SaintBobby

You've been very specific. I just think it's nuts to assume there is any plausible scenario in which we end up level on points with West Ham and/or Reading but falling behind them owing to goal difference. It really is a 1,000,000 to 1 chance or even wilder. The truth is that our chance of being promoted if we get 91 points is 100%. If we get 90 points, it's 99.9999999999999999999999% The truth is that our chance of winning the league if we get 95 points is 100%. If we get 94 points, it's 99.99999999999999999999% I just don't think it's worth worrying about that 0.000000000000000000001 % chance. You're best to just round down the points we need (to 94 and 90) rather than worry about being utterly certain to the twentieth decimal point.

Yep, that works. If West Ham lose their next three fixtures and we beat Blackpool, then we are effectively promoted if we beat Portsmouth (treating our GD as uncatchable). This seems to me a very unlikely state of affairs though - and might not be a state of affairs I even want to happen (I'm not sure I want Reading beating West Ham at the moment!)

Definitely agree that promotion is the top priority and winning the Championship is a bonus, but - by way of illustration - which scenario would you rather have: 1. Saints 95% certain of promotion and 60% sure of winning the championship or 2. Saints 94% certain of promotion and 85% sure of winning the championship I'd take the (small) extra risk and choose no.2 - even though we're less likely to be promoted.

Damn you...you had me toasting almost certain promotion there for a moment ;-)

As pointed out on another thread, your maths are out here I think. If West Ham lose their next two, they can still get 87 points, meaning we'd need 9 or 10 more points (depending on whether you treat our GD as uncatchable) Am I right?

Is that right? If West Ham lose their next two games, they could still get to a total of 87 points, no? Meaning we'd need 9 more (if you count our GD as uncatchable) or 10 more if you don't.

If West Ham lose to Posh, I think I'd want them to go on to beat Reading. Yes, it would shave a tiny fraction off our chances of getting promoted, but it would substantially boost our chances of going up as champions. There's some sort of acceptable trade-off here in % terms, but I'm not sure what it is....

Well, in those circumstances, not all things are equal. I've left early twice in about 250 home games. Once because the trains back to London were insanely f**ked on the day and I absolutely had to be back by 8pm for family reasons. Once because I had to make a flight or something. But I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority are just "beating the traffic." Either that or Saints fans have a jaw-droppingly disproportionate number of very sick relatives...

Well, in theory, there could be an on-the-pitch punch up at the Pompey game and both teams get docked 2 points. The chances are tiny, but if we're going to include the infintesimallly microscopic chance of our GD being overhauled, we might as well include all such off-the-scale improbabilities. As a matter of interest, would you have said going into the Walsall game on the final game of last season that we needed a draw to guarantee going up? (technically we did, because if we'd lost and Huddersfield had won 14-0 or something mental, we'd have slipped to third). Once you start factoring in chances that have a smaller chance than us all dying in an all-out thermonuclear war before the end of the season, I wonder how practical and useful the calculations really are? (Don't get me wrong, I love these nerdy mathematical threads, just think you've made a way too cautious assumption in your reasoning)

Is it safe to build in to the equation that we will finish with a superior goal difference to both West Ham and Reading? It's not a mathematical certainty of course, but seems pretty much nailed on. If we're going to consider circumstances in which we're caught on Goal Difference, we may as well consider circumstances where we get some strange points deduction for some highly obscure reason. So, I'd say that 16 more points guarantees us the Championship and 13 more points guarantees us promotion - not 17 and 14 as you have it here.

You're staying behind to cheer the team off the pitch and to will them on for every last second. To try and cheer Billy onto a hatrick etc. Sure, if you just hear your wife's given birth or a relative has been rushed to hospital, leave. But f**king off ten minutes early in order to save yourself 15-20 minutes isn't being as good a fan as cheering the team on to the very end and saluting them off the park. I can't believe that's even in doubt.

I disagree. All things being equal, you ARE a better fan if you stay to the end. All things might not be equal, of course....

Gees. I'd forgotten how badly Birmingham had faded over the last ten games.

Sharp for me. I didn't think Lallana was at his best today. Involved, but a lot of the stuff he tried didn't quite come off for me. Honourable mention to Schneiderlin, who always seems to justify being in the "top 3" performances these days, even if he's a rare choice for MOTM.

I'm kind of treating Blackpool as a "bonus game". It's probably our toughest remaining fixture and I'd take a point right now, given our league position.

Oh, and leaving on 81/82 minutes is utterly mad. You can save as much time by leaving on 88/89/90.

I never leave early unless I have one hell of an excuse. If others wish to that's pretty sad and up to them. What I do object to people pushing across my line of view while the ball is in play. Wait for a f*cking break in play you ignorant tw*ts. FFS.

West Ham are fading at just the wrong time (from their perspective). The term "must win" if over-used. But if they don't beat Reading, their chances of automatic promotion start looking pretty feeble.

He didn't believe we'd finish 17th. The bloke is just a fool. He was trotting out the same rubbish even when the chances of us finishing that low were, objectively, less than one in a million. It's like a monkey with a typewriter.

Just travelling back from the game. Pretty comfortable and measured display. We do seem to be grinding out results rather than dazzling (which is absolutely fine by me at this stage in the season). Most encouragingly of all, we don't yet seem to be showing any nerves as we approach the promise land (did Kelvin have a single save to make?) We're not there yet, but damned close. West Ham will have to get ten points more than us over the remaining games in order to catch us up (given our superior goal difference). On their present run, they might not even get ten points. A couple more wins and we're probably there. Obviously, promotion is the main thing, but I'd dearly love to go up as Champions and to win the division for the first time in our history. So, I can imagine myself cheering on West Ham against Reading, especially if they fail to beat Posh midweek. Happy days.

How does this policy raise much money? It's a minimum price not a tax, the revenues will be microscopic.

I agree. Rupert Lowe probably is better than Carroll.

I'm more worried by Pardew making a big bid than Liverpool. Still, live for today and all that...

My (slightly pessimistic) predictions had West Ham finishing on 88 points, us on 87 and Reading on 80. I had us winning our home games vs the bottom three and drawing our game v Reading. On the road, I had us losing to Blackpool and Boro and drawing with Posh and Palace.

My main hope is that we're mathematically certain of promotion before the Coventry game and ideally confirmed as champions. That would generate an atmosphere similar to Walsall last year and perserve nerves and fingernails. The Reading game looks like the effective clincher for me, though. A win and we have a lot of breathing space potentially. A defeat or draw and hings could be very tight. I keep trying to work out under which circumstances I want the W Ham-Reading game to be a home win, away win or draw, but it just makes my head hurt.