First, Boris Johnson wrote in the Telegraph that Mark Zuckerburg could never have succeeded in Britain because we dislike people with money too much. He cited the current anti-city sentiment as an example of this. Then this morning a BBC breakfast news presenter suggested it was unfair to criticise bankers when we don’t criticise Harry Redknapp (or whoever the next manager of England is) for the tremendous salary that comes with the job.

I support well paid people but only if they are bankers

I think there are some distinctions that make these comparisons ludicrous. Mark Zuckerburg changed the world at great personal risk to himself. That’s not the same as joining a company that has been around for generations in return for a salary. Richard Branson and Alan Sugar are example of people that the Brits love precisely because they’ve taken huge personal risk to succeed.

Harry Redknapp got involved in football by playing. That meant he was competing against pretty much every other boy in the country his age. His talent would be objectively measured from day 1. If he wasn’t up to it he would have been ruthlessly and publicly (in front of at least 30,000 people every Saturday) exposed. Not everybody tries to be an investment banker and so it’s impossible to tell whether the cream rises to the top or not.

I don’t offer any opinion as to whether bankers are overpaid or not but please no more ludicrous comparisons to people that have faced entirely different challenges on their route to fame and fortune.

Photo by Annie Mole

Here at NOPA – the Picklive blog we aim to:

1. write about football the way it actually is;
2. write about fantasy football and sports betting. Specifically about how existing products in this space badly let the casual sports fan down;
3. write about technology startups.

We’re looking for people to help us with numbers 1 and 2. We realise there are great writers out there who might want to occasionally write something about football and/or gaming but don’t want the overhead of running their own blog. If that’s you then we’d like to hear from you.

We can’t pay for content but we hope that we can get your thoughts, reflections, predictions and lols out to a wider audience. We get up to 5,000 unique visits a day on a good day.

So if you would like to write something, but don’t have the time to run your own blog, and if no-one else could help, and if you can find us maybe you could join the nopA-team.

If you’re interested then please get in touch.

UPDATE: following a great suggestion from @jamiesmiff – yes we will pay contributors in Picklive bonuses.

Careful Mikel - statistically speaking you probably won't be able to tackle him

This week I posted on Twitter “£ for £ has there ever been a better footballing team  in Premier League history than Swansea City 2011/12? #no”. It was great to hear the question was picked up by the Guardian Football Weekly team on this week’s podcast with Barry Glendenning agreeing that there has not. Now I realise the hashtag was a little mischievous and I admit I only asked the question because I already know the answer but I was surprised by some of the suggestions that came back for alternatives:

1. Norwich 2011/12;
2. Man United 1992;
3. Arsenal – invincibles;
4. West Ham under Harry Redknapp;
5. Come back to me when the Swans have won the title mate.

To evaluate these suggestions, its important to break down the question -it has 2 constituent parts:

1. £ for £ – as Harry Redknapp recently said on Football Focus, “with enough money, anybody can assemble a group of World Class footballers”. Its easy. The true test of greatness is whether you can do it without spending loads of money. the Swans first XI was assembled at a cost of £7.2m (at today’s prices). We also cannot ignore wages. If you accept that proven Premier League players can demand higher wages than unproven ones then you can assume that the Swans first XI do not command high salaries;
2. Footballing – by ‘footballing’ I mean a team that can pass and move the ball. The fact that the Swans have 2 of the 5 best passers in European football is incredible. If you want to know what I mean by ‘footballing’ then look at the company they keep, Xavi, Busquets and Arteta- thats what I mean by ‘footballing’. And it’s not just as individuals, the top 5 team pass completion rates in Europe are 1. Barcelona, 2 Bayern Munich, 3. Man City 4 Real Madrid 5. Swansea City and Chelsea tied. What the devil is a small team from Wales assembled at a cost of £7.2m doing on that list?

Now let’s examine the suggestions in this light:

1. Norwich are a tremendous team superbly managed. I take my hat off to them. But they are very direct and powerful. I don’t see any of their players in the top 5 passers in european football. I’d be surprised if any of them made the top 500. They fail the ‘footballing’ test. They have also spent roughly twice as much assembling their squad so fail the first test too. They face the Swans on Saturday – should be very interesting to see who comes out on top;
2. Man Utd 92 included Gary Pallister – a then British transfer record signing. They included players like Mark Hughes, Paul Ince, Bryan Robson and Steve Bruce. All proven top premier league players and internationals. They fail the £ for £ test;
3. Arsenal – the invincibles – Dennis Bergkamp cost £7.5m. Without even adjusting for inflation (prices have risen massively in that time) and without counting his 10 team-mates, Arsenal have failed the £ for £ test;
4. West Ham under Harry Redknapp signed Don Hutchinson (£5m), Marc Vivien Foe (£3.5m) and a number over £1m (Rieper, Bilic etc). This was in the 90s. They also targetted proven Premier League players who I can only assume created a large salary bill. Tony Cottee, Davor Suker (£50k/week at the time – I doubt the Swans have a player on 1/5 of that today), Paulo Futre (a man previously subject to a £10m transfer), John Hartson and Paulo Wanchope. Without even going to Marco Boogers and Raducioiu. I don’t think they pass either test;
5. Come back to me when you win the title is absurd. Of course the Swans won’t win the title. The best £ for £ footballing team does not win the title. But football should not just be about celebrating the team that wins the title – if it was we should all just get behind Manchester City and be done with it.

