ChrisBlade
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- Aug 20, 2009
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What a week it’s been? 
There’s an angelic serenity in the voice of reason tonight as we take our weekly look at United’s promotion stats. And lo and behold, despite all the wailing and self-flagellation by many of us over the weekend, our stats suddenly look more commanding than they have in a long while.
That’s the strange thing in football by numbers. It literally strips all the emotion and the superstition out of things and makes them look almost straightforward.
Boro are two further games down the stretch, and even though United are faltering badly, they are not making enough of a dent in our cushion. Gaining one point every two matches will not be enough with nine matches left.
It’s odd though how that conclusion came about.
Luton on Saturday was a proper shit-show. We were dreadful. And, rather galling I thought, Luton also looked an atrocious side to me. They scored from their only attempt on target in what was the proverbial 0-0 to forget.
Boro, meanwhile, overturned a potentially treacherous 0-1 at half-time and ran out convincing 3-1 winners in a tricky away match.
At that point, even I took a forum time-out as statistics suddenly offered scant consolation. No reading Pommpey’s My Take as I suspected levels of vitriol that accurately described United’s competence on the day, but would surely add to my post-match depression. I even checked myself out of the enthralling “Who has the last word” world championship finals for three days that raged on the #Her Game thread.
So how does it all fall into my chosen metrics after matchday 37? Well, fucking swimmingly, thanks for asking.
Tonight’s win already completes my minimum three points tally from the basket of five tough matches. We knocked off Millwall, Luton and Sunderland, meaning Burnley and West Brom are now free hits in my system.
As the Watford win already exceeded our target in the medium difficulty basket by one point, too, Norwich away also is a free hit.
That’s correct. Any points from these three matches would be pure bonus material. I had assumed we’d beat Luton so was crestfallen and worried on Saturday. But doing it at Sunderland instead statistically makes no difference. Arwin Sarwen salutes United’s promotion chasers tonight.
So Norwich, Burnley and West Brom we can happily toss away, as long as we get 4 wins and a draw from the other 6 matches.
Just the four extra wins without the draw takes us to 82 points. That now forces Boro into 6 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats in order to go up on goal difference.
What is playing out here is the fact that all our fairies and drama queens have over-estimated what a good team can and can’t do. Boro haven’t even had a dip as such, but even the best Championship sides in history occasionally slip in the odd draw or defeat. With the five points dropped at West Brom and against Stoke, that is playing out again. They are formidable opposition on a monster run, but won’t achieve a pretty perfect clean sweep of all points in the next 9 matches either.
Our recent run since Boro of alternating defeats and wins every week has given us a nerve-wrecking, emotionally devastating 9 points from 18. It's felt a lot like slow death by a thousand needles.
But the thing is this: With gradually weaker opposition soon on the horizon, we could do even worse (4 wins from 9) and would likely still be fine. We’d get 82 points that way, giving Boro the above target which they have not been able to post in their last few games.
The “safe automatic promotion” metric of two points per game currently projects them at 81 points. So hats off to them for what they have achieved over a really large sample of matches. My eyes tell me they are better than us at the moment. But my eyes don’t matter one bit. Because mathematical chances now are that United have several free hits we can fuck up, whereas Boro’s tightrope margin for error is down to just one or two games. Those could be Burnley or Luton. Or any other wildcard match…
Just imagine what could happen if we rediscover any semblance of consistent form or remind ourselves of the fact that this division - with very few exceptions - really has nothing to fear. Win at Norwich, for instance.... Accelerate things, put the foot down. Or watch them blink once more and slip up?
It remains a tall order for them. Which is nice. Serves those bastards right. They are one of the teams I have always had an irrational hatred for because the whole place seems pointless even in the good old days when they were fairly successful. Gazza, Ravanelli, Juninho, Adam Johnson, Paul Merson – wankers all.
The Voice of Reason concludes for today:
It's reasonably idyllic in Captain Morgan's Haven: We play shite, but have done statistically okay/enough over-all. Reading and Sunderland were key matches where we held our nerve to get the minimum we needed to not slip into the psychologically damaging territory that Captain Morgan rightly considered possible in one of your responses to last week's post.
The FA cup now is the magic distraction to dream big that it should be and must be embraced and enjoyed. It probably works well for us to move West Brom into later in the season when their play-off charge likely will be over. The international break suddenly also looks timed okay, provided we do not pick up too many injuries or minutes in players’ legs in those pointless matches.
Get in, Doyler, you beauty!!!!
As for Boro, baby, they must beat Preston to have any chance. And they, unlike us, must of course budget their own resources around a likely play-off campaign at one point. Be stupid to chase the dragon at the end of the rainbow full throttle for too long, then end up in the play-offs regardless and wonder whether they should have preserved a bit of energy instead. Once it was down to 4 points on Saturday, letting that gap widen tonight certainly is a big, big blow.
It’s time to be cautiously positive at United. We remain well in control of our destiny.
The Smogmonsters can count the tumbleweeds of competing against the biggest bottle merchants ever, yet still looking like falling short as things stand.
