The mathematics of relegation

[rsmith]

Here is an interesting (well OK, maybe not that interesting) blog post about calculating the permutations that guarantee safety from relegation. http://www.spramod.info/using-smt-solvers-to-analyze-the-premier-league-table.html

The "answer" at the bottom of the post is ...
Minimum points to guarantee safety (current points in parenthesis).
West Ham United FC 47 ( 43 )
Stoke City FC 47 ( 43 )
Crystal Palace 47 ( 42 )
Everton FC 47 ( 38 )
Newcastle United 47 ( 35 )
West Bromwich Albion 47 ( 33 )
Aston Villa FC 47 ( 31 )
Sunderland AFC 46 ( 29 )
Hull City FC ?? ( 28 )
FC Burnley ?? ( 26 )
Leicester City 45 ( 25 )
Queens Park Rangers ?? ( 25 )

 

[Col_M]

Why are there some ??'s

 

[rsmith]

Why are there some ??'s

From the article "Note there are some teams which can't guarantee safety even if they win all their remaining matches. They will need one of the other teams to lose/draw some games to avoid relegation. These teams are shown with question marks in the table."

 

[BK007]

Seems just as useless as anything else.

You can't really say with a straight face that Crystal Palace or West Ham need any points to guarantee safety.

There is that minuscule chance, yes, but to require the crap that festers at the bottom of the PL all to hit league title form is impossible, so really there are some cases where a mathematical chance is as good as useless.

Even Newcastle, who would probably lose every game except against us, have no chance of being relegated when you'd need 5 teams to usurp them.

 

[WalkerboyUK]

Reality is that no-one above Villa is going down, not even WBA.
I suspect that they play each other as well in the coming weeks (can't be arsed to check).

 

[Lilbaz]

35 points will be enough this year.

 

[Everlasting Seconds]

No offence to the OP, but that thing, is seriously flawed and has nothing to do with reality.