You will have to delete my post as well SD as I quoted yours. Anyway, we won't get turned over today. They will try and play football against us, rather than bus parking or hoof ball, it's likely to be their downfall, but good luck to them and respect when they do.
Semis at Wembley is only a recent thing. Why can't we go back to regional neutral venues? If City play Utd, it shouldn't be played at Wembley. Or Rochdale v Wigan.
Or, as happened a few years back, the semi final between Spurs and Woolwich that was played at...Old Trafford.
T4 = top 4. NT4 = others. Each draw produces one of the following outcomes : NT4/NT4, NT4/T4, T4/NT4, T4/T4. Therefore for each draw, a T4-NT4 tie means either of NT4/T4 or T4/NT4 occurs. So for draw 1, the probability P of a T4-NT4 tie is P(NT4/T4) + P(T4/NT4) . P = (8 - 4) / 8 x [ (8 - 4) / (8 - 1) ] + (8 - 4) / 8 x [ (8 - 4) / (8 - 1) ] = 16/56 + 16/56 = 4/7. So more than 50:50 just on the first draw alone.
The odds of a T4 team drawing a NT4 team in the first tie is 4/7 (and remains 4/7 if all eight teams are re-drawn every time). But we're looking at the probability of 4 successive ties being drawn as T4 v NT4 (although the probability of the 4th being T4 v NT4 is 100% if the first three are)
Despite the actual draw being rigged, the authorities can't fix the actual outcome of a match. That is left to the footballing gods. Often we get a situation where a cup game is played between two sides who were due to meet anyway either in that same round of games or one week apart. As we see in tonight's game between City and Woolwich. So will those football gods be at work for the final? Spurs play Leicester on the last day of the season 13th May with the F.A cup final the week later.
Wouldn't we need those gods to schedule the CL final first before the FA Cup final if Spurs vs Leicester is the latter ?? < 1960-61 >
