Rayvin

Then again...

Chelsea 1-0 up... that should be it really, they should close up shop and Athletico will be unable to prise them open. Would have been a more entertaining spectacle if it'd been the other way around.

That sounds profoundly sensible. Saying that, I'm in now. I wanted something familiar to kick it off with, and I thought I might see the bad news coming if I'm close to it. I totally get what you're saying though.

Sherwood is a bell end of the highest order, mind.

God, I'll just give up now I would only back Chelsea because of the milestone it would represent for their manager. I like seeing stuff like that, dunno why.

I know, it's controversial - in my defence, it wasn't so much Barcelona. It was how every other team played against them - ultra defensive. It was awful, until counter attacking developed specifically to deconstruct tiki taka. The climax of which, we just saw

that mackem vid... Is he their version of True Geordie? I'm starting to think we've got off lightly with him actually.

Thoroughly enjoying seeing Guardiola suffer. Made football boring as hell for a couple of years... Really torn on the final though, think I'd back either Chelsea or Atletico over Real... I back Chelsea only because it'd mean Mourinho has won the thing with three different clubs, and that would be truly impressive. Sorry about the bets, Ant... that actually sucks. You didn't fancy 4-0?

Why are we following this team? Seriously, why? This is a waste of my life.

How are we still 9th...

Liverpool are going to utterly eviscerate us... our game with them now matters more than ever. They probably fancy they can boost their goal difference as well..

I bought in a couple of years ago but you're right, they've struggled recently. They released a profit warning in Feb due to poor performance in their US market. But their yield in dividends (the reason I'm in) is consistently higher than I've been able to find on an interest rate elsewhere. Admittedly, I'm uncertain about how that will look this year. As for the industry - as I said, it has a low market beta, which means the 'experts' consider it to be low risk compared to the rest of the market. Also, I work in the industry It's an oligopoly, and the big players are moving with the time very quickly now - they should be fine. Still, I'm not pretending to be hugely in the know - these were just observations.

The other thing to consider is transaction fees (which is why it isn't possible to make money on smaller investments). It costs about £!2 per transaction, so that's £12 to buy, and then £12 to sell. So your stock has to appreciate by at least £24 across the period you hold onto it for it to break even. That would represent a 12% increase in the value of the shares (which is a lot for most companies). And that's before you've even earned anything.

I bought about £200 worth of shares in Pearson Education (low risk - the market Beta is less than one). Chose them because I work in the same industry and they paid out fairly good dividends. My observations are this: 1 - You can't make any real money through just a couple of hundred quid. Making any money at all, with any regularity, involves understanding the markets and industries that each company operates in. This is time consuming, and not worth it for the sort of money you'd make back on £200. 2 - You can choose to play the long game, and buy shares with a view to holding onto them and earning dividends as the company appreciates over time. This is what I'm doing, and it's like holding the money in a savings account. How well you do depends on the company performance, but Pearson last year paid out on around 4%. 3 - The people who do well have an algorithm that allows them to spread the risk while increasing their return. This requires a diverse portfolio, including very low risk assets like government bonds; it also means that you need to chose both high and low risk stocks, along with investments in companies that are opposed in terms of performance (i.e., the sorts of industries that benefit from the failure of each other, which protects you against one or the other failing). Anyway, long story short - only worth it if you're prepared to risk thousands. But there's very little risk in just punting a couple of hundred and getting a sense for how the market works.

Also, don't look now, but Palace are only 6 points back from us...

I actually reckon Chelsea will take it as well. Mourinho has very successfully kept them in contention while claiming they aren't and he will really fancy this. City are gone now, looks like they might have a touch of the Arsenals when it comes to pressure games.

I think they might get something... City look poor. What is it with them and Sunderland??

They're playing better football than we are at the moment. And that Diame guy looked pretty good against Arsenal last night.

Sunderland have one of their games in hand tonight, against City (away), followed by Chelsea away at the weekend. Even if they had an easy run of games following these, the psychological damage they're going to incur over the next couple of matches will relegate them. They're already adrift... I do wonder how close it'll be though.

I never start these, so I thought I'd try one. I figured I'm safe, because if we lose 4-0 I'll be about on par with everyone else in recent weeks, and at least we'll know never to let me start one again rather than chancing it when it might mean something. I think we'll draw 0-0. We can't score and Swansea have been generally pants this season. If we lose through playing the same turgid football we've been guilty of in recent weeks, you would have to hope that it might spell curtains for Pardew. My impression was that both Remy and Debuchy would be back for this mind you, so he'll not really have any argument if we do lose... I can't see us beating Arsenal or Liverpool, and Cardiff will be fighting tooth and nail to avoid relegation...so this might be our easiest remaining game.

If Wenger leaves this summer, as is looking increasingly likely, Pardew will be the longest serving manager in the league Until we fire him a few days later, at which point it'll be Allardyce with 3 seasons - only one of which was in the PL; followed by Brendan Rodgers with two. This league is ridiculous.

He's scared the hell out of me in previous stints. I accept actually that he may not be that bad, but I'm always terrified when he's in goal, which probably contributes to my sense of him being rubbish.

I guess the logic is that the bookies don't expect anyone to be fired this late in the season...