Lauantaivakio

Eight of thirteen against an expected 8.86 covered — about half a standard deviation below par, the mirror image of the round before it, just on the other side of zero. A rougher afternoon, not a broken one.

Mean RPS this round is the best of the four logged so far — worth noting, not worth leaning on until there's a longer run to check it against.

Draws did the damage again, for the third round running. Five landed against an expected 3.31 — not an extreme miss by itself — but four of the five were on marks that had already excluded X: Liverpool 0-0 Fulham, Chelsea 2-2 Hull, Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford and Charlton 0-0 Portsmouth were all singled or doubled onto the wrong two signs. Only Spurs 0-0 Everton was covered, and that was luck — X happened to be one half of that double. Every miss this week but one was a draw the coupon had already written off. Three rounds in, this isn't bad luck any more; it's what an 8+0 system does when it has to drop a sign somewhere and keeps dropping the same one.

Favourites had their worst week of the season. Four of thirteen came in — 31%, well under the 52–55% the model is meant to clear and the lowest yet. The coupon still returned 8/13 because four of the nine upsets were still the second sign on a double: Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest, Blackburn 3-1 Millwall and Watford 1-2 Stoke all backed both teams; Spurs' draw with Everton was saved by the X half of a 1X. Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich wasn't so lucky — marked 1X, so the away win backed here on affection alone (Ipswich is a declared soft spot) went down as a clean miss. No asterisk for that one.

Chelsea's home form took a dent too. Held 2-2 by Hull, who continue not losing the matches they're supposed to lose. Filed next to the Hull nudge already on the books.