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CL Qualification by numbers

minesadouble

Drove my Chevy to the Levy
Jul 27, 2006
749
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In the 17 Premiership Seasons to date, the average number of points secured by the team in 4th place has been 67.9. Over the first 10 Seasons (92-02) the average was 68.3 and in the past 10 Seasons (99-09) the average was 67.7, so it doesn’t appear as if time is changing the average number of points achieved by 4th place much, if at all.

However, the average hides a wide variation of 16 points between particular Seasons. The highest number of points earned by 4th was 76 (Liverpool, 07/08). The lowest was 60 (Liverpool, 03/04). Meanwhile, in 12 out of 17 Seasons, the team coming 5th has secured more than 60 points, so enough to have come 4th in 2003-2004. On average 5th place has gained 63 points since the Premiership began (thus it could be argued that only an average of 64 points is required to ‘secure’ 4th, ie. 1 point more).

Harry apparently said that we needed 19 points before beating Blackburn, so 16 more at the time of writing this, which would give us a final total of 68 points. That looks correct. Since 1995, no team coming 5th has got more than 66 points. Statistically we’d be very unfortunate not to come 4th with 68 points.

We have 52 points with 9 games left: Stoke, Sunderland, Man U, Man C and Burnley away, and Portsmouth, Arsenal, Chelsea and Bolton at home. By far the easiest way for us to secure the 16 points necessary is to win 5 out of 9 games. If we could win at Stoke, Sunderland and Burnley and beat Portsmouth and Bolton, we would only require a single draw from the other four games.

Wins are crucial. Even if we managed to go undefeated and draw all 9 games left, we would still fall 7 points short of the target. Even 4 wins would leave us needing to draw 4 others and only lose 1 match to finish on 68. While 3 wins and 6 draws would earn us 15 points and even that unlikely, unbeaten run would leave us only on 67 points.

So all the numbers boil down to this. If we win 5 out of 9 matches, we’ll come 4th. If we win 4 out of 9 matches, we have a chance. If we fail to win 4 matches, we won’t achieve CL qualification.
 

mawspurs

Staff
Jun 29, 2003
35,066
17,740
Mawspurs

Thanks minesadouble. It's good to have it made so clear what is required.
 

Boxset Dan

It's all swings and roundabouts
May 30, 2009
619
0
I added up the points from the fixtures we, Villa, City and Pool have left to play and my predictions were: Spurs 68, Villa 65, City 64, Pool 63 I think I remember them being.

That was predicting we got 1 point from the games against Arsenal, Chelsea and Utd also. Stoke at the weekend will be make or break in our bid for 4th I feel.
 

Real_madyidd

The best username, unless you are a fucking idiot.
Oct 25, 2004
18,792
12,448
Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results
 

mil1lion

This is the place to be
May 7, 2004
42,335
77,592
We should beat Portsmouth, Bolton and Burnley. We should get at least 4 points at Sunderland and Stoke. Then at least 3 points against Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal. I think that's very realistic.
 

Cozzie

Large Member
Jan 7, 2009
400
1
So all the numbers boil down to this. If we win 5 out of 9 matches, we’ll come 4th. If we win 4 out of 9 matches, we have a chance. If we fail to win 4 matches, we won’t achieve CL qualification.

Unless City, Liverpool and Villa all win 6 out of their last 9/10, in which case we will come 7th, even if we win 5 and lose the rest.
 

StanSpur

Ronny Rosenthal
Jul 15, 2004
2,436
2,042
There have been so many twists and shock results this season that i'm sure there will be more to come. I wouldn't be suprised to see us lose to Pompy then beat Arsenal the way things have gone. I feel the Stoke, Sunderland and City games are the most important of our season. Getting 4 points from Stoke and Sunderland will be massive in the context of things and give us a chance. I feel we must at the very least draw with City as a loss will give them the points advantage over us that we may not have time to claw back - a draw will keep us close enough to still be in with a shout.

a table that plots a teams league position http://soccershirtsonline.com/graphs.html shows that we havent been out of the top 6 all season and have been in the top 4 more than any of our rivals, simply put we deserve this.
 

