FA Cup 3rd Round

The PL Predictions -

100 goals

64 teams

32 predictions

20 players

6 bankers

5 leagues

1 winner of the FA Cup 3rd Round

And, for the first time in The PL Predictions history, the final matchweek of the group stage and the last chance for players outside the top 5 to make up the ground on those ahead of them and qualify for the Gold League

As it stood

After 21 regular matchweeks, here is how the tables looked going into the FA Cup 3rd round.

In Group A, Scott seems to have top spot all sewn up and, barring an absolutely disastrous maiden FA Cup 3rd round, would surely take those 5 bonus points into the Gold League in the second half of the season. Elsewhere, just 10 points separates John L in 3rd and Andy in 8th, and with so many points to play for over the 32 fixtures, the qualifying places were far from being locked in.

Group B sees a similar story with only 7 points between 2nd and 6th, with Luke a further 4 points back in 7th. It would need an almost flawless weekend from those near the bottom of the groups to qualify, as well as relying on those above them to have an off weekend but, with a maximum of 58 points on offer, anything is possible. Whatever the results, this was sure to go down to the wire.

The 32 fixtures

Over 3 times the normal number of matches with teams from 4 different leagues other than the PL and the 'magic of the cup', the FA Cup 3rd Round is usually chaos and that's before we even start to think about the bankers. However, after just the 32 predictions, only 5 points separated 1st from last which is generally the same as the gap between top and bottom on a regular matchweek.

A massive 75% of games had at least a two-thirds of the players predicting the same result.This was due to the the huge leaning towards a home victory - 73% of total predictions or 23.5 per player. Interesting to note as well the (natural) favoring of teams from higher divisions - only 20% of predictions for matches between teams of different leagues were for the lower of the two. Although this was probably the right move as only 4 lower division teams won in these games.

Some notable predictions: Terry was the only one to predict Sheffield Wednesday to beat Brighton, only Mike thought Watford and Tranmere would draw (and he needed an amazing 3 goal comeback from Tranmere to be correct), Callum was the sole player to capitalise on the stalemate between Wolves and Man United and the Levis brothers, Jack and Ryan, were the only two to predict Northampton to triumph against Burton Albion.

Here's how everyone got on in predicting the 32 fixtures:

Ryan predicted the most games correctly with 19 but you can see clearly how close it was between all the players. To decide the winner of the FA Cup 3rd Round, it was going to come down to the bankers.

The Bankers

Given the different rules (+1 for a PL banker, +2 for a Championship banker and so on), there's two ways of going about it: gamble, or play it safe. Lower league bankers have the potential for more points but Premier League bankers are generally more likely. This was always the case in the race to be crowned winner of the FA Cup 3rd Round in years gone by but this year's group stages added a little extra importance. Players at the top end of the table had the luxury to not take the risk, if they so choose, but those outside the qualification places had to gamble to try to make up the points on those above them. For either strategy or a mix of the two, you still have to bank on the right teams.

The mix in different approaches can be seen in the fact that there were the same amount of bankers from the PL as there were from the Championship - 43. However, only 58% of the Championship bankers were correct compared to 81% for the PL. Only one League One team was banked on correctly (Oxford - 9) which was 1 more than the rest of the League One bankers combined. There were no correct bankers recorded from League Two or the Conference as some players decided that the extra points were worth the risk.

Interestingly, the three most banked teams were spread between the top 3 divisions, with Millwall (CH) leading the way on 10 followed closely by Man City (PL) and Oxford on 9 (L1). The team that had the most incorrect bankers were Cardiff (CH) with 8 players losing a point due to the Welshmen's failure to overcome League Two Carlisle at home. Overall, there were 35 different bankers with an almost 50-50 split of 18 correct and 17 incorrect.

