The Voice of Reason - Captain Morgan's Haven, Part III

[ChrisBlade]

In this third installment of „Captain Morgan’s Haven”, things look remarkably more relaxed than at any point before. In my statistical model of placing matches into three buckets of matches with differing points targets, United always had a two-tiered safety net regarding promotion.

One, even after the Boro home defeat in February, our points already on the board meant that we could afford a relatively sustained period of iffy scores as long as we tended to alternate wins with defeats rather than drew too many matches.

Two, the faint of heart amidst our fan base vastly over-stated the levels of excellence than any Championship is ever likely to sustain over a long period of time. That probably made Boro look more threatening than history suggests anyone ever could be....

As we speak ahead of Easter, statistically both of these safety nets have started nudging us towards an increasingly solid position. Of course, young William Carey will point to the unpredictability of individual scorelines and call all of this a futile shit exercise. But averaged out, statistics are usually a good guideline even if they do get individual details wrong.

I remember when I first discussed this with Captain Morgan. One of the things I said was that Boro will not get 11 wins out of 13 or any such-like miracle run. I cited refereeing decisions going against them once in a while or the odd wild-card game completely out of the blue as likely "black box" features. Huddersfield away was just that. The one game nobody has on the radar where it all comes apart at the seams. And with tight margins for error as the chasing side, those blips bite them increasingly hard.

So where are we then in our initial reference system?

Well, two of the initial five toughies remain on the menu, Burnley and West Brom. These remain free hits, nothing has changed there. Despite losing to Luton and Millwall, the win at Sunderland has already given us my (extremely negatively calculated) minimum target of three points from that hardest basket of five matches.

In the medium basket, I again pitched a very low initial target of two draws from the tricky matches against Watford and Norwich. We got six points, therefore building up a healthy cushion for the run in with the supposedly easy games to come.

Of course, stats being stats, based on this, we are up and it is already realistically over. Because Boro have dropped quite a few points already and now no longer look like a team that will tear through the rest of the season on a guaranteed +2 points per game trajectory.

But caution must be exercised. Just as the bunching up of mega-tough, difficult looking matches in March did not mean we would indeed go on to lose tons in a row, the sequence of easy looking matches up ahead is also likely to yield averaged out results rather than straightforward wins only. Law of averages allowed us to claim four extra points in my two top buckets. Law of averages may now see us underperforming my target in the easiest tier.

What, then, do we need from this remaining basket of “easier” games? The target for the initial eight was five wins, two draws and one defeat. Mislabeling Blackburn as “easy” in late February means our solitary defeat is already used up. Reading away was a win.

Thus, we approach Wigan, Preston, Cardiff, Bristol City, Huddersfield and Birmingham with a target of four wins and two draws. With four of those at home, that looks by and in itself very reasonable. It also disregards the four extra points already gained on the model in the medium basket. Or indeed the fact that West Brom and Burnley still need to be played without the need for points in the model.

Statistically, that is a lot of wriggle room, isn’t it? Expressed in terms of points, we need ten from an available twenty-four to reach my initial 83 point target. That allows form worse than we had at any stage of the season over eight matches (I have not checked our worst batch of eight matches, mind).

Is there evidence that my target of 83 points in February was too low and now needs tweaking upwards?

Boro are on 67 points. They have only 21 points left to play for. To get the 16 points they need to take it to goal difference on 83 points, that is five wins, a draw and two defeats. Doable, but strong form over a season. With both Burnley and Luton in there to play, as well as signs of weakness away from home, however, I continue to feel that they are not that the dreaded “über-team” that forces me to adjust the model just yet.

Voice of Reason as of today:

It isn’t slippers and cigars yet. We need to stay on it and keep ticking off our homework. Wigan is a very big match as it looks almost too easy on paper and could unduly erode our statistical cushion if we fuck up. Win that and see how Boro deal with Burnley. Then re-draw the battle lines and see where we are next week in chapter 4 of this.

