Hello, and welcome to week two of my exciting betting column. First of all I’d like to start with an apology to anyone reading this in the States who is just itching to wazz their hard earned at the nearest online bookies only to find themselves thwarted by the latest gambling regulations. If it’s any consolation, I didn’t do quite so well this week.

So, this week’s tactics. As stated last week, I went for ten £2 bets on correct scores only this time – there were no odds that really jumped out at me so I didn’t bother with any £3 punts. I took a more formally mathematical approach based on scoring/conceding averages in recent games to give me a rough idea of what was likely to happen and then applied various factors such as: Wayne Rooney is going to score one of these days, Kevin Nolan is suspended, Aston Villa are over rated, Mark Viduka has a broken toe, etc, etc. As I’ve yet to come up with a formula that contains such factors I just went round adding or taking a goal away here and there as I saw fit.

The first game went entirely to plan: Sheffield United 0 – 2 Chelsea with the West Londoners cruising to a two goal lead and then just passing the ball about. Easy money. Unfortunately it all went a bit pear shaped then – trend bucking aplenty. Wayne Rooney finally rids himself of the bovine behind/stringed instrument hoodoo whilst Bolton not only start conceding at home but they do it for fun. Liverpool get their act together in the Premiership and Villa scarcely turn up (I’d predicted a 2-0 home win so I was close). Arsenal louse it up at home, as do Fulham. West Ham actually win a game. And so on.

Come the end of play Sunday I’d still only netted the one correct score so I was staring down the barrel of a tenner up the Swanee. It all hinged on Stuart Pearce’s Manchester City. Imagine my surprise when I got in on Monday night to discover that, lo and behold, they had actually won 1-0 at home as I’d predicted. The week was saved: £20 staked, £25ish returned – so a tidy £5 profit. Sweet.

This week I’ve been looking at the distribution of scores for the season so far – I have a new favourite result now. We shall see how I fare, armed with this knowledge, at the weekend. Same betting tactic as this week, there’s not enough in the pot to chance £3 a match yet…

Players: 44 out of 49. Points scored: 241. Highest score: 11 (Mazair Sattari). Average score: 5.47. Prediction of the Week: Arsenal 1-1 Everton (Neil Hayes).

Results: Arsenal 1-1 Everton (1); Bolton 0-4 Manchester United (0); Fulham 0-1 Wigan (1); Liverpool 3-1 Aston Villa (0); Newcastle 0-0 Charlton (2); Portsmouth 3-1 Reading (1); Sheffield United 0-2 Chelsea (19); Watford 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur (4); West Ham 2-1 Blackburn (2); Manchester City 1-0 Middlesbrough (8).

You bet he’s at the top! Nick Watson pilfers more money from the grubby mitts of the bookies this week and finds himself perched atop the Predictorship for the very first time. The Tractor Boy ploughed more money into his extra-curricular activity and turned a “lad broke” situation into a small profit thanks to Sheffield United 0 Chelsea 2 and Manchester City 1 Middlesbrough 0.

Nick and Hope Arnold are both on 68 points but Nick’s 16 correct scores (three more than Hope) curtails the Manchester United supporter’s five-week run at the top. Christine Butters and Dave Taylor are three points adrift of the leaders and Mike Dufficy lurks a further point behind. Can Mike become the first person to retain his Predictorship crown?

What do you get if you take this week’s average score (5.47) and double it? No, not 10.94 clever clogs. In a round-about way you get Mazair Sattari’s top score of 11, remarkably three points more than any other predictor and two points better off than know-it-all pundit and former Preston, Brighton, Liverpool and Republic of Ireland stalwart Mark Lawrenson, who gives you the lowdown each week on the BBC sport website (did we miss a trick here - celebrity guest predicting?).

“After being absent for four weeks, Seattle Gooners is back,” announced Mazair. That could be the understatement of the week. The games at Newcastle, Portsmouth (which almost won him prediction of the week, as did Hope’s Fulham 0 Wigan 1) and Watford set the Gooner on his way, which all goes to prove that you CAN predict 0-0’s and beat Norman at his own game.

Stuart Claxton, whose season thus far has been as enjoyable as an FA Cup draw hosted by Sir Trevor Brooking, is still 49th. He has now been missing in action for six weeks straight. Rumours of his resignation from the Predictorship have been greatly exaggerated.

Last week we asked you which Predictorship player has the same name as a Premiership player if you swap around his forename and surname. The answer is, of course, John Collins, who miraculously becomes Fulham’s Liberian-born Dutch striker Collins John. Those crazy people at Fulham decided to introduce Collins to his adoring public before making his debut against Tottenham in 2004 and asked ex-Fulham midfielder (and new Hibernian boss) John Collins to do the honours. John, incidentally, is not Millwall fan and Predictorship Cup-holder John Collins. Glad we cleared that one up.

Quote of the week (warm drink and comfortable chair advisable):

Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov threatened to sell his entire squad to “Kilmarnock or whatever club will take them” (a quote of the week in itself) unless they defeated Dunfermline on Saturday, before embarking on an extraordinary rant, selected snippets of which are lovingly reproduced right here on www.fccamena.com:

“You (the media) remind me of those Bolsheviks in Soviet times who wanted to shoot a peasant only because he planted the seeds following his own way, and not their instructions. Once they were ready to shoot a peasant, but a clever one stopped them and said: “Let’s shoot him in the autumn after he has gathered his harvest”. I guess that if you could, I would have already been shot by now, but whilst you can’t, full of hate and anger, you are spreading manure on my crops.

“As for my naval service, I was serving not in the name and ideals of Marx and Engels, who were brought up in the West, but to my motherland on the legendary K19 submarine. Together with other submarine crews we made Cold War ideologists sign a peace deal which rescued the whole world from a catastrophic nuclear war. The sailors were dying, (but) not for people like you, who are spreading poison on the beautiful vastness of the earth. Actually, the K19 crew from that horrific nuclear accident has been nominated to get the Nobel Peace Prize. It will be an award to all submariners that conquered the ocean and won against the Cold War’s crazy ideologists.”

Meanwhile, back in the world of football …