ChrisBlade
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After a few recent see-saw results and the constant soul-searching that comes along with them, I have decided to re-hash an old feature I greatly enjoyed doing for a few weekends in Wednesday’s relegation season. Back then, I posted as the “voice of reason” and took a statistical approach to the relegation battle after noticing the forum’s sky-high anxiety levels that almost superstitiously viewed Wednesday’s survival as a “nailed on” Fallowfield fact even though all metrics suggested that they were doomed.
It was closer than it should have been – Rotherham did collapse a bit, the piggy bastards did pick up a bit, but in the end such a cold-hearted, long-term, weighted average approach did get the outcome correct (just!) and gave me a lot of fun in the process.
With this in mind, I will take one of my earlier posts after the Boro disaster and a Shoutbox discussion with Captain Morgan as my initial statistical reference system and jumping base to do something similar for this year’s promotion battle.
Based on that, I plan to update this thread irregularly with my personal view of how we are performing against my own reference system. The idea is a semi-regular, fairly distanced, but very personal diary-type of analysis that counts down the season based on my statistical metrics and my own emotional responses to what is happening to United.
In between posts, I do not intend to respond to whatever the forum thinks of my musings – happy-clappy or mega-depressed as they may be. Of course, I may bite on occasion, but the plan is to keep this as an occasional, personal “voice of reason” ex cathedra statement not an interactive echo-chamber of the kind of extreme mood swings this forum already has plenty of.
So here is what I set out as my reference system after Boro. I grouped our remaining fixtures into three groups,
Boro – on that metric – would be forced into ten wins and four defeats from their fourteen games to outstrip us on 84 points.
Three weeks later, the first thing that jumps out is probably the grouping of matches. Blackburn have not regressed as predicted by me back then, so both that match and Norwich away may well be tougher than in my ranking above. By the same token, Sunderland away and West Brom home may have gotten slightly easier since then. Anyway, no subsequent moving of goalposts as the 83 points have to come from somewhere so any categorization works and can be adhered to.
Four matches in, how does the voice of reason feel at the moment? To be honest, I have already noted a marked difference in my mind-set to a lot of other posters. I have been deeply depressed twice and hugely relieved and happy twice. It has, however, not been a slow and depressing decent into the inevitability of failure yet. Our four games have been a rollercoaster, not a dreary sludge of concern or worry. To frame things by recourse to numbers needed rather than an “always win the next match” mantra makes things less stressful.
If anything, I currently still hanker after the one point at Millwall that we stupidly gave away. At 2-2, that should have been that. The last five minutes at the Den needed to look very similar to the last five minutes at Reading last night. We sheepishly over-committed when sitting on a point was the order of the day. Because what the above statistical model highlights most of all is the fairly big margin for error we still have. A draw at Millwall was totally ok. There are plenty of games where draws also serve our purposes.
Both yesterday and the win against Watford felt very rewarding – I can intellectually assess performances as underwhelming, of course, but frankly they never affect my emotional wellbeing if we have taken the three points.
So currently we are one game into our five toughies and have no points. But four more matches to get at least one win isn’t overly daunting yet. Of course, I’ll be flying again should we beat Luton on Saturday and turn the other three games into statistical free hits…
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the small medium pool of games, we are already one point to the good and have Norwich as another statistical free hit. Beating Watford means the two point target here is already exceeded.
The eight presumably easier games have been reduced to six. The target of 5, 2, 1 has turned into 4, 2, 0. That means our one defeat has already happened, but of course beating Watford mathematically means we already have one of my two draws in this group on the board.
Overall, this reiterates that despite a general feeling that we are doing poorly and are treading quicksand, as well as performing atrociously with out of sort players, we are actually half way through one of our toughest set of fixtures and look pretty much on course for my 83 points. We do not yet need to improve drastically, as long as we continue to avoid falling off a cliff. Underperformance in the easy pool can be compensated in the two top pools where I only asked for 5 points from 21 (we have 3 already).
How about the other variable, Boro?