In any event, a reasonable summary would be that we have had our fuck ups but not fucked it up. United retains full control of the situation and the stats are very much stacked in our favour here. When needed, our boys have constantly responded well and got us the minimum requirements to keep the pressure on Boro at all times. Boro may still be easier on the eye, but results-wise they have yielded to the pressure about as much as we have. Nobody has bottled it yet, it's just two teams playing out the seasons which long term stats would suggest them to get in their respective positions. Which suits us fine...

Away from the boring cold stats and reasonable behaviour that is generally at odds with the emotions at football, I’d like to end this one with a hearty “Fuck off, Middlesboro FC – Fuck Off, Blades11”…

 

[ChrisBlade]

In this third installment of „Captain Morgan’s Haven”, things look remarkably more relaxed than at any point before. In my statistical model of placing matches into three buckets of matches with differing points targets, United always had a two-tiered safety net regarding promotion.

One, even after the Boro home defeat in February, our points already on the board meant that we could afford a relatively sustained period of iffy scores as long as we tended to alternate wins with defeats rather than drew too many matches.

Two, the faint of heart amidst our fan base vastly over-stated the levels of excellence than any Championship is ever likely to sustain over a long period of time. That probably made Boro look more threatening than history suggests anyone ever could be....

As we speak ahead of Easter, statistically both of these safety nets have started nudging us towards an increasingly solid position. Of course, young William Carey will point to the unpredictability of individual scorelines and call all of this a futile shit exercise. But averaged out, statistics are usually a good guideline even if they do get individual details wrong.

I remember when I first discussed this with Captain Morgan. One of the things I said was that Boro will not get 11 wins out of 13 or any such-like miracle run. I cited refereeing decisions going against them once in a while or the odd wild-card game completely out of the blue as likely "black box" features. Huddersfield away was just that. The one game nobody has on the radar where it all comes apart at the seams. And with tight margins for error as the chasing side, those blips bite them increasingly hard.

So where are we then in our initial reference system?

Well, two of the initial five toughies remain on the menu, Burnley and West Brom. These remain free hits, nothing has changed there. Despite losing to Luton and Millwall, the win at Sunderland has already given us my (extremely negatively calculated) minimum target of three points from that hardest basket of five matches.

In the medium basket, I again pitched a very low initial target of two draws from the tricky matches against Watford and Norwich. We got six points, therefore building up a healthy cushion for the run in with the supposedly easy games to come.

Of course, stats being stats, based on this, we are up and it is already realistically over. Because Boro have dropped quite a few points already and now no longer look like a team that will tear through the rest of the season on a guaranteed +2 points per game trajectory.

But caution must be exercised. Just as the bunching up of mega-tough, difficult looking matches in March did not mean we would indeed go on to lose tons in a row, the sequence of easy looking matches up ahead is also likely to yield averaged out results rather than straightforward wins only. Law of averages allowed us to claim four extra points in my two top buckets. Law of averages may now see us underperforming my target in the easiest tier.

What, then, do we need from this remaining basket of “easier” games? The target for the initial eight was five wins, two draws and one defeat. Mislabeling Blackburn as “easy” in late February means our solitary defeat is already used up. Reading away was a win.

Thus, we approach Wigan, Preston, Cardiff, Bristol City, Huddersfield and Birmingham with a target of four wins and two draws. With four of those at home, that looks by and in itself very reasonable. It also disregards the four extra points already gained on the model in the medium basket. Or indeed the fact that West Brom and Burnley still need to be played without the need for points in the model.

Statistically, that is a lot of wriggle room, isn’t it? Expressed in terms of points, we need ten from an available twenty-four to reach my initial 83 point target. That allows form worse than we had at any stage of the season over eight matches (I have not checked our worst batch of eight matches, mind).

Is there evidence that my target of 83 points in February was too low and now needs tweaking upwards?

