Top four? Recent past says only United, City, Chelsea, Spurs or WBA will do it By Brian Sears

[whitestreak]

I'll go £10 to SC if we finish top four, as much as I'd like to finish above Arsenal, if they're 6th and we're 5th it wouldn't feel like a victory in the way us finishing 4th and them 5th would, if you know what I mean.

Happy with that!
How about a £10 each to SC if we beat the toffees today?

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

I believe we will get around 70 points.

BTW the bookies initially price this bet based on the Stats and the sample he tells me is too small

any chance you could explain these two comments to me whitethingy?

 

[whitestreak]

any chance you could explain these two comments to me whitethingy?

I believe we will get 70 points....kind of self explanatory!
spread bet bookies are continually sampling points spreads from existing results and making the market accordingly
this is normally based on sampling theory ie correlation and regression analysis...
but in simplistic terms moving averages of points gained over a rolling 38 games..

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

I believe we will get 70 points....kind of self explanatory!
spread bet bookies are continually sampling points spreads from existing results and making the market accordingly
this is normally based on sampling theory ie correlation and regression analysis...
but in simplistic terms moving averages of points gained over a rolling 38 games..

so the bookies have used only the past 5 seasons results to work out their spreads at the start of the season?

what is the spread now by the way? is it moving away from your 70 points? we'd need to win our next 3 games to have 35 points from the first 19 games of the season, so you'd expect that you were behind the curve a little. that said we play swansea, stoke and villa in those 3 games so we could get those 9 points.

personally i'm not convinced we'll get 70 points. it would match our best ever tally and i think we're a bit too inconsistent at the moment to go on a really good run and rack up the wins.

 

[lillywhites61]

SC seem to be doing well on bets regardless of who wins

 

[brasil_spur]

That's the difference between marketing and research. 5 years is nothing in scientific or historical terms, but obviously in marketing you have much shorter trends. The problem is, this is really a history question so a 5 season sample isn't large enough to draw a meaningful conclusion.

Not really, you can add more data into the sample, but in the case of something like the PL - where there are quite significant changes occurring (City winning the jackpot as one obvious example) i'm not sure you would get any more accurate analysis from adding more data. Perhaps even the opposite. Teams change over time, whereas a few seasons back Arsenal were virtually nailed on for a CL spot, that's just not the case any more, same to be said for Liverpool if you go back a little further.

Then you have to account for all the lower teams with money and form, the competitiveness of the league compared to more than 5 seasons ago, when it comes to the top 4 spots, is far different.

Of course in terms or scientific research a basic model like this one being used holds virtually no weight anyway.

 

[SNAFU_Clarke]

i dunno about that. at the start of every season since it began a league system has a set number of games and a set number of points available. the only real change to any model has involved 3 points for a win being introduced. changes to the relative strengths of specific, individual teams don't really mean that much do they? are far as i can work out any statistical analysis would regards them all as variables anyway and wouldn't pay any attention at all to changes in strength of team a over team b over time.

there will be shifts in overall competitiveness from one season to another but as for individual teams being more or less competitive it shouldn't really affect the number of points requried to win the league, or finish 4th, or avoid relegation in an average season.

it's down to the dynamics of that particular season. we could get 70 points and not get 4th. it's unlikely but it could happen.

 

[whitestreak]

Bumped!
Whilst we are still 7 points down on last season we now have scored the same amount of goals at the same stage!
ie after 21 games. in fact if we beat QPR up next game we close that gap to 4 points
I also believe we wont have the same kind of slump we did when 'arry was blinded by the England light...
beat QPR by more than 2 goals and our equivalent GD at the same time last year is improved on!

Sample size getting bigger now too!

 

[Dan Yeats]

Cobblers though the stats may be, WBA's showing this season really has been very impressive.

 

[whitestreak]

BUMP
We are now 1 point ahead of last season after 28 games scored 3 less than last year and let in 1 less

 

[whitestreak]

Oi Omar...your own predictor has us on 74 points!