How Bolton Slipped into the Championship on Survival Sunday.

Bolton's fans arrived at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday hoping for an unlikely escape but prepared to enjoy a Premiership swansong and a relegation party.The final spot in the bottom three lay between themselves and Etihad bound QPR and of the nine possible permutations involving the two games only one,a Bolton win coupled with a QPR loss would keep Bolton in the top tier.

Stoke started the brighter of the two and the home crowd had barely finished their 10th minute tribute to their departing talismanic number 10,Ricky Fuller when they opened the scoring.Walters miscontrolled a fine chance just inside the six yard box,but recovered quickly enough to bundle the ball out of Bogdan's hands and over the line.Referee,Chris Foy looked towards his assistant for help,received none and almost inevitably awarded yet another controversial decision in the Potteries.

13 minutes in and Bolton's pre game chances of avoiding the drop fell from around 25% to below 10%.

Bolton immediately discarded any pretense at caution and the game became stretched as they went in search of goals and two arrived in bizarre fashion five minutes before the interval.Immediately after QPR fell behind to Manchester City,Stoke's Huth,restored to his unnatural full back position clattered an attempted clearance against Mark Davies' legs and into the net to restore Bolton to their pre game survival odds.Namesake Kevin then fired in a nearpost cross that was punched into his own net by a ring rusty Sorenson.Wanderers were now odds on to survive with a success probability in excess of 0.6.

Cisse's equaliser in Manchester briefly swung the odds back towards the London team,but Barton's meltdown and ensuing red card flipped the favourites again.Mackie's barely believable go ahead goal at the Etihad then booted Bolton back to square one once again and the unwelcome news visibly drained both team and supporters.A brief rendition of "Blue Moon" from the Bolton fans failed to produce any change in the QPR scoreline and Bolton's early exertions began to leave gaps for Stoke to exploit.Etherington sliced over from ten yards before Couch fell under Bogdan's challenge and Jonathan Walters scored the goal that ultimately kept QPR above the relegation line.Just over ten minutes of the season remained and Bolton's survival chances were down to 4%,due in no small part to QPR's lead over City.

Had Bolton believed that Manchester City would produce a miraculous injury time turnaround,they would no doubt have pressed forward with much more urgency as time expired.Two half chances and a barrage of corners was all they could produce in the final ten minutes.Although how much the knowledge that the Bolton game had already finished with QPR still level at the Etihad contributed towards Aguero's late,late winner only Rangers' players will know.

I was at Sunday's game and took advantage of the bright day to take some photos,including the goal that ultimately relegated Bolton,although true to form ref Chris Foy managed to get in the way of a clean shot!

A collage of photos from Sunday's Bolton Stoke game.

A few people have asked for a line plot of the probabilities,so here it'is.Personally I find it slightly more difficult to interpret.Major events such as goals or red cards are always major dislocations,but the can appear as more gradual changes on a line plot with a variable axis.

How Manchester City Won the Title.

Quite simply the most amazing finish to any league season and any numerical attempt to quantify the agony of the twists and turns is rightly doomed to failure.Manchester City fans were no doubt suffering pangs of doubt long before Manchester United became narrow favourites to capture the title when Mackie defied a numerical disadvantage to fire QPR ahead after an hour at the Etihad.But the final crushing disappointment was handed to the Manchester United players and fans,who stood on the pitch at The Stadium of Light with a near 90% chance of being crowned Champions,only to see Aguero deny them at the absolute death.

How the Title Was Won.

Scorers;
20',Rooney,Sunderland 0-1 Manchester United.
38',Zabaleta,Manchester City 1-0 QPR.
48,Cisse,Manchester City 1-1 QPR.
55,Barton,Red Card,QPR.
66,Mackie,Manchester City 1-2 QPR.
90+2,Dzeko,Manchester City 2-2 QPR.
90+4,Aguero,Manchester City 3-2 QPR.

Rooney's opening goal at The Stadium of Light only edged United slightly closer to the title because the likelihood of a City win over QPR was at that stage still very high.Zabaleta's opening goal for City gave them a near 95% chance of beating QPR from that situation,so it meant that Mancini should have had a very relaxed half time dressing room.However,the second half started badly for the blue half of Manchester and Barton's red card excepted it just got worse and worse.......until the very end,of course.

