Permutations: what’s needed for a Toon top 10 finish?
Posted on May 20th, 2011 | 22 Comments |
I am a bit of a geek and the thought of permutations makes me moist with anticipation. I therefore had to inflict said permutations upon NUFCBlog’s readers.
Realistically, we will finish somewhere between 9th and 14th in the Premier League this season.
The fact that a span of 5 places all rests on the final is perhaps an indication of how close things have been outside of the top 6 or so this season.
The matches that affect us this weekend are:
Newcastle v West Brom (obviously)
Stoke v Wigan
Bolton v Man City
And if we don’t win, the following matches could affect our finishing position too:
Aston Villa v Liverpool
West Ham v Sunderland
If we lose we have the easiest to work out – but least desirable – situation. The highest we can finish is 12th and we could end up as low as 14th if Villa take any points and/or Sunderland win (if Sunderland draw they can’t jump above us).
If we beat West Brom we will be on 48 points and finish at least 11th. Then if either Bolton or Stoke don’t win, we’ll finish 10th and if both Bolton and Stoke don’t win we’ll finish 9th.
If we draw we’ll finish with 46 points and we need both Stoke and Bolton to lose and Villa and Sunderland not to win in order to sneak into 10th place.
Of course if we won 8-0 then the Fulham v Arsenal game would come into play and we could finish 8th, but I think we can ignore that possibility!
If there are errors in the mathematics, please assume Worky did all the calculations, otherwise I’m happy to take responsibility!
Either way, even a 14th position finish is 3 above the 17th position we allegedly targetted at the start of the season.
Who knows what the summer will bring? Ashley is certainly unpredictable but I don’t share the opinion of the worst of the pessimists: I think we will get a wodge of money to strengthen the squad and I hope it’s used wisely so that we can look forward to next season with optimism.
Howay The Lads!
i am going for us to win on sunday…i am also going for ashely way less than the optimists think! 10 million tops..plus moving on enrique for ten million.. and barton for 3 million..so all i nall..he will net profit 3 million this transfer window.