Tranmere Proposal for Season End | Page 4 | Vital Football

Tranmere Proposal for Season End

I'm sure I saw an article on the bbc website saying some computer boffins had worked around 10,000 scenarios of outcomes for the most likely finish to the season and the bottom 3 would remain the same.
 
If the unprecedented effect of Covid 19 has made it impossible for lower league clubs to economically complete the season utilising their contracted squads, then the mathematical solution should be a very simple one, based on this season only. Surely average PPG should determine league places, with Clubs having to take the rough with the smooth. Tough on Tranmere perhaps, but some teams have to be in the bottom places.

Time for the EFL to get off their backsides, make a final decision and put everyone out of their misery.

In the future, points gained earlier on in the season might be regarded as a little more important than previously.
 
Luke Imp said:
Why have they opted for 3 years do you think?
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Good question ! They appear to have taken advice about the collection, use and presentation of the data from some form of expert. I can’t claim to be any form of expert, just an enthusiastic amateur backed by a maths degree which i’ve Long since forgotten !!
I suspect they were advised to keep the data relevant (EFL only) and up to date (last 3 seasons). However, I think they have used too small a sample size. The sample is made up of 216 items of data split between positive and negative results when comparing PPG proposed by EFL and what was actually achieved by the 72 clubs across the 3 divisions over 3 seasons (72x3=216). When you think published opinion polls are usually a sample of 1k to 2k people and these still carry an error margin of several %, imagine the likely margin of error of a considerably smaller sample.

Interestingly, Clive raised a point of issue that the margins of error used by Tranmere didn’t take into account effects which were observable in that there was a greater positivity of result showing in the bottom half of tables when teams were scrapping for their lives than the top half. So I split the data to test this hypothesis. Interestingly, it actually made Tranmere’s case stronger!
But maybe having tested the data in the way they had and having come up with a positive result for themselves, they were content to analyse it further to see what other possible benefits there were for other teams which might encourage them to look favourably on the proposal.
All I can say is Clive is a clever and astute gentleman and can see through the floors in this proposal (too small a sample size, the analytics are too broad based ie one size fits all, the error involving Birmingham’s points deduction which had a significant impact on the negative data). I think it really is unlikely to succeed. It will be a case of nice try :- )=
 
Davidimp said:
I'm sure I saw an article on the bbc website saying some computer boffins had worked around 10,000 scenarios of outcomes for the most likely finish to the season and the bottom 3 would remain the same.
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A nice bit of Monte Carlo simulation.... Don't get me going.
 
Back when this all first started, I mentioned on here a system which I thought of where home and away scores were added together if you had played a team twice to create one result and if only played once irrespective of home or away that was the result. EG Imps 3 Sunderland 3 1 point each etc etc. This scenario actually kept Tranmere up aswell. Still think they should take a number of scenarios and then divide to create final table but all should be from this season only. All other seasons are irrelevant. Especially as Tranmere were not a league side 3 seasons ago. If they did 3 seasons then this season, last season and then there last football league season should be used or their last 3 seasons at 3rd division level of football should be used. Pretty sure they would not stay up then
 
When I was a kid I used to have 2 dice, different coloured for the home and away teams. Pen and paper had all the fixtures on them. Dice were thrown. A six was no goals but 1-5 were the respective scores. So I could go through seasons simulating results.

Probably a little sad in retrospect but in a pre-internet age my results were just a likely as thousands of computer simulations done today.

The EFL just needs to tell clubs that it'll be done on PPG this season and suck that up. Alternatively invest in 2 dice and risk it to chance for all remaining fixtures for all clubs
 
sedgleyimp said:
When I was a kid I used to have 2 dice, different coloured for the home and away teams. Pen and paper had all the fixtures on them. Dice were thrown. A six was no goals but 1-5 were the respective scores. So I could go through seasons simulating results.

Probably a little sad in retrospect but in a pre-internet age my results were just a likely as thousands of computer simulations done today.

The EFL just needs to tell clubs that it'll be done on PPG this season and suck that up. Alternatively invest in 2 dice and risk it to chance for all remaining fixtures for all clubs
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I like your system! Let's use that for the remainder of the games.
 
First of all I do have sympathy for Tranmere, I'm still sore about the Southport goal in 74/75 season that denied us promotion to Divison 3 on goal average!

That said, the EFL are in the unfortunate position of not having such a contingency in place which is quite ironic really as it highlights the unpredictability of life in general, let alone sport.

