We are now favourites to go up .....in my opinion.

[Beefy]

We're nothing like a one in twelve shot to go up on Saturday. Common sense should tell anyone that.

 

[Jam_Man]

The bookies have given Crawley far to short odds which would make us more of an outside chance than we are.

They shouldnt be odds on to win away at Accrington.

If we were all on even points we would be favourites due to our home game + goal difference, with the point deficit should be less than 33% to go up (although form etc in our favour), but certainly more than 1 in 12.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Have a read of post 35 on this thread, explains it all. The 2/1 odds also includes the possibility of going up through the play-offs.

A bit of common sense would also tell you that we have a far worse chance than 33% of going up on Saturday :headbang:

I'm begiining to see how bookmakers make such huge profits :smile::smile:

Indeed, if there are lots of people around like you thinking we're a 1 in 12 chance to go up, my job should be safe for years to come. Even taking in to account the play-offs, 1 in 12 is way off.

 

[Barling Magna]

Indeed, if there are lots of people around like you thinking we're a 1 in 12 chance to go up, my job should be safe for years to come. Even taking in to account the play-offs, 1 in 12 is way off.

Well I certainly couldn't understand post 35 and I'm a Professor of Statistics.

All right, I'm not.

So what's your estimate of the odds on promotion for us then, Uncle Leo?

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

The bookies have given Crawley far to short odds which would make us more of an outside chance than we are.

They shouldnt be odds on to win away at Accrington.

If we were all on even points we would be favourites due to our home game + goal difference, with the point deficit should be less than 33% to go up (although form etc in our favour), but certainly more than 1 in 12.

Crawley are odds on to win at Accrington because they are by far a superior team, were favourites to win this league before the start. The players are on a massive bonus for automatic promotion. Every one of their players will be fully switched on and will give every last drop of blood and sweat in this game. Accrington's season is over. They are playing for pride, and will certainly use some youngsters that are prone to mistakes and lack quality, with an eye to the future. When playing for nothing after a long season, the most knackered players can almost stop playing the last 20 minutes, and switch off mentally as well. A bit like Coventry did last week against Southampton.
This is why Crawley are the price they are.

In football you never know. So here's hoping.

 

[Jam_Man]

Crawley are odds on to win at Accrington because they are by far a superior team, were favourites to win this league before the start. The players are on a massive bonus for automatic promotion. Every one of their players will be fully switched on and will give every last drop of blood and sweat in this game. Accrington's season is over. They are playing for pride, and will certainly use some youngsters that are prone to mistakes and lack quality, with an eye to the future. When playing for nothing after a long season, the most knackered players can almost stop playing the last 20 minutes, and switch off mentally as well. A bit like Coventry did last week against Southampton.
This is why Crawley are the price they are.

In football you never know. So here's hoping.

Teams arent normally odds-on to win when away.

Recently when away to Aldershot they were also very short odds, even though they hadnt won in about 6 games and Aldershot were on a very long winning run. The bookies dont seem to take into account current form etc in the lower divisions.

Whether they were favourites at the beginning of the season, whether they are on massive bonuses shouldnt determine the actual odds of them winning.

If you go by the reasons you mention they wouldnt have lost 3-0 at home to Hereford.

If Accrington are planning to play youngsters that doesnt bode well for us, but Im pretty certain the bookies wont have bothered taking that into account when calculating the odds.

Id say Crawley are likely to get a result, but not as likely as they say. They are giving Hereford (2/1) far more of a chance to win at home than Accrington. (5/1)

If you do go with the odds that the bookies give then we have no chance of going up this weekend....

 

[Angell Delight]

Personally I think Crawley will win and Torquay won't - that should mean we finish 4th with Crewe over two legs.....personally I'd rather face Cheltenham. We can go into the playoffs with confidence though, and though it would be a tough tie to win if it's Crewe we have beaten them twice already this season.

 

[Upminster Blue]

Indeed, if there are lots of people around like you thinking we're a 1 in 12 chance to go up, my job should be safe for years to come. Even taking in to account the play-offs, 1 in 12 is way off.

Effectively what you're saying is that the bookies are idiots and don't know what they're doing. I'm yet to see a poor bookmaker and probably never will.

And the 1 in 12 is for automatic promotion this Saturday and not promotion irrespective of how we go up (which is clearly much shorter odds).

If you think the bookies have got it wrong, it's fill your boots time with them!

 

[OldBlueLady]

Effectively what you're saying is that the bookies are idiots and don't know what they're doing. I'm yet to see a poor bookmaker and probably never will.

And the 1 in 12 is for automatic promotion this Saturday and not promotion irrespective of how we go up (which is clearly much shorter odds).

If you think the bookies have got it wrong, it's fill your boots time with them!

You do realise that Uncle Leo is "in the trade" so to speak?

 

[C C Csiders]

Personally I think Crawley will win and Torquay won't - that should mean we finish 4th with Crewe over two legs.....personally I'd rather face Cheltenham. We can go into the playoffs with confidence though, and though it would be a tough tie to win if it's Crewe we have beaten them twice already this season.