Here is where I always disagreed with Captain Morgan. He (and several others) have turned Boro into a team of über-players that will not only easily get my projected initial ten wins and four defeats, but are likely to pulverize that. I heard 88 points mentioned as target, a staggering 9, 1, 1 for them. Statistically, not happening.
There is two ways to slice that particular cake. Adjust our 83 target points upwards and ask for more from us in the two difficult groups of games. Or operate – for now, at least – a statistical probability that 30 from a possible 42 points is as good as they are going to be and, on the contrary, leaves plenty of upside for us where Boro could slip up without going out of form or becoming shit overnight. You know the drill, injuries, days off, the odd key decision going against them…
As it stands, they have gone two wins and a defeat, so changed 10, 0, 4 into 8, 0, 3. Both wins come from the group of teams I classed as easy for us, the defeat was a toughie team. So for now, they, too, remain on track, but crucially have not yet overperformed but have slightly narrowed their own margin for error by getting in one defeat early doors. Turning some of those three defeats into draws should hardly do anything for them in terms of the maths… Wins that end up draws, meanwhile, hurt them.
Voice of Reason as of today:
Boro still have it all to do. Since we lost to them, our points total may have been less than impressive, but has been enough to keep the pressure firmly on them. They now have three fewer matches but have not put an extra dent into our armour. They will also enter a period at some point where they will realize that their own margin for error is very tight and may be getting more daunting with every match ticked off.
They need two variables to go exactly right for them. Blistering form needs maintaining over two months or 11 matches. At the same time, our form may not improve too much at any stage. If there ever is a week where we win three on the spin between now and the end of the season, that might mean it’s curtains – pretty much.
Rewinding to Wednesday’s relegation, they, too, needed three variables to fall. Rotherham to plummet, Pigs to perform and Derby to be beaten at the Sty. Two out of three in the end wasn’t enough.
Statistically, 7 out of 10 of our fans are stressing out way too early and (in mathematical terms) disproportionately. Any mentions of performances, having eyes or twitching bumholes (or other funny Pommpey My Take tropes) do not change this interim statistical conclusion…
See you all next week, I suppose.
It was closer than it should have been – Rotherham did collapse a bit, the piggy bastards did pick up a bit, but in the end such a cold-hearted, long-term, weighted average approach did get the outcome correct (just!) and gave me a lot of fun in the process.
With this in mind, I will take one of my earlier posts after the Boro disaster and a Shoutbox discussion with Captain Morgan as my initial statistical reference system and jumping base to do something similar for this year’s promotion battle.
Based on that, I plan to update this thread irregularly with my personal view of how we are performing against my own reference system. The idea is a semi-regular, fairly distanced, but very personal diary-type of analysis that counts down the season based on my statistical metrics and my own emotional responses to what is happening to United.
In between posts, I do not intend to respond to whatever the forum thinks of my musings – happy-clappy or mega-depressed as they may be. Of course, I may bite on occasion, but the plan is to keep this as an occasional, personal “voice of reason” ex cathedra statement not an interactive echo-chamber of the kind of extreme mood swings this forum already has plenty of.
So here is what I set out as my reference system after Boro. I grouped our remaining fixtures into three groups,
- the five perceived real toughies - Millwall away, Burnley away, Sunderland away, West Brom home, Luton home;
- the tough but manageable ones - Watford home, Norwich away, and
- eight matches I perceived to be eminently winnable - Blackburn away, Reading away, Huddersfield away, Birmingham away, Wigan home, Cardiff home, Bristol City home, Preston home.
Boro – on that metric – would be forced into ten wins and four defeats from their fourteen games to outstrip us on 84 points.
Three weeks later, the first thing that jumps out is probably the grouping of matches. Blackburn have not regressed as predicted by me back then, so both that match and Norwich away may well be tougher than in my ranking above. By the same token, Sunderland away and West Brom home may have gotten slightly easier since then. Anyway, no subsequent moving of goalposts as the 83 points have to come from somewhere so any categorization works and can be adhered to.