Boro are on 67 points. They have only 21 points left to play for. To get the 16 points they need to take it to goal difference on 83 points, that is five wins, a draw and two defeats. Doable, but strong form over a season. With both Burnley and Luton in there to play, as well as signs of weakness away from home, however, I continue to feel that they are not that the dreaded “über-team” that forces me to adjust the model just yet.

Voice of Reason as of today:

It isn’t slippers and cigars yet. We need to stay on it and keep ticking off our homework. Wigan is a very big match as it looks almost too easy on paper and could unduly erode our statistical cushion if we fuck up. Win that and see how Boro deal with Burnley. Then re-draw the battle lines and see where we are next week in chapter 4 of this.

In any event, a reasonable summary would be that we have had our fuck ups but not fucked it up. United retains full control of the situation and the stats are very much stacked in our favour here. When needed, our boys have constantly responded well and got us the minimum requirements to keep the pressure on Boro at all times. Boro may still be easier on the eye, but results-wise they have yielded to the pressure about as much as we have. Nobody has bottled it yet, it's just two teams playing out the seasons which long term stats would suggest them to get in their respective positions. Which suits us fine...

Away from the boring cold stats and reasonable behaviour that is generally at odds with the emotions at football, I’d like to end this one with a hearty “Fuck off, Middlesboro FC – Fuck Off, Blades11”…

That was another hard-fought yet crucial win that puts us into near total control. We have indeed posted another one of the expected easy wins and if we re-allocate the excess points from my other two buckets would now be on 3, 1, 1 in a batch of eight games that required 5, 2, 1. Two more wins and a draw needed from seven games… statistically, the pressure is off.

Obviously, stats are beautiful. Every week, my initial, seemingly random 83 points target plugged from thin air in the Shoutbox in February starts looking more and more prophetic. The prediction that Boro will get moored in the long term morass of not outperforming two points per game on a marathon stretch also is coming along nicely. As is the prediction that at some point when the gap increases, chasers lose heart and focus on the play-offs.

Let’s put it this way: Boro did not look badly hurt by losing to Burnley last night. It was not a fight for the last chance of automatics performance. Their body language was of a team that knew its place and prepared for an extended season. It is only us that always feel catchable by design…

I also watched Luton at Millwall and felt instantly vindicated that I never even included them in this discussion and exercise. You can lose to Luton and Millwall as we found to our own detriment, but they are designed for attrition not winning runs. Furthermore, Luton were totally happy sitting on a 0-0 yesterday because they did not even chase us. They were content to hold off their own chasing pack.

Voice of Reason today:

We are there. Boro have given up. It now becomes feasible that we might not even need 83 in the end if Boro start protecting what they have. Away draws are okay for them now if the aim is securing home ice for the second semi without knackering yourself. With 18 points to play for, their high water line is 85. Five wins and a draw is pretty unlikely on the waning form they are in…

And Blades11 wrote his reverse psychology jinxing schtick one full match too early.

Even Pommpey’s usually twitching sphincter has mellowed out with feel good vibes to such an extent that the weekly scapegoat has managed to match the median grade for the team for the first time in the last 63 My Takes…

That’s clear evidence that triumph is nearly upon us. We’ll be there for sure in the week Fallowfield forgets to post his insane lineups…

Proper rattled. Up before The Wrexham, mystic Mullen and all.

But then again: If all of this sounds a bit smug and self-congratulatory today because long-term statistical models with sound assumptions have a tendency to be self-fulfilling, hold your horses.

Because what about that OTHER team, our blue and permanently depressed mirror image across the city, that rag tag bunch our fan base loves to over-estimate by the same margin we castigate ourselves as safe failures? For years they have looked on in horror as we keep living their dream. While they would love to be in our shoes…

Well, for once they are. Because they have acted out the kind of statistical anomaly my model was designed to prove impossible. They did pretty well in the top of the table basket with the likes of Plymouth, Ipswich and Bolton, but are now fouling up the easy bucket absolutely beyond the realms of statistical probability.

