Maths please. We’ve had enough yanko wanko.
Too long didn't read alert; teams can't accumulate points without others losing them, so if the 6 teams below us (that all could arguably escape relegation) starting winning all their games, the total for staying up still reverts to the mean (around 46)
Well TV is crap so..
The fundamental maths behind a league system is that there is a maximum total of points that can be distributed in any one season (in the Championship, its 3 points for a win x 552 games) - 1656 points, that total starts dropping the moment two teams draw a game (throwing 1 available point away..), the more draws there are in a season, the less that total is going to be, fairly obvious stuff.. but when you have teams at the top accumulating so many points (and wins), and one rotten team at the bottom not doing so, its an important consideration.
If we take the 6 teams below us that are looking to escape relegation, that is 50% of the available points every round/weekend, leaving a maximum 216 points that those teams can get (between them)
Thats great, but when we take into consideration that those 6 teams will inevitably play one another in the remainder of the season, that points total comes down once again, for example we have 5 games against the teams below us..
I'm going to assume thats above average and the other 5 teams have an average of 3 games against the 'bottom 6', leaving a total 20 games (their 15 plus our 5) where teams will play one another in a 'mini league', meaning we can take a total of 60 points off of the maximum total - leaving us with a new total of 156 points available to our bottom 6.
But.. remember that when teams draw, they throw 1 point away.. so if we make a fair assumption that 50% of those games may be drawn, thats another 10 points off of the maximum total available, leaving 146
Lets divide that total by the 6 teams, leaving the assumption that if all of them just decided to get on their bike and hit promotion type form, winning a lot of games, they would average 24 points (24.3 to be exact) between now and the end of the season, in that instance the last team in the relegation zone (Stoke), would reach 59 points.
But lets keep in mind that in this raving bonkers scenario, there would be teams in the league elsewhere that would be dropping points at an alarming rate (swapping form with the 6 other teams, essentially), so lets calculate the average points they would get;
If the 5 teams above us have an average of 3 games against the bottom 6 (we actually have 4) that leaves 18 games and 54 points available, if we keep our assumed 50% win/draw rate, thats a projection of 27 points for the other 5 teams, share it amongst them and call it 5.5 points each
If the team immediately above us (Blackburn, who are actually on the same points as us - 39), only get 5.5 points between now and the end of the season, that leaves them with a total of 44.5 points, demonstrating that the maths behind a league structure will always mean that the average points total for certain positions (in this case 21st), will always revert to a certain parameter (the mean is round 46 I believe)
You may think, well what if those 5 teams above us win their other 9 games against the top half of the league, raising the mean total? You can calculate it and it would mean the total is higher, but its simply a projection that the implosion of form is coming from higher up the table, it becomes a more bonkers scenario when you suggest the top half of the table are going to just collapse in form
You can tweak it to whatever scenario you wish, but the total for safety is always going to fall within a certain paremeter, depending on the share of points in the whole league, my observation is that the points distribution between the top 4 and the bottom is too big for 22nd position to rise above 50 points.