Riandor

COB Founder
May 26, 2004
9,413
11,620
It would be nice to know that we are 4th before we play City on the last day... that being said, that last game could be a 4th place play-off!

Of course never count out Villa or Liverpool.

Stoke away will be key. Villa got a draw there so it won't be easy, but we ideally need a win to maintian the pressure on the chasing pack.

Fingers crossed :-D
 

spurs_viola

Rui Costa,dreamspurs no10
Mar 10, 2005
2,454
0
We should beat Portsmouth, Bolton and Burnley. We should get at least 4 points at Sunderland and Stoke. Then at least 3 points against Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal. I think that's very realistic.

Agree. Sunderland, Portsmouth, Burnley and Bolton are very winnable. 1 point from each game v Stoke, Man City, Arsenal at home and Chelski at home should be very possible. Man U away can be written off, realistically.

We still depend on Man City and L'pool to drop more points than they should, though.
 

minesadouble

Drove my Chevy to the Levy
Jul 27, 2006
749
2,933
Unless City, Liverpool and Villa all win 6 out of their last 9/10, in which case we will come 7th, even if we win 5 and lose the rest.

And if United, Chelsea and Arsenal lose all of theirs we COULD still be champions
 

minesadouble

Drove my Chevy to the Levy
Jul 27, 2006
749
2,933
It would be nice to know that we are 4th before we play City on the last day... that being said, that last game could be a 4th place play-off!


Has the City date been set ? I though the final day fixtures were set in stone and postponed games have to be played before then.
 

Jenko

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2004
5,290
4,157
No, the city game has to be played before our official last day of the season (Burnley away).
 

jonnyrotten

SC Supporter
Aug 16, 2006
2,114
3,721
On average 5th place has gained 63 points since the Premiership began (thus it could be argued that only an average of 64 points is required to ‘secure’ 4th, ie. 1 point more).

There is a small flaw with your logic here. An average of 64 over previous seasons would generally have been good enough to secure 5th, pushing team with 63 points back into 6th place. You got the logic right when talking about Harry's comments re: 68 points being good enough for 4th based on previous averages, although until the distribution of 4th place points drops a bit from the massive margin it is at the moment, there is little point looking into past results on their own.
 

jonnyrotten

SC Supporter
Aug 16, 2006
2,114
3,721
as long as we get more points than the others we should be OK!
Exactly, its relative performance rather than absolute performance that counts. Previous seasons haven't been so tight for 4th so expect the OP's theory of there generally being a large gap between 4th and 5th to be blown apart.
 

minesadouble

Drove my Chevy to the Levy
Jul 27, 2006
749
2,933
By the way, after 29 games we have got 52 points, an average of 1.79 per game. If we maintain that, we will get another 16 points, so we only have to continue the same form as Season to date and we'll get to 68. Although our 'run in' has some difficult games, we've dropped easy points at home, and won tricky games away, so I agree with previous posters that this Season is particularly unpredictable, with twists and turns yet to come.
 

davidmatzdorf

Front Page Gadfly
Jun 7, 2004
18,106
45,030
I clicked on this thread with some trepidation, only to find that (how about that?) someone else analyses this the same way I do: not by focusing on trying to predict individual results (impossible), but by looking at the number of points that are reliably associated with different finishing positions.

It works because it's in the nature of a balanced schedule, i.e., a league where all of the clubs play each other home and away, that the points totals sort themselves out remarkably reliably up and down the table from year to year. There are oddities and outliers, but not many of them.

One similar statistic that isn't in the original post is this: since the advent of the 20 team, Premiership, 67 points has always been enough to finish 4th (occasionally 3rd), because no club finishing 5th has ever accumulated more than 66 points.
 
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