I know I love the Swans but I promise you I have not always been so generous in my assessment of them. I’ve been criticising them for 90% of the 25 years I’ve been following them. That makes it more important to celebrate them when they achieve something. So what have they acheived?

I sincerely believe they have rewritten the blueprint for how teams without £100ms can compete in the Premier League – they have re-invented the British game (only Man Utd has more Premier League English goalscorers than them). The only previous alternative to spending money has been to “stop the opposition from playing”. The Swans do all of the playing without doing any of the spending. That’s what makes them revolutionary. It’s football 2.0 in an era when everyone is sick to the back of tooth of heavy spending and debt and all that goes with it, every neutral in the country should shout ole at every single pass they make.

As for the comparison with Barcelona, I think the Swansea story is more remarkable because of the starting point but I realise most people would probably think I was being crazy to suggest this.

Photo by Ronnie MacDonald

We got forwarded this via email today.

Since Tim Parker is a cool DJ in his spare time, today’s blog post is a musical tribute to him and how we feel about him and Cedric leaving.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbs2f0fxl6c

Tim is off to join GoSquared and Cedric is going back to France to finish school. We thank them both for their tremendous efforts at Picklive and wish them all the best with what comes next.

Thanks and good luck chaps.

PS did you know that Haddaway used to be a professional American Football player?

It must be some kind of trick

There are three Tech City initiatives that mean 2012 is the best year ever to start a tech business in the UK:

1. the seed EIS scheme. This means that an angel investor investing up to £100K in a tech startup will get £50K back in the event the investment turns sour, he will get reduced capital gains if it works out well and an income tax credit for making the investment at all. Investing in tech startups in the UK has just been de-risked by 50% and everyone in the world should know about it. This is a direct result of a point raised at a Tech City breakfast. It’s startlingly good news for UK tech startups;
2. on Monday the Prime Minster announced that empty Government buildings (the Government is the UK’s biggest landlord) would be turned over if a tech accelerator wanted to use them. It’s not clear but the implication is that these will be made available for free. You cannot argue that this is a marvellous thing if the buildings have no other use;
3. the government has launched the Red Tape Challenge. If you’ve created a disruptive business, you upload the bureaucratic or administrative headaches you’ve encountered and unless the responsible Government department can make a case otherwise, the headache will be removed.

If you take the side of tech startups, (rather than wanting the money/space/time spent on something else) then to me it is indisputable that these are extremely positive initiatives that startups should grab with both hands. In fact the only risk is that startups don’t take advantage of them. But that’s a bit like someone parking a free taxi outside your house and you electing to walk to work.

Photo by markcph

God damn - I got Andy Carroll again!

We have a new game called Twist. It’s like a mix between fantasy football and blackjack.

It’s £1 a pop. You need to play before week 23 of the Premier League starts tonight. Go here to play and please let us know what you think.

At Picklive we have nearly 2 years of signup data from 10s of 1000s of football fans who have signed up to play and input the team they support. Given that we have no particular bias on our site (we’re not a Newcastle United forum for example) this should approximate for the best supported teams in the country in roughly the correct proportion of their relative size to each other.

I assume Swansea are missing because they are not English

Some things jump out as interesting to me:

1. Man Utd are about 6x bigger than City;
2. Two of the top ten are in the Championship;
3. you could bracket them. Man Utd are a class apart, Liverpool and Arsenal are together in a class of two, then Chelsea, Spurs and Newcastle, then the difference in relative size is not that noticeable. I wonder if clubs of this size and below and more susceptible to success as a barometer of size. A few seasons of success will probably see Man City move up towards Newcastle’s level.

Picklive endorses the support of your local club unless they are rubbish in which case you could choose one of these ten and the chances are you’ll be sipping from the cup of glory before too long.

Going forward, my sense is that history will favour London clubs (enormous numbers of tourists prepared to spend cash on any given Saturday), the Manchester clubs (an area famed for football with a large cosmopolitan population) and large towns with a single city in them (Newcastle, Leeds, Stoke etc). I can see a bleak future for small town clubs close to large conurbations (eg Bolton, West Brom etc).