So for further added comfort, we’ll soon be entering waters where we can simply match the Wendies’ scores (however poor they may be) and still go up…

And I may have to move my posts over to Other Football as it becomes more interesting to look at the likely “reasonable” conclusion to their run in rather than slowly count out a punch-drunk boxer in Boro…

PS: This is all stats and comfort pillows. The human being behind them was nervous as fuck all match yesterday and will continue to be so until we are mathematically there.

 

[CaptainMorgans]

Somehow these updates passed me by, have just caught up on them and really enjoyed reading them.
Keep up the good work!

 

[ChrisBlade]

And so I return once more to this statistical look at what likely was or still is needed from February onwards. This close to the end of the season, it almost seems that this series of posts no longer is all about will we do it or nor, but rather about how accurate were my initial projections of likelihoods.

Three games further in, we fouled up at Burnley, thereby blowing one of the two bonus games in the tough basket which we no longer need points from. Based on that rationale, West Brom at home next week is another "freebe" match which we can lose without endangering our projected automatic promotion haul. I projected 83 points as Boro's realistic high water line in February and am now sure they will not even reach that target.

Taking into account the already completed medium difficulty basket, the tale of the two Cities now puts us on an adjusted 5-1-1 in that group of matches, meaning we have West Brom, Preston, Huddersfield and Brum to get the one additional point to achieve my initial target of 5-2-1 from the poor teams. Quite clearly, I am now certain that we will reach my realistic worst case scenario of 83 points drawn up in February.

Where I am not so sure is whether that will indeed be safely enough or whether we will - contrary to my insistence throughout this discussion so far - have to also talk about Luton...

But before we do, let me digress from the pure figures a little bit first.

When I started this "voice of reason" calculation following anguished Shoutbox exchanges with Captain Morgans and others, my idea was to provide psychological comfort and smooth over the high waves of emotion after the Boro home disaster. Looking at what is most likely to happen - rather than either devise horror collapse scenarios or multiply points by games left to arrive at the mathematical safe number - to me was comforting. I mean anyone can take the gap, multiply remaining games by three points and then count down each week with a diminishing target figure. Or give Boro pretty much the maximum points possible, then panic.

I found my middle of the road approach with a manageable target far more relaxing. I knew we might need more than my 83 points, but I felt comfortable that my low target number was never United's likely points total, only a number that in 8 out of 10 cases would suffice. The point was to highlight that even indifferent form was going to see us home or very close to home.

The last few weeks, in particular, have taught me that what I find comforting involves a level of flexibility that seems beyond many of our fans. There are those (quite many, in fact) whose maths are simply out. They request a number of wins well in excess of our rivals maximum highest points totals. You read and think, hang on, they are so worried, they cannot even work out multiplication. They say we need four wins when three are mathematically enough.

Then there are the jinxers who find any sort of estimated guess as to what likely is enough to be Wednesday-like arrogance and accuse people of declaring the race over when all they obviously did was express an expectation rather than a Fallowfield fact.

There are the guys who need total certainty and simply target one point more than any rival can reach, i.e. always give our rivals wins only. Of course, that approach can never be wrong, but I feel it adds little to any meaningful discussion as it disregards real-life probabilities.

And the weirdest people are those that clearly love worry, fear and chaos, as well as a sense of diffuse victimhood, so much that they do not enter the world of numbers at all, but simply come out with outrageous statements that make me shake my head...

Once Boro fall away, Luton are suddenly an equally bullet-proof win machine that will no longer drop any points. And even more astonishingly, Rotherham away, Reading away, Blackburn away and Boro home is an easier run in than our collection of no marks left to play, including our extra game for the lolz. These are probably people who posted in March about just how strong Reading and Blackburn are at home. Tough for us, but not for others. The very same Luton vs Boro fixture was a gimme for Boro while they were still in it. Now they are not, it is an easy one for Luton to win.

It has become clear to me over Easter that there are many people who simply do not want comfort or enjoy informed views that alleviate fear or superstition. They prefer scare scenarios.