I feel that those saying it is unrealistic for Tranmere to include a National League season in their figures are missing the point. Tranmere have created a model to illustrate the margin of error predictable in final points tallies, which if was robustly analysed, in theory, would actually be applicable to any division in any sport with different parameters needed for the number of matches completed and the number of remaining games. Duckworth Lewis in cricket is perhaps a relevant example?

In terms of the three year sample however, this is simply ludicrous, far too small. I would imagine it would be fairly straightforward to create a stochastic model that encompassed every known football league table back to 1880 or whenever it started. I'm not a statistician, but in simple terms a stochastic model gives the percentage chance of an outcome over a given timescale. Modelling of final league tables over 100 years plus would give a very high probability of accuracy but of course the actual number of games completed already would also have an effect. Again, Duckworth Lewis achieves an outcome including a time weighted bias.

In some ways all that is irrelevant. The EFL doesn't have a rule/law that dictates the outcome of a non completed season and regardless of the outcome of this season, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't, there will be winners and losers. I'm sure that going forward, clubs will be bound to a new set of rules that would determine final league positions in unforeseen events/curtailments of seasons. No one really thought the "goal average" rule was fair, but those were the rules in 1975!
 
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sedgleyimp said:
When I was a kid I used to have 2 dice, different coloured for the home and away teams. Pen and paper had all the fixtures on them. Dice were thrown. A six was no goals but 1-5 were the respective scores. So I could go through seasons simulating results.

Probably a little sad in retrospect but in a pre-internet age my results were just a likely as thousands of computer simulations done today.

The EFL just needs to tell clubs that it'll be done on PPG this season and suck that up. Alternatively invest in 2 dice and risk it to chance for all remaining fixtures for all clubs
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I must also be a little sad as I did the same thing only used the league clubs that began with L just 5 of them after Orient dropped the Leyton. Amazing how often Lincoln topped this mini table. Seem to recall playing a cricket game with dice, 1,2,3,4 and 6 were runs 5 out roll the dice again for how out. Life was so simple.
 
Impartiality said:
I must also be a little sad as I did the same thing only used the league clubs that began with L just 5 of them after Orient dropped the Leyton. Amazing how often Lincoln topped this mini table. Seem to recall playing a cricket game with dice, 1,2,3,4 and 6 were runs 5 out roll the dice again for how out. Life was so simple.
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I don’t know if anybody remembers a board game called Wembley, I still have mine. Although it was based around the FA Cup it had different coloured dice for home and away teams dependant on which division you were in. It always grated with me that Lincoln wasn’t one of the Div 3/4 clubs included but these clubs had a blue dice for the home team and a white dice for the away team. The home dice had more larger numbers on it than the away dice and thus weighed towards the home team. These seems just as sensible as the Tranmere proposal.
 
kettrin imp said:
I don’t know if anybody remembers a board game called Wembley, I still have mine. Although it was based around the FA Cup it had different coloured dice for home and away teams dependant on which division you were in. It always grated with me that Lincoln wasn’t one of the Div 3/4 clubs included but these clubs had a blue dice for the home team and a white dice for the away team. The home dice had more larger numbers on it than the away dice and thus weighed towards the home team. These seems just as sensible as the Tranmere proposal.
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Yes, remember it, we actually bought one for a grandson last year.

Blank cards were supplied so that you could replace one of the existing teams with your own favourite team, so the Imps were in my game.

The white (away) dice for Div 3/4 clubs had 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 5 I think, so there was always a chance of an upset.
 
You are right about replacing teams. I replaced Port Vale with Lincoln and despite my best efforts we never won the FA Cup.
 
domski2017 said:
Count the contradictions and errors if you can bear listening to the Prick for longer than ten minutes.
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I am interested in your use of capital letters, Dom: are you suggesting that 'the Prick' is now an official alter ego of the person concerned?
 
Eweimps said:
we did get closer to winning it in real life though Kettrin
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It really is a pinch yourself moment to look back and reflect that as a non league side we got to the last 8. It already feels like a long time ago though with what is going on.
 
hulloutpost said:
It really is a pinch yourself moment to look back and reflect that as a non league side we got to the last 8. It already feels like a long time ago though with what is going on.
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Everything feels like along time ago with what we have been through. It is 3 months and 1 day since we last watched the mighty imps grace the hallowed turf. 13 weeks and two days. Tbh it feels like 13 months ago!

Normally life seems to pass by so quickly yet for the last 3/4 months it seems to have almost stood still.
 
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