SaintBobby

Given that players can wear any sort of name on the back of their shirt ("Chicarito" or whatever), my advice is that we ask a cigarette company to pay a mint for J-Rod to partner Rickie up front if he decides his nickname is "Butler" for the purposes of the shirt. Similarly, our centre back pairing should offer to change their names to Mr Benson and Mr Hedges. It's the future.

If it's impossible to predict what will happen, then pray tell.... how you can say with such certainty that 39 points will lead to relegation? Bless.

It's something like this: Chance that 39 points is enough 94% Chance of Saints getting at least 39 points 100% Chance of relegation in this scenario =0% Chance that 40 points is needed 5.5% Chance of Saints getting at least 40 points 97% Chance of relegation in this scenario = 0.165% Chance that 41 points is needed 0.5% Chance of Saints getting at least 41 points 80% Chance of relegation in this scenario = 0.1% Chance that 42 points is needed (now zero %, I think?) I think the odds are actually a bit lower than this, but that's a very rough indication.

Sensible bookies will disagree on whether it's 0.08% or 0.03% or 0.1%. But as long as they have total fools willing to bet money at odds which are wrong by a factor of 10 or more, they are laughing. Most bookies closed the book on Saints a week or so ago. Some of them have now realised there is a market of cretins willing to put money on a spectacularly unlikely event at (relatively) short odds. William Hill, Victor Chandler and other smart people are very happy to take money from the wallets of innumerate, irrational and very stupid people. And good luck to them.

It's like the Mayan calendar apocalypse loonies. Armageddon will occur on May 12th 2009. Oh, sorry, I got that a bit wrong. I mean June 9th, 2010. Nope, that was a tad wrong too. It's May 18th 2013. If you keep saying the world will end tomorrow, one day you'll be right. But people are entirely right to treat you as a blithering idiot before, during and even afterwards.

The bookies are laughing. They have wet Saints fans placing money at 100/1 or 150/1 on an event (Saints relegation) that is actually about 2,000/1 This is why bookmakers make money on sport, And why drama queens on football forums do not.

The odds of all of those results happening is 1,245/1 And even if they all did, Saints would still stand a pretty damned good chance of staying up.

A draw would be exceptionally good news. I might even take a one goal defeat is you offered it to me now. (which sounds weird, but would mean we preserve our much superior goal difference over Villa and Wigan, which might just start to look dicey were we to lose 6-0)

Has any team gone down when 7 points clear of 1 team to play and 5 clear of another, with those teams having just 4 games to play? No.

I'm going to stick up a bit for both Jos and Fox (a bit) Both had poor games yesterday for sure and I wouldn't want either in my starting XI as a rule. But, I'd still count them just about as "adequate "cover". My definition of "cover" though isn't being in the team ahead of Fonte, Forren and Shaw. My definition of "cover" (at least for defenders) is that we'd ideally hope never to use you in the first team, but we might just need to throw you in for a few minutes here or a few minutes there. In absolute extremis, because of injuries or suspensions, you might even have to start a very small handful of games - but we'd look to move to the loan market or sign a new player or rush anotehr player back from the treatment room as soon as we possibly could. So, to my mind, Seaborne is "cover" this season. Hoovield is actually one of our first choice centre backs FFS. And Fox doesn't seem to be "cover" for Shaw, he seems to be an alternative to Shaw. I'd be happy for Hoovield to be our 5th or 6th choice centre back next season (similar to Seaborne this season) - definitely not in our top three or even four. I'd be happy for Fox to be our 3rd choice left back behind Shaw and A.N. Other (similar to Richardson role this season). That to my mind is what is meant by "cover" - not actually being part of the starting XI on a pretty regular basis.

Le Fondre. As an impact sub?

Again, I don'y buy this. If I recall, when we kicked off our last League One game against Walsall, we weren't mathematically safe. If we'd lost 7-0 and Huddersfield had won 8-0, we'd have been pipped for the 2nd slot. We weren't really mathematically safe until, what?, the last 10 or 15 minutes of that game. But it would have been an odd thing to worry about.

