Gooner Daily

Paul the Octopus became a famous personality due to its ability to predict the outcome of a match between two teams. It’s not like good ol’ Paul was going to raise its tentacles to predict the exact scoreline, all it had to do was move to the box that had a flag on it and bob’s your uncle. Give it to good ol’ Paul, prediction of a game isn’t easy because there are so many factors that come into play.

• Has Team A been in a good run of form?
• Is Team A’s striker still scoring for fun or has he hit a goal drought?
• But Team A is used to drawing so many games, are they going to win the next one?
• Bleeeh, too many bloody scenarios in my head. Is that a rainbow I see?

When that “Team A” is Arsenal, it becomes a different ball game. Arsenal is the kind of team that would win FC Barcelona and draw with Leyton Orient shortly afterwards. The team that would go on a seven-game winning streak and draw with West Brom thanks to a Jack Wilshere deflected strike. A team that would lose its first game of the season to Aston Villa then beat Fenerbahce a few days later. But hey, that’s football.

That’s where a Gooner like Canon Crested comes in. With a website that offers a platform for many Gooners to interact with each other, the folks at Canon Crested have come up with an ingenious competition that offers Gooners to make predictions on Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and Capital One Cup matches with a lot of prizes up for grabs. The site also has a Fanzone page that offers Arsenal fans a chance to air their views to the internet world. I have been featured in the page and it was cool sharing some of my personal info about Arsenal using that platform.

Canon Crested launched the Arsenal Prediction League initiative last season and I was part of it but unfortunately, my prediction skills were no different from Yaya Sanogo’s ability to score in a competitive game.

Imagine predicting the scoreline and who you think would score first in Arsenal’s next game everything pans out just the way you wanted it to. Arsenal’s win would have given you some satisfaction but your correct predictions would make you even happier.

Registration is as easy as Howard Webb’s ability to give a Manchester United player a penalty when he *coughs* in the box. All you need to do is to go to the site and register. In your spare time, feel free to check out the rules as well.

How it works

Before any Arsenal game, log in to the site and predict the score of the game. Also remember to choose the first Arsenal player you think would score to give you extra points. The League is open to Arsenal fans anywhere you are in the world.

Scoring System

Correct Prediction (outcome of game -Win, Draw , Loss) – 2 Points

Perfect Prediction (Scoreline) – 3 Points

First Goal Scorer (correctly predicting the First Arsenal player to score) – 1 Point

Maximum points you can get per game is 6 points and every game previous points earned are added to your new points earned and you move up or down the table like a regular football league. Points are accumulated like a regular league table and we have cool prizes (jerseys, caps, scarfs and cash rewards) from sponsors, Jersey’ n More.

So Arsenal is playing Crystal Palace on the 16th of August and I login then predict that the Gunners would win 3-0 with Alexis Sanchez scoring the first goal. I’d go into the game with my fingers crossed. Aaron Ramsey leaves three markers for dead before swinging a lovely ball to Mathieu Debuchy. The fullback wastes no time in floating a cross that is flicked to the path of Sanchez by Olivier Giroud then bammmmmm!!! It’s a debut goal for Alexis! Shortly afterwards, Laurent Koscielny heads in a Santi Cazorla cross then Giroud scores a dying minute goal to make it three…

This is the part where I snap back to reality… 😀

The league is split into two sessions with the first ending in January and the second ending in May 2015. At both points, Canon Crested declares a winner but there will be monthly prizes for the most improved player for the month. So if a lucky Gooner is the monthly winner, he’d get an original Arsenal replica jersey from @jerseynmore, for Arsenal fans outside Nigeria you get the value of the jersey credited to your PayPal accounts. Cool stuff yea??

Winner of our last mini competition @dr_odah with his Arsenal jersey courtesy @jerseynmore

Watch, Predict, Win!!! pic.twitter.com/PgNxTvcp4L

— CanonCrested (@canoncrested) March 11, 2014

This season promises to be bigger and better with more prizes up for grabs and I’ve wasted no time in registering for the campaign ahead. I urge you, my esteemed readers, to do the same.

For more information on the Prediction League, please follow @canoncrested and mention him if you have any complaints, inquiries or suggestion.

Sayonara.

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