Four matches in, how does the voice of reason feel at the moment? To be honest, I have already noted a marked difference in my mind-set to a lot of other posters. I have been deeply depressed twice and hugely relieved and happy twice. It has, however, not been a slow and depressing decent into the inevitability of failure yet. Our four games have been a rollercoaster, not a dreary sludge of concern or worry. To frame things by recourse to numbers needed rather than an “always win the next match” mantra makes things less stressful.
If anything, I currently still hanker after the one point at Millwall that we stupidly gave away. At 2-2, that should have been that. The last five minutes at the Den needed to look very similar to the last five minutes at Reading last night. We sheepishly over-committed when sitting on a point was the order of the day. Because what the above statistical model highlights most of all is the fairly big margin for error we still have. A draw at Millwall was totally ok. There are plenty of games where draws also serve our purposes.
Both yesterday and the win against Watford felt very rewarding – I can intellectually assess performances as underwhelming, of course, but frankly they never affect my emotional wellbeing if we have taken the three points.
So currently we are one game into our five toughies and have no points. But four more matches to get at least one win isn’t overly daunting yet. Of course, I’ll be flying again should we beat Luton on Saturday and turn the other three games into statistical free hits…
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the small medium pool of games, we are already one point to the good and have Norwich as another statistical free hit. Beating Watford means the two point target here is already exceeded.
The eight presumably easier games have been reduced to six. The target of 5, 2, 1 has turned into 4, 2, 0. That means our one defeat has already happened, but of course beating Watford mathematically means we already have one of my two draws in this group on the board.
Overall, this reiterates that despite a general feeling that we are doing poorly and are treading quicksand, as well as performing atrociously with out of sort players, we are actually half way through one of our toughest set of fixtures and look pretty much on course for my 83 points. We do not yet need to improve drastically, as long as we continue to avoid falling off a cliff. Underperformance in the easy pool can be compensated in the two top pools where I only asked for 5 points from 21 (we have 3 already).
How about the other variable, Boro?
Here is where I always disagreed with Captain Morgan. He (and several others) have turned Boro into a team of über-players that will not only easily get my projected initial ten wins and four defeats, but are likely to pulverize that. I heard 88 points mentioned as target, a staggering 9, 1, 1 for them. Statistically, not happening.
There is two ways to slice that particular cake. Adjust our 83 target points upwards and ask for more from us in the two difficult groups of games. Or operate – for now, at least – a statistical probability that 30 from a possible 42 points is as good as they are going to be and, on the contrary, leaves plenty of upside for us where Boro could slip up without going out of form or becoming shit overnight. You know the drill, injuries, days off, the odd key decision going against them…
As it stands, they have gone two wins and a defeat, so changed 10, 0, 4 into 8, 0, 3. Both wins come from the group of teams I classed as easy for us, the defeat was a toughie team. So for now, they, too, remain on track, but crucially have not yet overperformed but have slightly narrowed their own margin for error by getting in one defeat early doors. Turning some of those three defeats into draws should hardly do anything for them in terms of the maths… Wins that end up draws, meanwhile, hurt them.
Voice of Reason as of today:
Boro still have it all to do. Since we lost to them, our points total may have been less than impressive, but has been enough to keep the pressure firmly on them. They now have three fewer matches but have not put an extra dent into our armour. They will also enter a period at some point where they will realize that their own margin for error is very tight and may be getting more daunting with every match ticked off.
They need two variables to go exactly right for them. Blistering form needs maintaining over two months or 11 matches. At the same time, our form may not improve too much at any stage. If there ever is a week where we win three on the spin between now and the end of the season, that might mean it’s curtains – pretty much.
Rewinding to Wednesday’s relegation, they, too, needed three variables to fall. Rotherham to plummet, Pigs to perform and Derby to be beaten at the Sty. Two out of three in the end wasn’t enough.
Statistically, 7 out of 10 of our fans are stressing out way too early and (in mathematical terms) disproportionately. Any mentions of performances, having eyes or twitching bumholes (or other funny Pommpey My Take tropes) do not change this interim statistical conclusion…
See you all next week, I suppose.