It's also true, as I type, that neither QPR nor Reading are 100% sure to be relegated, but it's so certain both will be as to make no real difference.

I'm not sure I really buy that. I'd have said Man Utd were easily safe by the time they'd accumulated 39 points, although it would have been true that they'd be cutting it fine if they'd lost all their remaining games. Sure, it's more likely we will lose 3 in a row than Man Utd would lose c.23 in a row, but this really comes down to whether you're using absolute maths or not. There is still a very small % chance we'll go down, but as I've said before, if you're worried about the future of Saints over the next few months, relegation should not be your top worry.

Sure, it might be close. But that's a rather different thing. I'd still say it's about 95% certain that we go into the Stoke game effectively guaranteed to stay up (e.g. as long as we don't lose 10-0 or something mental). The final table might still look close though. I think back in the early 90s we were 7 points clear with two games to go and ended up just 1 point clear of the relegation zone. Anyway, the final table looked tight but in reality, we'd been safe for a while. Might happen again...

For us to be relegated, you basically need the following to happen: Saints to get zero points from 3 games AND Wigan to get 8+ points from 4 games AND Villa to get 6+ points from 4 games AND Newcastle to get 3+ points from 3 games AND Norwich to get 2+ points from 3 games The chance of all these things happening is as close to 0% as makes no difference. If we decide to not just lose all remaining games, but to lose them all by 3 or 4 goals, it gets a bit tighter. But not much. Bewilderingly, we're still only 3 points away from 9th place.

Yes. Probably slightly safer than at 3pm. Even if we lose all our remaining games, it's very, very unlikely that we'd go down. We're more likely to be kicked out of the league for some irregularity or go bankrupt before the Summer than we are to finish in the bottom 3. If you're worried about our immediate future, it's more rational to worry about the first two issues than the chances of being relegated tbh.

42 points is safe. Hope this helps. Unless you think Swansea and Fulham are in the relegation mire. Looks like one of Wigan or Villa will finish on under 38 points, tbh.

Pretty poor today. Wouldn't say abject. Thought we'd get a point until they hit us for 2-0. Morgan was good. Boruc okay. Everyone else below par. I left with 6 mins to go to cheer on Spurs. Would have got a tad nervous if Wigan had won. But we are possibly even safer now than we were at 3pm as the games are running out. No change, at worst. Wigan prob need 8 points and Villa 6 points. At least. Even assuming we lose all the last 3 games.

...between losing 3-0 and having 2 players sent off or losing 4-0 and only having one player sent off, which would you choose?

If you're willing to throw in a guarantee that Luke Shaw signs a ten year contract, I'd have to plump for the latter on balance...

If you had to choose between Saints winning the Premier League next season or merely coming in the top 4 next season and then winning the Champions League Final 4-0 against Barcelona the season after, which would you choose? ;-)

There's only so many ways you can conlcusively prove people wrong on the GD argument without finally giving up on any appeal to rationality or numeracy. As for the game, I guess another low key draw. 1-1

You what? OMFG. If points are rounded to the nearest whole number, a superior goal difference is worth zero points. Unless you care to show me a table where this mystical "equated point" has been added. Who will get the "bonus point" this year in the Premier League? Do tell... God, what an innumerate, dribbling cretin you truly are.

Given on the "WBA build up thread" you are unable to distinguish between the numbers 0, 0.5 and 1, I'm inclined to treat your tax advice with considerable scepticism. Or is the £13m BVI loan the "equivalent" of guaranteed riches for ever? To load the company with debt and then write off for equity is close to standard procedure. But it would be unusual behaviour if you're highly liquid and very rich to actually borrow this money rather than provide it from your portfolio. If the Liebherrs can borrow from the BVI at X% and make X+% from such loans, this would be mildly surprising. To use Southampton Football Club as your financial vehicle to facilitate such a loan - if you're worth £5bn - would be very surprising. Not utterly inconceivable. But definitely eyebrow-raising.