Cisse's goal still left them half the match against inferior opposition to find a winning lead,so even at level terms they were still title favourites,although the nature of the mistake that led to the strike demonstrated that the nerves were starting to twitch.

Barton's 55' dismissal was a big bonus for City,especially as Tevez appeared less than blameless in the incident.City,with the inevitable exception of Balotelli did well keep their discipline during the highly charged minutes it took to finally remove Joey from the pitch.It also meant that City's game would finish after United's game at Sunderland and possibly crucially,Bolton's at Stoke.They had a numerical advantage for around 40 minutes and that's worth just under an extra goal in a comparable 11v11 match.

The remarkable Mackie goal was the strike that finally flipped favouritism in favour of United and the clock rapidly became The Red's friend.By the 90th minute City's odds of depriving United were in the region of 4% and this was reflected in the betting markets,but Dzeko's point blank header lifted their chances to almost 25%.The impossible was now merely improbable.Time constraints were now so severe that within the minute City's relatively healthy new position had decayed to barely half of it's new found wealth as final whistles were being blown around the country.Possibly the most significant one was blown by Chris Foy,35 miles away at The Britannia Stadium where Stoke had relegated Bolton and saved City's current opponents QPR.

Newly bereft of any incentive to take anything from their match with City,QPR then capitulated for a second time in two injury time minutes and Mancini,Mike Summerbee,Noel Gallagher and those of the 48,000 who hadn't already departed The Etihad could begin a victory celebration.

Bolton at Stoke....in Pictures.

Bolton's final game in the Premiership at Stoke in pictures.

http://s746.photobucket.com/albums/xx109/tachyon1959/Stoke%20Bolton%20may%202012/?albumview=slideshow

Very nearly a Great Escape.

Chelsea's League Form Under Villas Boas and Di Matteo.

This season's highest profile managerial departure rather predictably came at Chelsea following their 1-0 defeat away to WBA on the 3rd of March.The defeat left Chelsea three points adrift of fourth placed Arsenal,seven shy of Tottenham and confirmed their irrelevance in the Championship race where Manchester City were already swinging away in a 20 point lead over The Blues.

After an opening day draw at Stoke,an early season run of four wins in all competitions hadn't been bettered and fatally for Villas Boas two mid season four game sequences of winless games had recently stretched to one of five games.In the currency most usually used to describe a team's well being,his Chelsea team had averaged just 1.7 points per game.Fantastic if you were managing a mid table team on a budget,but a totally unacceptable level of form for a team used to challenging for top spot.

Abramovich must enter every season with a mind to a replacement candidate for his top job should the need arise and Roberto Di Matteo was swiftly promoted from within.He has now taken charge of Chelsea for ten Premiership matches and has interspersed this mundane fayre with a Wembley rout of their near rivals,Spurs and Cup Final victory over Liverpool and has plotted a course past Barcelona to reach the Champions league final against Bayern Munich.

However,critics of Di Matteo are quick to point out that his points per game haul is inferior to that of Villas Boas.In the Premiership Chelsea have average 1.5 points per game since the mid season sacking and although they have around a 36% chance of qualifying for next year's Champions League as holders,they cannot do so by their EPL position where they can finish no higher than 6th.Had they kept accumulating points at the pre sacking rate of 1.7 per game,they would current have around 65 points,making their chances of qualification through the EPL route somewhat on par with the chance currently enjoyed by Newcastle.

Points per game averages can be skewed by the arbitrary awarding of three points for a win.Few would argue that a win is three times better than a draw,so a more objective approach is to look at a team's success rate,where a draw is treated as half a win.If we do this for each portion of Chelsea's season we again see AVB coming out on top of RDM in performance in the Premiership with success rate mirroring the difference in points per game for each manager.

So by both standards,AVB appears to have got more out of Chelsea on a league day than did RDM in subsequent midweeks and weekends.

Chelsea's EPL Raw Points Per Game and Success Rate Record,2011/12.