The average number of correct bankers was 3.8 with no one having less than 2. Ger came in with a clean sweep of 6 and was the only one with a perfect record. Although he did play it quite conservatively with 5 PL bankers and 1 from the Championship, which gave him 7 points. 3 brave players banked on no PL teams, to varying levels of success. Callum in 8th place went all in in an attempt to snatch a place in the top 5 with 3 Championship bankers and 3 League One bankers. Unfortunately for him though, he only called one of each correctly, leaving him with just 1 point. John C was no doubt hoping that the no-PL-bankers strategy would pay off for him as it did last year when he won the FA Cup 3rd round but this time around it went the same way as Callum - 1 point. His namesake John L, however, came away with a very respectable 4 points from his 3 Championship, 2 League One and 1 League Two bankers which should see him safely through to the next round. The player with the most banker points was Terry with 9 points - over twice the average score - just edging out Scott who scored 8.

Here's the full list of the banker points:

The Results

And so, this brings us to the final count to see who has emerged victorious and claimed their place in The PL Predictions Hall of Fame as winner of the FA Cup 3rd Round, and also we find out if anyone has been able to force their way into the top 5 and earn themselves a place in the Gold League for the remainder of the season.

The winner of The PL Predictions FA Cup 3rd Round 2020 is........

Terry!

Terry takes the crown for the first time since Season 9 (15/16) and becomes the first player to complete a hat-trick of FA Cup 3rd Round wins with a very impressive 27 points - 2 clear of his closest rival. Congratulations Terry!

Here's the final table:

Note: Donal missed the FA Cup 3rd Round but as he hadn't missed 2 or more matchweeks so far this season, he gets awarded the lowest score after bankers.

And now to see how the Groups A and B ended up after we add in the points from the FA Cup 3rd Round.

In both groups it was extremely close. Group A sees just 2 points between 5th and 8th, 4 players battling it out for just 1 qualification place as Scott, Ryan, Aidan and John L capitalised on their strong position coming into the final matchweek to nail down their place in the Gold League. It's a similar story in Group B with 3 points separating 2nd and 7th, 4 spots up for grabs between 6 players as Rory is the only one in the group to pull away from the pack.

Here are the final tables for the group stage:

Scott and Rory qualify for the Gold League as winners and will start with 5 bonus points. Scott has been incredibly consistent in his first season in The PL Predictions and led Group A from the beginning, bar a single matchweek, so his qualification as group leader is well deserved. Reigning champion Ryan as well as previous winners Aidan and John L join him in the next round from Group A. The last qualification spot is snatched in dramatic fashion as Andy claws his way up from 8th place to draw level with Albert on 132 points with literally the last kick of the weekend as he predicted Arsenal to beat Leeds while Albert opted for a draw in the Monday night game. As Andy had a higher matchweek score, he goes through to the Gold League.

In Group B, Timmy's strong 22 points sees him jump from 6th to a clear 2nd to claim his place in the next round. Even though Donal received points despite not entering his predictions for the FA Cup 3rd Round, it isn't enough to keep him in the top 5 as he drops to 7th. John C was in 2nd place after Saturday's games but only took 5 points from the rest of the weekend which sees him also fall out of the qualification spots. Luke takes the three-way tie after recording a higher matchweek score of 23. Although, Terry and Ger had the 2 best scores for the FA Cup 3rd Round, they both left themselves too much to do and fail to make an impact on their respective top 5's.

Thanks to everyone for the first half of the season. Congratulations to FA Cup 3rd Round 2020 winner Terry as well as group winners Scott and Rory and everyone else who qualified for the Gold League. For those who didn't qualify, the Silver League will be ran alongside the Gold League with a prize for first place. However, the players in the Gold League will be battling it out for the top prize. Please let us know your thoughts on how you felt the group stages went, whether you liked it or not etc. or any other ideas you may have to keep things fresh. Good luck to everyone in the Gold and Silver Leagues for the rest of the season.

Below are some line race graphs to show how each group changed over the course of the weekend, most noticeably Andy's last gasp winner on the Monday.