Friends in fútbol,

How about those Brighton alternate kits? Perhaps their... boldness... helped our Matchday 25 top pick in thrashing Sheffield, 5-0.

Matchday 26 kicks off at 11:30am WEDS. Tight turnaround. Get those picks in!

Through five matchdays in our EPL "All 20" OAD, we have three brave souls who have 15 points from 5 wins. Their picks:

• @McGoldrick13: Liverpool, Man City, Villa, Arsenal, United
• @Chicokid: Chelsea, Man City, United, Spurs, Arsenal
• @Mully: Arsenal, Spurs, Villa, Liverpool, United

All three have used both City and Arsenal. None have picked a single team in the bottom half of the table.

If we learned anything from our NFL "All 32" OAD, it's that the early season leaderboard can be deceptive. Picking up points on the bottom half (and especially the bottom quartile) of the table is CRUCIAL in winning this pool.

So, someone who has 7 or 8 points at this juncture, but has picked 3-4 teams in the bottom half... they could easily rise to the top by the end of the pool.

That said, five wins is five wins. Congrats to our leaders so far!

LAST MATCHDAY'S RESULTS

What happened, in one paragraph

Our top picks (Arsenal and Brighton) held serve easily. After that, it got shaky. Newcastle and Everton (22 picks each) drew, with Bournemouth and Palace, respectively. Our fifth pick, Spurs (15 picks), lost 2-1 to Wolves. Shout-outs to our lone pickers on Wolves and Forest (W over West Ham), who each picked up 3 points. 

EPL "All 20" One-and-Done

• Weekly performance: 1.86 points per pick. This was a middle-of-the-road performance. Getting 2 total points from our 3rd thru 5th picks hurt, but we only had 22 losing picks. 
• Winning picks: 77 of us bagged 3 points (50%), with Arsenal and Brighton (48 combined picks) leading the way.
• Overall Leader(s): Three at 15 points. Commish dove into this in the opening section! 
• Best Squad(s): EPL with Nigel (39 points). Happy endings! is right on their heels with 36. 

UCL Bracket

We're halfway through the Round of 16's first leg. The remaining four matches take place today and tomorrow. So far, three favorites won (Man City, Madrid, PSG) and one big upset happened (Lazio over Bayern, 1-0).

Yours in show dives,
The Commish