far and well down on the 60% of Gameweek 7, though 11% landed the exact score, up from 6%. Seven of the ten results went against the crowd's favourite.

The biggest miss was Aston Villa's 2-1 win over Manchester City, which ended City's perfect start. 79% of players backed City, 21% went for a draw, and not one of the 14 who predicted it backed Villa. Chelsea's 2-0 home defeat to Tottenham was nearly as lopsided: 12 of the 13 players backed Chelsea, one went for a draw and nobody called the win for Tottenham, who have now won back to back.

Crystal Palace's 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle went against the crowd too, with a draw the most popular pick at 53%. Coventry 0-1 Fulham did the same, with 54% going for a draw. Liverpool's 2-0 win over Brighton ended Brighton's run of four straight wins, in a game where 40% predicted a draw and only a third got it right. Hull 1-1 Brentford went against the 67% who backed Brentford to win at Hull, and Sunderland's 0-0 with Leeds against the 60% who backed Leeds.

The week's one banker came in. 12 of the 13 players who predicted Arsenal's 2-0 win over Everton called it correctly, and six of them nailed the exact score. Ipswich 1-1 Nottingham Forest was the one draw the crowd did pick, with 45% going for it, and all five players who did predicted exactly 1-1. Bournemouth's 3-0 win at Manchester United, their first away win of the season, was called correctly by 40% of the pool.

Manchester City and Arsenal are now level on 21 points at the top, City ahead on goal difference, with Brighton third on 16 and Liverpool fourth on 15. At the bottom, Sunderland are last on 5 points and Coventry and Nottingham Forest are on 6, with Manchester United only on 7 after one win in eight.

Our own calls in the Gameweek 8 preview got 2 of the 10 results right, against 32% for the crowd, and both were exact scores: Arsenal 2-0 Everton and Hull 1-1 Brentford. That's the worst week of our three previews so far, after 3 of 10 in Gameweek 7 and 6 of 10 in Gameweek 6, and ten games is a small sample. On Chelsea v Tottenham we shared the crowd's view of a Chelsea win, and we had Manchester City winning at Villa.

16 players made 139 predictions. PredictaBot won the gameweek with 36 points, which included a Golden Result on Arsenal's 2-0 win that scored 20 on its own, and takes the £25 prize. Kovi13 finished second on 33 points, with three exact scores, for the £10, and sjd was third on 30.

In Last Man Standing, round three cost one player. sideshowbob and sjd both took Arsenal, who beat Everton, so both go through. Miracle1544 took Chelsea, who lost at home to Tottenham, and is out. Two players are left, and the next round locks at 8PM on Friday 30 October.