December table position

[spongebobblade]

Right then Blades fans how about this for a bold prediction - the mighty Blades have 4 games and Scunny have 3 before the end of this month. My prediction is that both of us will be on 41 points at the start of December - i.e. we will take 10 points from our 4 matches and they will take 4 points from their games, dropping points away at Peterborough and either Oldham or Oxford scraping a much-needed draw in their relegation battle. Come to think of it we may even take all 12 points!!
Bradford and Bolton may also start slipping judging by there upcoming fixtures. Anyone else wearing rose-tinted specs?

There are tricky games and periods left for all clubs. It's so early though we just have to concentrate on accumulating as many points as possible. It's unlikely but not impossible we will keep up the pace we are setting ourselves. We are capable of going on a 20+ game unbeaten run. We could lose on Saturday if we get as sloppy as we were in the first half yesterday at times. It maybe a cliche but I'm happy to take 1 game at a time and enjoy each and every win

 

[ThroughThinAndThinner]

Yes we are. It's fairly common for a team to go ten unbeaten. It's less common to go twenty unbeaten. It's very unusual to go thirty eight games unbeaten. That's why people still talk about Arsenal's invincibles.

Therefore, the longer the run, the closer you get to 'very unusual'. It's very unlikely that we will go thirty eight games unbeaten so the closer you get to that figure, the more likely it becomes that we will lose one. It doesn't mean we're definitely going to lose, just that we probably will.

Not really...with anything from a purely chance point of view when looking at runs each is as likely as the next. A run of 5 straight wins is as likely as 2 wins followed by 2 losses followed by a win.

If you were to then condense it and say 3 wins and 2 draws in the next 5 then that's different because there's more ways of achieving that than a run of 5 wins.

If you were to say therefore that we're more likely to win 4 and lose 1 of the next 5 than win all 5 then you're correct...but when looking purely at the next result then each is as likely as the next (if it were a game of pure chance) and just because we've won the previous X doesn't make us more/less likely to win the next. So in this scenario if you were at the start of the run saying "it's unlikely we won't lose in 13" then you'd be correct because there's more ways of 13 games unbeaten not happening than happening...but after 12 games there's as much chance (ignoring draws for a second) of 13 games unbeaten happening than not given that the other 12 have already happened.

Kinda splitting hairs but "well their due a loss", which is built into the same premise, has always been an annoyance.