We like looking down on people

We have accumulated a lot of things over the past two years that will not make the cut for the new office. Therefore if you would like any of the following items please let us know. You can have them as long as you come and pick them up. Otherwise we will start giving them out as ad-hoc competition prizes from our twitter account next week:

1. the sombrero from the Papa Grande video;
2. a miniature table football game (about the size of a large birthday cake);
3. two large plastic bins suitable for indoor or outdoor use;
4. one copy of the DVD “True Romance”;
5. One copy of Lee Trundle’s biography;
6. One copy of John Hartson’s biography;
7. a set of green and blue 5-a-side football bibs;
8. a case of wine (6 bottles);
9. Half a bottle of Israeli brandy;
10. A whole bottle of Polish vodka;
11. the winners and runners up trophy from the 2011 NOPA 5-a-side football tournament (they arrived after the tournament);
12. a box of Picklive poker chips (according to Noam – made by the finest supplier in China);
13. a small desk-top gentleman’s filing cabinet (in plastic);
14. a small plate with “asshole” written many times on it;
15. a book entitled “Crimea – the last crusade”;
16. a Wills and Kate royal wedding teaset;
17. an array of books on computer programming and/or business;
18. an Arsenal Vs Olympiacos football programme.

Photos of the items are available on request.

Photo by willhelmja

We haven’t had to wait long for the first “El Clasico” of 2012 and if last year’s matches are anything to go by we might not be in for a feast of football but it will certainly be compelling viewing.

The handbags, fouls and play acting were all as integral to last year’s matches as the football which is why we’ve got a special offer for tonight’s match.

We’re offering an extra £50 to the winner of every 15 minute game in which a player is sent off. If there are two red cards during one 15 minute game the prize stays at £50 but if two players are sent off in two different 15 minute games then we’ll be giving away £50 each to the two winners.

If two or more players are in joint 1st place then the £50 prize will be split between them.

The game kicks off at 21:00 and you can make your picks here. Just be careful if you are thinking of picking Pepe.

Photo by Jan S0L0

You won't score goals at this level?

Yesterday Swansea City out-passed Arsenal to win 3-2 in South Wales. This is the starting XI:

1. Michel Vorm – £1.5m, Dutch;
2. Angel Rangel  - Free, Spanish, played for Swansea in League 1
3. Gareth Taylor – £500K, Welsh, signed from non-league Wrexham;
4. Ashley Williams – £400K, Welsh, played for Swansea in League 1;
5. Stephen Caulker – on loan from Tottenham, English;
6. Leon Britton – free originally, later sold and bought back for £400K, English, played for Swansea in League 2;
7. Joe Allen – been with the Swans since he was 9, Welsh, played for Swansea in League 1;
8. Kemy Agustien – Free, Dutch, played for Swansea in the Championship;
9. Scott Sinclair, £500K, English, played for Swansea in the Championship;
10. Nathan Dyer, £400K, English, played for Swansea in the Championship;
11. Danny Graham, £3.5m, English, last season’s top scorer in the Championship.

This is quite some achievement at a time when lots of football people are obsessed with two things:

1. the perceived superiority of overseas players, managers, clubs and countries over anyone or anything homegrown;
2. the reliance on spending your way to success and the inherent risks and loss of personality when you do so.

It being January, inevitably some people have started speculating as to who will leave Swansea for better things and of course that the Swans will not be able to sustain their level of performance for the rest of the season.  I think Swansea’s unique style means they will achieve both.

Roberto Martinez started Swansea’s obsession with possession in February 2007. Most of yesterday’s starting lineup have been at Swansea for most of the time since. This means they only know how to play one way but it’s so effective that if you were to remove one Swan from the Wedge the others would just keep on flying. And the Swan that had been removed from the Wedge would find itself in a flock in which it wasn’t free to unfurl it’s glorious silver wings and it would dive-bomb and drop into the ocean, never to be seen again.

The only club that could conceivably sign a Swan successfully at the moment are Wigan. After all it was Roberto Martinez that started it all at Swansea 4 years ago. He’s also already done it once with Jordi Gomez.

They’re up against Man City on Picklive tonight.

Franko briefing Wenger to make sure he doesn't lose this weeks bet!

As some of you may well know, Swansea v Arsenal is kind of a big deal at Picklive Towers. That’s because Tim M is Jack and Franko is a Gooner.

With Swansea v Arsenal being covered on Picklive this weekend we thought we’d add a little spice to the occasion and have a wager.

Tim his been pretty bold about Swansea’s chances all season and such is his confidence that he promised to double the winnings of the player that scores the highest 15 minute game score during Sunday’s match if the Swans get beaten. Not wanting to be outdone, Franko said he’d match this bet if Arsenal got turned over.

The upshot of all this office based bluster is that if one side takes all three points on Sunday then the highest score in the 15 minute game will have their winnings doubled for that game.

Throughout January there is also the chance to win £100 every match by completing a Picklive Hat Trick, three outright wins in the 15 minute game in one match.

So will it be Tim or Franko that pays out their own money to a lucky Picklive player this weekend?