Wednesday, January 30, 2008

It's Contest Time! How useless are Bolton?

We're not sure why football lends itself so well to contests -- "contests" are gambling minus money -- so we thought we'd run one here. After Bolton Wanderers sold Nicolas Anelka, they have been on a squalid run of goal scoring: only one goal in four matches.

Things are so bad they couldn't even score against Fulham! (uh, the goal is that-a-way)

So here is our contest:

How many goals do you reckon that Bolton will score in the Premier League during the 14 games that remain in their season?

The tie-breaker is how many goals will Bolton score against Atlético Madrid in their two UEFA Cup matches (penalty shootout doesn't count, and we'll assume Bolton won't advance past Atlético so any other goals scored in the UEFA don't count either).

The winner of the contest earns a Harrier Jump Jet (just kidding!). Actually, the winner only gets bragging rights, but around here that's as good as gold.

We invite you to play along at home, or in our comments section. We'll declare the winner after Bolton gets relegated. I compiled the scores "blindly" so no one knew what the others picked (and no, I didn't cheat - I picked mine before everyone else). Here's the scorecard:

Precious Roy: 5 league goals - 0 in UEFA
Moonshine Mike: 5 league goals - 1 in UEFA
Sven: 6 league goals - 2 in UEFA
Spectator: 8 league goals - 1 in UEFA
Badly Drawn Boykins: 8 league goals - 2 in UEFA
Ian: 10 league goals - 0 in UEFA
The Fan's Attic: 11 league goals - 1 in UEFA
Lingering Bursitis: 11 league goals - 1 in UEFA
ü75: 23 league goals
- 1 in UEFA

Good luck! And remember, when Bolton fails to score a goal, everyone wins!

Speaking of winners, Eidur Gudjohnsen just turned down a move to the Wanderers, so things are looking good for our contest. Although, I can't imagine Gudjohnsen would give up the chance to move from Barcelona to northeast England.

photo: EUROSPORT.CO.UK

5 comments:

Precious Roy said...

They actually talked about this on FFF last night. Not our contesst, but the fact that nobody left at Bolton seems to know how to score.

Maybe I should have asked if opponents' OGs count.

Jacob said...

Wait. Bolton only plays Derby down the stretch, right? Dammit.

The Fan's Attic said...

so, what happens of LB and I win? who gets bragging rights? do we ro-sham-bo for it?

Eladio said...

8 League Goals, 2 in UEFA. Bolton might actually pull a M'boro from 2 years ago and make the finals. And miss relegation by 2 points.

badly drawn boykins said...

Eladio - that's the justification I used. I figured they'll play better in Europe than in the league (they drew Bayern in Munich after all) so they could potentially upset Atletico.