Last season: City played & beat 'Boro,Brighton,Sunderland , Sheff Utd and Arsenal (in the first half). This season so far, Arsenal will have played City, Brighton and 'Boro, with Sunderland & Sheff Utd still left in the mix. Interesting. Wonder what the odds are for Arsenal to win the cup this season after beating all the teams we did last year, except of course Southend ?
Really low at this point. Looking at just the draws themselves they've got about 7/4 chance of drawing Sunderland and Sheff U in the next 3 rounds*. Obviously match odds make a huge difference depending on who they draw in each round. Bookies odds will be much lower if Cambridge beat Man U than the other way round as that affects Sheff U's chances of being in the draw for the Quarters in the first place. *Assuming Arsenal win every game, and Sunderland/Sheff U beat anyone else they're drawn against there's a 4/1 chance of doing it in the Quarter's and Semis, and 3/2 chance of doing it in the Semis and Final. On the same assumption about winning games there's also 2/1 chance of Sunderland and Sheff U drawing each other in either the Quarter or Semi Finals. If you mean the odds when they entered at the 3rd Round it will have been 1000s/1. I worked out 850/1 even if you assume that the teams win the games they need to and don't get drawn against each other (that was to play the same 6 teams from 3rd Round to Final, assuming they were all in the 3rd Round draw). In reality it would be a lot higher, just putting back in the possibility of the other teams drawing each other in the 1/4 Final (so you've drawn 1 of the 3 left in and the other 2 get paired up) the odds of doing it went up to over 1000/1, and that's just one round out of six).
When you take into consideration the multi-league "ranking" factor ( i.e. the "giant-killer" possibility or improbability of giant-killing) superimposed onto the odds of who's drawn out of the hat against who in each successive round, we're surely talking in the 10s of thousands/1 odds, maybe even 100's of thousands/1 ? I find it fascinating. The odds of Sheff Utd getting to the semi's last season must have been enormous. A similar situation may happen this year (them or some other outsider). That type of situation must have a multiplying factor too no ? As you say, the closer you get to the final, and the more of the teams we met remain, the lower the odds of my scenario happening. I'll be watching the rest of the rounds with bated breath.
Now that's a separate set of odds. The chances of a small side making the semis aren't going to be particularly high unless you pick that team from the start. From the 3rd Round (prior to which they were one of the big clubs in it so I'm not counting them in from there) Sheff U had Villa, Fulham, Forest, and Charlton (before we beat them). Whilst getting to the semi-final makes it seem incredibly good, the odds won't have been that great for a 4 game accumulator on them. Easy/easyish runs aren't rare, our run wasn't exactly taxing either. Sunderland were the highest placed side we were up against. Look at Chelsea this year, ok they've lost to Bradford but had they not their run would be Watford, Bradford, then Sunderland or Fulham. It's not exactly the most likely to generate big odds if you were to say Sheff U would have that run instead of Chelsea, and if Fulham do Sunderland it would have been 3 Championship clubs to get to the 1/4 Final. The odds before the 3rd Round draw on either of us last season would have been high at the bookies, but that's based more on what people expect and bet on than on the real chances of it happening. People just think a small team doesn't have much chance of getting to the last 4, but all it takes is a kind draw somewhere along the way taking out a lot of the big clubs and you're almost guaranteed a small team will get that far. eg you get Man U vs Chelsea and Liverpool vs Arsenal, at least 2 of them have gone immediately and the chances of a small club making the semis go up drastically. btw, the very minimum odds for repeating a Cup run from 3rd Round to Final (same teams, played in any order at either ground) are just over 2,000/1, based on the teams being in the 3rd Round (which is guaranteed if for example you were to play all PL sides one season they would all be in the draw the next season). That's the 850/1 odds from earlier adjusted to make sure that the teams you're not drawn against that round aren't playing each other. (Match odds still not included as you can't calculate them easily)
I will just get my mate Steve Hawkings to check out your calcs. His reply was "he couldn't give a flying f**k cause he is now rich beyond his wildest dreams".
Bradford City have a great chance of an FAC semi final especially if they get drawn in the qtrs against the winners of the derby/reading game.
another coincidence is that on each occasion when west ham have won the cup they were given ball 15 in the fifth round, guess what number they where this time round !
