Are Bolton Wanderers so bad that not one of our Reuters Soccer Blog predictions panel thought they would win at Birmingham City?

Ye of little faith. Manager Gary Megson may not be very popular with the Bolton fans but his side will always fight. A 2-1 win at a promoted club wasn’t all that shocking.

Obviously Chelsea losing at Wigan was a real eye-opener so let’s not beat ourselves up about not guessing that. Kudos to Mitch for at least predicting a draw but he’s not getting the extra points he claims we promised him.

Generally it was a pretty dreadful weekend all round, even for the many of you out there like Chipking who have been showing us up in recent weeks.

Scores were only swelled by Stoke v Manchester United being a double-pointer.

This meant leader Simon Evans, Kevin’s Dad (making a guest appearance and adding to Kev’s total), week winner Mitch Phillips, Mike Collett and Asia Sports Desk all got 10 for rightly predicting that Ryan Giggs would come off the bench and inspire a 2-0 victory.

We threatened minus points for those who got Man U wrong but we’ll defer any penalties given Miles only got three points overall anyway…

My crystal ball is obviously geared towards the first and last game of the weekend programme but useless otherwise.

I was the only one of the panel to score a full five for Saturday’s early game where Everton, I thought unsurprisingly, beat bottom club Portsmouth 1-0 while I was also out on my own saying money bags Manchester City would overcome West Ham 3-1 on Monday.

So here are our running scores, let us know how you did in the comments. Don’t gloat too much.

Reuters Soccer Blog: Simon Evans 59, Kevin Fylan 56, Mitch Phillips 52, Patrick Johnston 48, Paul Radford 46, Mike Collett 43, Miles Evans 38, Justin Palmer 35, Neil Maidment 34, Julien Pretot 32, Mark Meadows 30, Asia Sports Desk 28

PHOTO: Bolton boss Gary Megson REUTERS/Nacho Doce

Much like a homeowner who decided to hold out for a higher offer and now finds himself stuck in a credit crunch, negative equity nightmare, Premier League side Portsmouth have made a highly regrettable financial faux pas.

Amidst the crazy antics of the January transfer window, Portsmouth decided to reject a 3.5 million pounds bid for midfielder Sean Davis from rivals Bolton Wanderers. On Wednesday he joined Gary Megson’s side for free.

Liverpool losing Steve McManaman to Real Madrid for free in 1999 when he would have certainly commanded a big-money transfer in the two years leading up to his exit, springs to mind as another high profile example.

Let us know if you can think of any others.