Big yella wrote:halifaxstag wrote:So in a tense finish to the season the table looks like this
Team A P45 81 pts
Team B P45 81 pts
Team C P45 81 pts
Team D P45 80 pts
Team E P45 78 pts
Teams A, B and C all assume they are going up because they have more than 80 points.
Last game of the season -Team A win-84 Team B draw-82 and Team C lose-81. Team D also lose to finish on 80 points and Team E win to finish on 81 points. Team A and Team B go up and Teams C and E also go up because they have finished above Team D and also have more than 80 points.
NOOOO
Once again it has nothing to do with points totals after 45 games. If at the end of the season, after 46 games the team in fourth has 80 points, the team in third will have 81 or more.
The original poster is saying that if the team in fourth after 46 games has attained the average of 80 points, the team in third only has to have 81. They may well have more, in fact the average is 83. However, if fourth was only ever going to get the average of 80, they were effectively safe once they hit 81.
So take your scenario but give teams d and e 77 points after 45 games. They all win except c. Team d will have finished fourth with the average points total for that position of 80 points. Team c will have finished third on 81 points, two less than the average for that position. But they still finish third. In your exact scenario the team finishing fourth hasn’t ended the season on 80 points they have ended it on 81. Therefore the team in third had to get 82 or more.
Yes in the middle of a season if you go above fourth you become fourth, but in the final table after every game is played if you beat fourth you are at least third. If fourth is 80 points after all 46 games 81 gets you up. You are third you don’t have to beat third.
I know this, I was being facetious.
At the end of the day/season statistics are only a tool and can be interpreted in different ways. I doubt very much that the table has ever finished in an “average” position where all teams are near to the average points for the position they finish in. In my opinion the team finishing fourth this season will have more than 81 points as possibly as many as 84/85.
We just need to keep picking up points and enjoy the ride.