There’s an angelic serenity in the voice of reason tonight as we take our weekly look at United’s promotion stats. And lo and behold, despite all the wailing and self-flagellation by many of us over the weekend, our stats suddenly look more commanding than they have in a long while.
That’s the strange thing in football by numbers. It literally strips all the emotion and the superstition out of things and makes them look almost straightforward.
Boro are two further games down the stretch, and even though United are faltering badly, they are not making enough of a dent in our cushion. Gaining one point every two matches will not be enough with nine matches left.
It’s odd though how that conclusion came about.
Luton on Saturday was a proper shit-show. We were dreadful. And, rather galling I thought, Luton also looked an atrocious side to me. They scored from their only attempt on target in what was the proverbial 0-0 to forget.
Boro, meanwhile, overturned a potentially treacherous 0-1 at half-time and ran out convincing 3-1 winners in a tricky away match.
At that point, even I took a forum time-out as statistics suddenly offered scant consolation. No reading Pommpey’s My Take as I suspected levels of vitriol that accurately described United’s competence on the day, but would surely add to my post-match depression. I even checked myself out of the enthralling “Who has the last word” world championship finals for three days that raged on the #Her Game thread.
So how does it all fall into my chosen metrics after matchday 37? Well, fucking swimmingly, thanks for asking.
Tonight’s win already completes my minimum three points tally from the basket of five tough matches. We knocked off Millwall, Luton and Sunderland, meaning Burnley and West Brom are now free hits in my system.
As the Watford win already exceeded our target in the medium difficulty basket by one point, too, Norwich away also is a free hit.
That’s correct. Any points from these three matches would be pure bonus material. I had assumed we’d beat Luton so was crestfallen and worried on Saturday. But doing it at Sunderland instead statistically makes no difference. Arwin Sarwen salutes United’s promotion chasers tonight.
So Norwich, Burnley and West Brom we can happily toss away, as long as we get 4 wins and a draw from the other 6 matches.
Just the four extra wins without the draw takes us to 82 points. That now forces Boro into 6 wins, 1 draw and 2 defeats in order to go up on goal difference.
What is playing out here is the fact that all our fairies and drama queens have over-estimated what a good team can and can’t do. Boro haven’t even had a dip as such, but even the best Championship sides in history occasionally slip in the odd draw or defeat. With the five points dropped at West Brom and against Stoke, that is playing out again. They are formidable opposition on a monster run, but won’t achieve a pretty perfect clean sweep of all points in the next 9 matches either.
Our recent run since Boro of alternating defeats and wins every week has given us a nerve-wrecking, emotionally devastating 9 points from 18. It's felt a lot like slow death by a thousand needles.
But the thing is this: With gradually weaker opposition soon on the horizon, we could do even worse (4 wins from 9) and would likely still be fine. We’d get 82 points that way, giving Boro the above target which they have not been able to post in their last few games.
The “safe automatic promotion” metric of two points per game currently projects them at 81 points. So hats off to them for what they have achieved over a really large sample of matches. My eyes tell me they are better than us at the moment. But my eyes don’t matter one bit. Because mathematical chances now are that United have several free hits we can fuck up, whereas Boro’s tightrope margin for error is down to just one or two games. Those could be Burnley or Luton. Or any other wildcard match…
Just imagine what could happen if we rediscover any semblance of consistent form or remind ourselves of the fact that this division - with very few exceptions - really has nothing to fear. Win at Norwich, for instance.... Accelerate things, put the foot down. Or watch them blink once more and slip up?
It remains a tall order for them. Which is nice. Serves those bastards right. They are one of the teams I have always had an irrational hatred for because the whole place seems pointless even in the good old days when they were fairly successful. Gazza, Ravanelli, Juninho, Adam Johnson, Paul Merson – wankers all.
The Voice of Reason concludes for today:
It's reasonably idyllic in Captain Morgan's Haven: We play shite, but have done statistically okay/enough over-all. Reading and Sunderland were key matches where we held our nerve to get the minimum we needed to not slip into the psychologically damaging territory that Captain Morgan rightly considered possible in one of your responses to last week's post.
The FA cup now is the magic distraction to dream big that it should be and must be embraced and enjoyed. It probably works well for us to move West Brom into later in the season when their play-off charge likely will be over. The international break suddenly also looks timed okay, provided we do not pick up too many injuries or minutes in players’ legs in those pointless matches.
Get in, Doyler, you beauty!!!!
As for Boro, baby, they must beat Preston to have any chance. And they, unlike us, must of course budget their own resources around a likely play-off campaign at one point. Be stupid to chase the dragon at the end of the rainbow full throttle for too long, then end up in the play-offs regardless and wonder whether they should have preserved a bit of energy instead. Once it was down to 4 points on Saturday, letting that gap widen tonight certainly is a big, big blow.
It’s time to be cautiously positive at United. We remain well in control of our destiny.
The Smogmonsters can count the tumbleweeds of competing against the biggest bottle merchants ever, yet still looking like falling short as things stand.