Chelsea Team Performance.	Villas Boas.	Di Matteo.
Points per Game in Premiership.	1.70	1.50
Success Rate in Premiership.	0.61	0.55
Success Rate.All Games.	0.60	0.74

We could leave the analysis there and conclude that AVB was unlucky to be sacked and his replacement has failed to even reach the level of performance that he extracted from an ageing Chelsea team,ripe for change.
However,RDM's detractors have failed to credit him for the additional cup games he has overseen.If we include FA,Carling Cup and Champions League matches in the records of both managers,we not only increase the sample sizes of the games we are looking at,but we also see a large shift in the two success rates.Di Matteo is now the more successful coach and by a significant margin and although his record now contains relatively easy games against Birmingham and Leicester,these are counterbalanced by two games against Barcelona.

We can continue this theme of strength of opponent by returning to only EPL games and once we correct for opponent strength even the argument that AVB outperformed his replacement in EPL matches begins to look much less secure.The average league position of Chelsea's opponents at the time when the game was played when AVB was selecting the side was 11.5,by contrast RDiM's Chelsea faced sides with an average league status of just over 9th.So latterly Chelsea have gained less points per game,but they have on average faced stronger opposition.

We can attempt to quantify this effect by devising match odds from 30 game rolling averages for each team in all of Chelsea's EPL league games played so far this year and compare the expected results against the actual results for the reign of each manager.If we do this we shouldn't be surprised to see that The Blues have underperformed all season,but this declining EPL track record was slightly more pronounced when AVB was in charge than when RDiM was selecting the side once opponent strength was accounted for.So under a system that takes into account who Chelsea played,RDiM is now also the more successful Premiership coach as well as bettering AVB overall.However,...............

Chelsea's EPL Record Corrected for Opponent Strength.

Chelsea Performance.	Andre Expected.	Andre Actual	% Under Performance	Roberto Expected.	Roberto. Actual.	% Under Performance.
Points Per Game in Premiership.	2.11	1.70	19.4	1.84	1.50	18.5
Success Rate in Premiership.	0.74	0.61	17.6	0.65	0.55	15.4

........this post shouldn't be taken as a declaration that AVB was inferior to RDiM because we simply don't have enough data points to be sure.The 27 EPL games for which the former was in charge is barely enough to gain a decent estimate of a team's worth and the ten game league stint enjoyed so far by his replacement is of insufficient size to make any definite statements.But it should demonstrate that points per game averages are no more than rough estimates,even over dozens of games and are often completely misleading as a means of presenting an opinion about a team or manager.The two men's points per game average alone will tell us very little about their relative quality.Indeed if Chelsea beat Blackburn at the Bridge on Sunday,DiM's average will approach that of his predecessor partly because he has been in charge for so few league games.

At the very least a rudimentary correction for opponent strength needs to be made and even then any conclusions should be tentative rather than definitive.                

How Will the Final Relegation Spot be Decided?

Every possible scenario for Sunday's relegation showdown and their associated probabilities of actually occurring.


Scenarios Whereby QPR Avoid the Drop.

Points Gained by QPR.	Points Gained by Bolton.	Probability for this Scenario.	Seasonal QPR Points Total.	Seasonal Bolton Points Total.
3	3	0.02	40	38
3	1	0.01	40	36
3	0	0.02	40	35
1	3	0.03	38	38
1	1	0.03	38	36
1	0	0.04	38	35
0	1	0.23	37	36
0	0	0.36	37	35
Cumulative Probability.		0.74

Scenario Whereby Bolton Avoid the Drop.

Points Gained by QPR.	Points Gained by Bolton.	Probability for this Scenario.	Seasonal QPR Points Total.	Seasonal Bolton Points Total.
0	3	0.26	37	38
Cumulative Probability.		0.26

How Will the Premiership Title be Won?

Every possible scenario that can be played out on Sunday and their associated probabilities of actually occurring.

Scenarios Whereby Manchester City Win the Title.

Points Gained by Manchester City.	Points Gained by Manchester United.	Probability for this Scenario.	Seasonal Man City Points Total.	Seasonal Man Utd Points Total.
3	0	0.09	89	86
3	1	0.17	89	87
1	0	0.01	87	86
3	3	0.60	89	89
1	1	0.02	87	87
0	0	0.00	86	86
Cumulative Probability.		0.89

Scenarios Whereby Manchester United Win the Title.

Points Gained by Manchester City.	Points Gained by Manchester United.	Probability for this Scenario.	Seasonal Man City Points Total.	Seasonal Man Utd Points Total.
0	1	0.01	86	87
1	3	0.07	87	89
0	3	0.03	86	89
Cumulative Probability.		0.11