Going into the last game of the 2011/2012 season

[Gulliball]

Let's hope that one of the Accrington lads will be our new Shane Duff. I signed him on every Championship Manager save for three years after that.

[Northumbergull]

Austrian Andy and Nick, I couldn't agree more about not taunting the Hereford fans. They are a decent club like ourselves.

Regiment, a good consolation would be to beat Creepy at Wembley!

Still think we can do it because Hereford will have to come at us big time as they HAVE to win, leaving gaps at their back, ever more so as the game wears on.

Cheers

Bruce

[Gullscorer]

Martin Ling will have memories of Orient's game at Oxford six years ago, when the O's needed a win to secure promotion. Three familiar names in the Oxford side then: Lee Mansell, Chris Hargreaves, and Tim Sills...!
http://www.leytonorient.com/page/MatchR ... 06,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[MuzDog]

Apologies for this, but I've been a bit of a statto, and by taking the best bookies' match odds for each outcome worked out that we have a one in five chance of getting the third spot.

This is worked out on the basis that Torquay have a 44% chance of a win, a 26% chance of a draw (which mathematically is a 1.01% chance of us getting promoted with a draw!) and a 30% chance of a loss, according to the bookies.
Southend's stats are 77% win, 16% draw, 7% lose.
Crawley's are 58% win, 25% draw, 17% lose.

Taking this into account and using it to work out the chances of each of the 27 possible outcomes from the results between the three clubs still with an automatic chance, there is a 16.13% chance of us finishing 3rd with Southend 4th, and a 3.36% chance of us grabbing 3rd spot with Crawley 4th. Combined is 19.49%, or just under one in five.

The other outcomes are:
Southend 3rd, Crawley 4th: 15.54%
Southend 3rd, Torquay 4th: 3.40%
Southend promoted automatically: 18.94%

Crawley 3rd, Torquay 4th: 32.62%
Crawley 3rd, Southend 4th: 28.99%
Crawley promoted automatically: 61.61%

So although we have a marginally better chance over Southend of going up, we have in fact a 36.02% chance of finishing 4th and a 44.53% chance of finishing 5th! But if we have to settle for the play-offs I think I'd rather that we played Cheltenham (who are assured 6th spot) than Crewe in the semis, who although we gave a good account of ourselves on Saturday, are without doubt the form team in the division at the moment. So if we are not going to get promoted automatically, finishing 5th may be a blessing.

[lexusguy]

WOW MuzDog very impressive
Carol Vorderman eat your heart out

[coley in stripes]

Muzdog, that was really impressive BUT if you work out the stats based on the League table it reflects differently. Gulls are playing a worse positioned team with less points won at home than most when Crawley face a team that have a good ratio of points gained at home. Although I can't provide stats, it seems 'plum' that Crawley & Accy will draw. Gulls should narrowly win and no Comment on Southend (not needed)>

[gullintwoplaces]

@MuzDog. Impressive, but misconceived! It's all a bit like saying that the "expected value" of an event with multiple possible outcomes is the weighted average of all the "expected outcomes" of that event. Yes it is, but in reality the outcome will be ONE of the expected outcomes, not a weighted average. Either we will go up or we won't, I can't predict what will happen on Saturday, but can say for certain that (1) it is in the hands of the Gulls to win at Hereford (imbecilic refs notwithstanding) and (2) Accy WILL try to beat Crawley. On that basis we have a chance, but must win at Hereford first!!

The other thing that I would say is that the form team often fail to win the play-offs.

[AustrianAndyGull]

I'm confused. Can we not just keep it to - win and if Crawley don't we're up?

[bixieupnorth]

or draw and if crawley lose and southend draw or lose!!

[bixieupnorth]

i need to work out a bet to cover the disappointment of not going up, i remember cursing myself driving back from colchester that i hadnt covered the freak set of results that sent us back from whence we came

so
1. we draw crawley draw southend win
2. we win crawley win southend win
3. we draw crawley draw southend draw
4. crawley draw we lose southend draw

oh i give up theres still too many options to consider!

[popside_yidlad]

Just back crawley like I have been for weeks and you too can be delightfully poor lol

[Sexy_Gulls]

Adding to MuzDog's statgasm...

There are 27 possible combinations of results on saturday. (3 teams with 3 outcomes each so 3x3x3=27)

assuming all combinations are equally likely then... (Keep up at the back)

If we win and Crawely draw or loose then we go up. (9 combinations where we win, but 3 of these involve Crawley winning to so 6 out of 27)

But also if we draw and Crawley loose and Southend draw or loose we go up. (9 combos where we draw, but 6 involve crawley wins or draws and 1 invoves a crawely loss and a southend win. SO 9-6-1=2)

SOOOOOO 6+2 =8 We have an 8/27 chance of going up. (Crawley have 15/27 and Southend 4/27)

8 / 27 is a bit less than 1 in 3. BUT as MuzDog has shown the betting odds are taller than 1 in 3 so we definitely have the harder game to play.


I'm bored

[AustrianAndyGull]

Basically all we need do is force Bix to bet on Crawley and Hereford to win both their games and we're onto a sure-fire winner! We'll be a league 1 club by half time!

[bixieupnorth]

will do mate!!