There was a good point, well made, on the Daily Echo site. The way to look at this is just the same as we would a relegation battle. We need to avoid the drop zone of 5th or lower. Teams currently in the drop zone will win; so will we. We just need to keep ahead of the pack. I'm sure some of the posters on here might have experience of relegation battles. Nice to have one like this. Vin
I wouldn't worry about that for too much longer, they've got the Europa League, Capital One Cup & FA Cup to contend with in the next few weeks along with Premier League games. They will begin to drop a lot more points, I'm sure.
'IF' we get that 4th place, and some reporter comes out with the usual can you keep up with the Big Boys? I just want someone to announce that we are 'one of the Big Boys!' Hopefully the Captain.
Okay, time for some math. The most important target is, of course, the number of points required. On average, the team finishing fourth has earned 67.4 points, at a rate of 1.77 per game; as we currently average 1.91 points per game we're ahead of the curve. The required total has increased to around 70+ since Everton took 4th but the numbers show in a more competitive season (more big clubs getting turned over) that number decreases substantially. This season so far 69+ looks like enough but 71 takes us to a 96% chance of 4th. In goalscoring, as is blatantly obvious, we could do with more. We are currently just behind the average requirement; based on form so far (2.18 home, 1.18 away), we will finish with 61 goals in the ‘for’ column on the league table, and teams finishing fourth have averaged 63 in the past. Although we are scoring below the average required amount we have scored two-or-more in 45% of our games compared to a fourth place target of 47%. Hopefully the return of Rodriguez and Mane will improve this further and open the floodgates in attack against weaker sides. Defensively, of course we shine. There's ten clean sheets so far, which means we have shut out opponents in 45% of games. The team finishing fourth has on average managed this in 36% of their games. So far, so good, this should also ease poor statistical representation of our low goal rate. We have conceded 0.73 goals per game against an average 4th place target of 1.01. Looking very lean there, but we need Morgan, Wanyama and Toby back to continue this frugality. Here's the big one. On current form and with our layout over the season so far, we are currently 88.1% certain to make the top four. Wonderful, but, a look at positional change over the season indicates that the table only starts to become a useful predictor of final position come January (the old 'bottom at Christmas' bit has merit for a reason, Robson beating it that one year is a statistical wonder). It's only half-reliable after 19 games and from then it's reliability obviously improves week on week. Until the 25 game mark. This represents two-thirds reliability, or 66%. We need to be firmly encamped in the top four by the time the Liverpool game comes around, at that point we will prove difficult to shift, especially if the squad is fit by that point. So in conclusion, even if none of us really believe it yet, and it will take a ton of luck and effort, it probably will ****ing happen. You may all dare to dream.
Yeah, our defence definitely makes up for our not so brilliant attack. We got good games coming up too. The games we get goals are key - we may get narrow 1-0 or 2-1 wins, but at least we aren't winning 4-0 and losing 1-0. With Rodriguez back and another striker, we'll be fine. Surprised we're lacking goals with the 8-0 win!
http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Premier.html Great site for running sim data based on stat models. Remarkably the 88.1% CL qualification chance does not include our win against Newcastle as it has not been factored yet. It actually may increase to around 90% based on the predicted change, but if City destroy Arsenal it could increase even more (however our slim 4% chance of winning the league would probably be extinguished ).
In my uneducated, naive inexperienced point of view I think the 4th spot is going to be lower than normal this year. The figure I had in mine was 67. I don't think it will take 70 to get it.
Just to assure you that someone has read this - all your analysis is positive and you have also provided the caveats to suggest that all is on a probability basis. The 'Football Gods of Fate' are however a fickle bunch and I am too 'old in the tooth' - hence a long and keen memory of how 'defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory' - especially as a Saints fan. One comment earlier regarding we are coming into an easier run when we should pick off victories. We all know from past experience, as Saints fans, that there are those teams at the bottom who suffer a crisis of confidence when fighting relegation battles and can roll-over quickly once they fall behind, other whose players spend this part of the season planning their exit strategy to another EPL club when their current club is relegated and the other sort - who will fight 'tooth and nail' to stay up. I am not so sure that there are easier fixtures going through to the season-end, with maybe the odd one or two.
I keep monitoring the odds and waiting patiently for us to be favourites for 4th. City thrashing Arsenal should decrease the gap.
Like I said, in our case it's almost entirely dependent on squad fitness. If we roll on with wins before Liverpool and then the injured players recover as expected we'll be pretty much set. I'd feel like it was nearly a done deal at that point. Of course in addition to this there remains the key undeniable fact that FORSTER MUST STAY FIT/AVAILABLE.
An easier and pretty much guaranteed way of working out our percentage chance of finishing top four is to take the Betfair odds and work out the implied chances. There is a wealth of serious academic study showing that betting exchanges are the single most accurate predictor of the odds of something happening. All known information is in there. It's so accurate that the US government set one up to predict terrorist attacks but had to close it after an outcry. So, what does that give us? Well, current midpoint odds are 2.37, so our chance of finishing top four is 42%. I must say that that feels reasonable. Vin P.S. Don't feel too disheartened; our chance of winning the league is still 0.55%. Not impossible, by any means. P.P.S. "Maths", not "math", please!
I have dared to dream since the first few games into the season. I didn't see why not. It was obvious that Saints weren't being hampered by losing the players they did, after replacing them with quality, and I had predicted that we'd make 6th place by the end of the season anyhow. The thing is, why not dare to dream..? Who loses if Saints fail..? Nobody. You lose by NOT daring to dream, because you deny yourself the sheer pleasure of it. Top4 is two or more places better than I expected, and if Saints do that then my dreams for the club will be more than fulfilled for this season. And that will just be a new start to more dreams, not nightmares. Here's my secret, and updated dream. Saints not only make top4, they even go one, two, or unrealistically three places better. Catching ManC is perfectly possible, in my opinion. Catching Chelsea is another matter altogether. Not impossible, but highly, highly unlikely. But that's what dreams can be made of. One dares to do it.
But betmakers also have a non-related factor informing their odds: their own need to profit on the situation. Pure statistical analysis is better if good data sets are available. We have all the required data for the predicted table above. The reality is that many of us don't see the chances fairly because of emotional bias or our own knowledge of past seasons (we've all been hurt before). This season's performance data must be looked at isolation, not reliant on past impressions. The probability is not perfect (it's only perfect if it comes to pass, right?), but I think what I put above compares us to reliable, proven historical benchmarks and also considers the reliability of the league table at this time as a predictive tool. In reality we're talking about a percentage chance so no-one can really be right or wrong. A pure numbers model is weak on looking at how individuals affect the situation so the reality is probably somewhere in between. I prefer to take my number though, and I think we'll finish 3rd, making this season the greatest achievement in Premiership history. Hey, I can dream right? This is a rarity for me, most of my sports data analysis of the past goes on combat sports, which is a vastly more predictable environment!
It might not, but 70-72 points is the threshold at which it'd take an absolutely ridiculous performance from one of the chasers to catch us. Spurs would need 34 points in 16 to reach 71...that'd be something like 11 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses.
Betfair isn't like that, as they aren't bookmakers. Betfair exchange betting sets you against me, your money against mine. They just take a percentage from the winner. They have been shown, in study after study, to be astoundingly accurate. Accurate enough that in a paper from Zurich University, they show that a viable and profitable betting strategy is blindly to bet when bookmakers' odds exceed Betfair's. (I STRONGLY recommend that anyone interested in odds and betting downloads it free from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1503350 ) I also feel, however, that 42% has a more reasonable ring to it. And it's not bad at all. Vin