So what about Luton then?

They are on 74 points as we speak, in good form, and still have away at Reading and Blackburn and home to Boro and Hull left to negotiate. The closer you get to the finish line, the more likely it is that a team may outperform 2 points per game. It's now a short burst, not a lung-busting marathon. I would still feel very confident that one of Boro, Reading and Blackburn will end as a draw or worse. Sod's law, if nothing else.

Luton are Sheffield United, light. They have worse players. They rarely look really good. They blow no-one apart. As a scare scenario, they are less appealing than Boro's mathematically efficient and visually appealing play was last month. Luton are grinders, not swashbuckling.

So 83 might be cutting it too fine now. I could see Luton get 84 points. But like us in February and March, they also have an issue with sequencing now. Reading need points urgently tonight. Boro will certainly not want to lose to a potential final opponent so close to the play-offs. Blackburn urgently will need points, too. The only really easy match is the last one, by which time we ought to be home and dry.

All in all, they have a below 5% chance of catching us in my view.

Voice of Reason today:

We are in near total control by now. Luton almost need snookers already. By the time I revisit this one next week, we can watch them at Reading and against Boro to assess their credentials or read the last rites. If, however, they pull it back to two points with two games in hand, I'd rather not view West Brom at home as a statistical free-be from the tough basket but look for points in that one. It is possible that we could seal it at home next week, which would be nice.

Meanwhile in South Barnsley, yesterday was another big blow. Each of Ipswich and Plymouth have one defeat for free. Both looked like using it up yesterday. Neither did. A winner on 90+6 is particularly salty...

If I was a betting man, I'd say Wednesday may well be headed for the play-offs. However, their chances of winning automatic promotion are decidedly stronger than our chances of blowing automatic promotion. That's reasonable analysis. It's comfort right there.

But just as Luton's run in is piss easy, the fearful among us will probably remain convinced that the jammy pigs are nailed on to finish second because Plymouth are flaky or Ipswich play Barnsley. And we are at great risk still of getting only two points from twelve and be pipped by an all-conquering Hatters team...

 

[ChrisBlade]

Now that was quick. As expected, Luton produce at least one draw - doing so at the first hurdle. The high-water line for Boro remains at 83 points, but if they win everything they'd get there with a strong goal difference. The high-water line for Luton drops to 84 points as predicted earlier today, but a fairly moderate goal difference is likely. The two meet before we play, so whatever they do, one of them is removed for definite from the auto-promotion race on Monday. The other one lives to fight for at least another day. A proper Highlander match...

Also, whatever the scoreline on Monday, we then have two home matches in a row in which we can seal the deal in front of our own fans, but we cannot be promoted without playing before we take to the field again. My Huddersfield away ticket might well become a bit of an after the Lord Mayor Show damp squib.

Voice of Reason:

Ideally, Luton and Boro will draw. Then we only need one solitary point from sixteen. In any event, beating West Brom sends us up. Anything else muddles the message: Go and get the one win needed at the first time of asking.

Pat on the back for me tonight. I called it very accurately in February, both in terms of what will be needed and with regard to Boro eventually flat-lining in a way more in line with regular Championship run-ins. They are decent, but not the second coming of Man City or Messi's Barcelona in their prime.

We can happily focus on Man City now and when the FA cup comes around next year in January, we would be best advised to remember that cup runs do not really impact league form. We became a magnificent beast in the League after beating Blackburn. Their spirit was broken and they reverted to the level of shittiness that they always seemed to suggest. So with hindsight, I correctly placed them in the basket of nothing-much-teams. Just as West Brom are currently justifying their tag of tough opposition...

All is well in the Garden of Eden tonight...

 

[RammyBlade]

Cheers mate. Im definitely hoping for a draw between Luton and Boro as that knocks out Boro and with our superior goal difference over Luton it means we are effectively up " Forget the maths"
And we can play WBA on wednesday night and get a nice win to celebrate !