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Unkind Fixtures

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A little bit of fun now that we seem to have possibly turned the corner!.

As I have mentioned previously, I did a wee bit of mathematical modelling in my youth and I've tried over last few years to predict Everton's points over the whole season starting from the start of the season. This is roughly done by giving every team a co-oefficient (like Uefa does) and takes into account 3 consecutive fixtures ? ie 3 poor teams on run is likely to predict 7-9 points, 3 good teams maybe only 3-4 points, but if we only get 1 pt or so it then effects our next 3 games... Bored? Good!!!

Last year I predicted 63 points back in August, finished with 65 ? not bad. I update model with the true result and then get new prediction of total points. The highest prediction was 67 points after the Sunderland away win.

This season's initial prediction turned out to be 62 points. Current prediction is 55 points only ? even though we are only 1 point different from last season at same stage.

The reason I have just realised is the "unkind fixtures!" we have been given. Last season, the BIg 4 games were spread, and therefore no serious knock-on effects to loosing to them. This season we have:-

Oct - Liverpool, Newcastle, Arsenal, Man Utd
Nov - Aston Villa and Chelsea
Jan - Liverpool, Arsenal, Man Utd
Apr - Aston Villa and Chelsea

As you would expect, we don't gain many points and the effect is dramatic. Therefore, last night's win was excellent as I had predicted a draw.

Hope you all have a laugh ? regular updates available if required.

COYB
Mike Oates, South Coast     Posted 30/10/2008 at 12:44:54

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Erik Dols
1   Posted 30/10/2008 at 15:00:39

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Mike, I for one always like to read your statistical views. Keep up the good work!

Personally, I don?t care about playing the RS, Arsenal and Man U in January. We have had some decent runs in January under Moyes? tenure. And especially Arsenal always seems to struggle in the winter, certainly when playing ?go-for-their-throat? teams in the North of England. Man U is becoming more and more of a continental sunshine side as well. I?d rather play them then than at the end of a season where we traditionally break down and would get hammered by the Arsenal youngsters.
Gary Creaney
2   Posted 30/10/2008 at 15:31:25

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Mike, what I find amazing about this all (and I hadn?t realised it until I read your piece) is that at this stage last year we had 13 points and this year we have 12.

I suppose the difference comes in the cup competitions i.e last year we won games in Europe and the Carling Cup whereby this year we didn?t win any of those.

Given that we don?t have the ?distraction? of european or Carling Cup games, there is no reason why we can?t push ourselves into the top 6 before Christmas. I still have faith in our players and our manager.
Steve Hopkins
3   Posted 30/10/2008 at 15:38:21

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Excuse my ignorance but what?s mathematical modelling? I?ve got an image of Carol Vorderman draped seductively across the Countdown desk with just a consonant protecting her modesty :-)
James Marshall
4   Posted 30/10/2008 at 15:45:16

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Gary, he means using mathematical facts to describe a situation, this one being where Everton are/could be in the table.
Michael Hunt
5   Posted 30/10/2008 at 16:09:30

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Excellent Mike, sounds like a pretty good model based on it’s acccuracy last year. Good on you, would be good to be updated periodically :-)
Where does your model say we’ll finish versus Villa? (As they seem like the leading ’best of the rest’ team best able to usurp our position last year.)
Keith Glazzard
6   Posted 30/10/2008 at 16:55:28

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Thanks Mike - and I second that motion to keep us updated. I use a very crude little ’model’ myself (no Kate Moss jokes please) to look at the relation between goals scored and points. At the end of the game the player that scores the goal to ensure a draw gets one point. The ’matchwinner’ gets 2, and in a 7-1 victory that would be goal number two (crude, as I said - you might suggest a better way of doing this or something like it).

Not much to go at unfortunately so far this season, but so far we have Fallaini (5); Cahill, Osman, Yakubu (2 each); Anichebe (1) = 12 points.
Gary Creaney
7   Posted 30/10/2008 at 17:48:55

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James Marshall, wasn’t your above tutorial for Steve.

James Marshall
8   Posted 30/10/2008 at 18:00:33

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Steve, Gary...... John, Paul, George, Ringo, whatever!
Brett Bradshaw
9   Posted 30/10/2008 at 18:36:23

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Mike, if we have a few tough patches, we would surely have a few more moral boosting easier patches, am I right?

It could be handy getting a good 9 or 12 points going into one of the tougher patches, it may even see us through one!

I think we will do Chelsea this year!
Mike Oates
10   Posted 30/10/2008 at 20:02:03

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Michael - My model is very detailed for Everton, not for any other team, but in using some facts from it I try to also estimate final league placings based on 2 criteria:
(i) this season alone form - Villa will end 4th
(ii) last & this season form - Villa will end 5th
(Everton on same basis - 8th , 7th)

Brett - 2 good patches
(i) W Brom (H), Blackburn (A), Stoke (H), Portsmouth (A), Wigan (H) - forecast 11 out of 15, think about Feb/Mar
(ii) Man City (H), Sunderland (A), Spurs (H), West Ham (H), Fulham (A) 10 out of 15, final games of season.
Simon Walker
11   Posted 31/10/2008 at 04:38:17

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Wow, I’d love to get updates on this if you have them, I was a bit of a mathematician in my youth and I love a good stat.
I’ve also tried to create a few betting schemes in my time which involved a lot of statistical work.

If there was some way I could get my email address to you would you consider doing some sort of mailshot ? Only if you have it all written down already of course, I don’t want you going out of your way to present it all and such like but I presume you’ve got spreadsheets and the like on the go so it might not be too much of an overhead.

Anyway, good work, big thumbs up
Richard Harris
12   Posted 31/10/2008 at 10:24:44

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Unkind fixtures? If you want to be a successful team that wins anything then bring on the difficult fixtures!! A good team bounces back after defeat. Just look at how Chelsea dominated against Hull after the loss to Liverpool. Even with a kind run of fixtures or an easy draw in a cup competition at some point you have to beat a very good team to win a trophy. Otherwise we fall into the England football syndrome where we would have won the European Championship/World Cup if only we?d had a favourable draw!!
Mark Jensen
13   Posted 31/10/2008 at 11:24:01

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Not wishing to be unkind but I use the league table as a judge of how well we are doing and where we are likely to finish. My ’rocket science’ approach reveals we are not doing very well and we should do better. I managed to work this out without a spreadsheet or calculator!!!
Joe McMahon
14   Posted 31/10/2008 at 14:10:14

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It?s bizarre isn?t it... every season we always end up having to play every team twice........ tumbleweed everywhere!
Mike Hughes
15   Posted 31/10/2008 at 18:36:03

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By my calculations we?re 5 points worse off this season compared to last season after 10 games ? not 1 point as mentioned above. I only checked as I was surprised by the above statement. So much for mathematical modelling.
Mike Oates
16   Posted 01/11/2008 at 11:16:26

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Mike Hughes

Just check again and use your toes once you get past your 10 fingers.
I dont think you know how to calculate !!

Your error might be you counted League Cup or Uefa Cup as points.

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