And this is something we should be keeping a weather-eye on on Saturday. If, for example, Crawley and/or Torquay are in a position where it looks like we might have to settle for fourth, we should relax on the throttle and accidently on purpose only match the Torquay result (win, lose or draw) to avoid Crewe at all costs.

 

[Upminster Blue]

You do realise that Uncle Leo is "in the trade" so to speak?

Equally, for what it's in worth, I have a maths degree and I'm an actuary. Not that that matters nor does being "in the trade" - a bit of understanding of bookies odds and basic GCSE maths is all that's needed, nothing more nothing less.

The bottom line is that the bookies are implying odds of 12-1 or thereabouts for us to be promoted this Saturday. If you think that's a good price, lump on it.

I really do hope things fall our way on Saturday, but it's a long shot. Some people seem to think we have a better chance than we really do and may well be disappointed come 5pm Saturday when they mistakenly thought it was a real possibility at kick-off time. The bookies odds are proof of that - they rarely get things wrong. All I'm trying to do is flag up what the bookies are saying with their odds :thumbsup:.

 

[Beefy]

And this is something we should be keeping a weather-eye on on Saturday. If, for example, Crawley and/or Torquay are in a position where it looks like we might have to settle for fourth, we should relax on the throttle and accidently on purpose only match the Torquay result (win, lose or draw) to avoid Crewe at all costs.

Why should we avoid Crewe at all costs? Either we're the best team of the four in the Play Offs and we get promoted or we're not and we don't. Either way it doesn't matter one bit who we play.

 

[Beefy]

Equally, for what it's in worth, I have a maths degree and I'm an actuary. Not that that matters nor does being "in the trade" - a bit of understanding of bookies odds and basic GCSE maths is all that's needed, nothing more nothing less.

The bottom line is that the bookies are implying odds of 12-1 or thereabouts for us to be promoted this Saturday. If you think that's a good price, lump on it.

I really do hope things fall our way on Saturday, but it's a long shot. Some people seem to think we have a better chance than we really do and may well be disappointed come 5pm Saturday when they mistakenly thought it was a real possibility at kick-off time. The bookies odds are proof of that - they rarely get things wrong. All I'm trying to do is flag up what the bookies are saying with their odds :thumbsup:.

The bookies aren't saying that we're 12/1 to go up on Saturday. I follow your logic from your earlier post but you're interpreting the information incorrectly. As Uncle Leo points out, we're clearly far more likely to go up on Saturday than being a 12/1 shot would suggest we are. You don't need a maths degree to work that out - you just need to have seen a few football results come in.

 

[Jam_Man]

Equally, for what it's in worth, I have a maths degree and I'm an actuary. Not that that matters nor does being "in the trade" - a bit of understanding of bookies odds and basic GCSE maths is all that's needed, nothing more nothing less.

The bottom line is that the bookies are implying odds of 12-1 or thereabouts for us to be promoted this Saturday. If you think that's a good price, lump on it.

I really do hope things fall our way on Saturday, but it's a long shot. Some people seem to think we have a better chance than we really do and may well be disappointed come 5pm Saturday when they mistakenly thought it was a real possibility at kick-off time. The bookies odds are proof of that - they rarely get things wrong. All I'm trying to do is flag up what the bookies are saying with their odds :thumbsup:.

Those who think we are favourites are certainly over optimistic, theres no way we are whilst needing two top teams to fail ti win.

However 1 in 12 for us to go up is far too long as well. Does anyone really think if this weekend was replayed 12 times we would only finish 3rd once ?

We are outsiders but it is not out of the question for Crawley and Torquay to draw for example.

Ill be having something on 12/1 if thats the odds for us getting promoted on Saturday.

 

[Fish]

The bookies aren't saying that we're 12/1 to go up on Saturday. I follow your logic from your earlier post but you're interpreting the information incorrectly. As Uncle Leo points out, we're clearly far more likely to go up on Saturday than being a 12/1 shot would suggest we are. You don't need a maths degree to work that out - you just need to have seen a few football results come in.

I simply disagree with that. The odds of us going up are effectively equivalent to an accumulator bet, consisting of the most likely outcome of Crawley don't win + Torquay don't win + Southend win OR Crawley lose + Torquay lose + Southend don't lose. Either way, I don't think 12-1 is good value for that, let alon shorter odds.

 

[Beefy]

Just looked at Paddy Power to get a taste of the odds. We're 1/4 to win. Hereford are 11/5 and the draw that game is 12/5. Accrington are 5/1 and the draw is 13/5.

Now my maths was never that hot 18 years ago so now it's very poor but from what I recall if you work through those numbers we're a little under 9/1 to go up with a win whilst either a win or a draw happens in each of the other two matches. Certainly shorter than 12/1. It looks to me that PP are seriously underestimating Accrington's chances and in reality I feel we're more likely to get the result we're looking for than the bookies are saying.

EDIT - subsequent posts have definitely shown to me that I need to brush up on my maths as this post is pretty much bollocks. The point stands though - we're going up.

 

[andykn]

OK, I've crunched some numbers (no groaning at the back). Using the best odds from oddschecker:

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/league-two

I've calculated the odds and added up the 5 possible combinations of Southend/Crawley/Torquay Win/draw/lose that get us automatically promoted. Odds (probability):

Accrington 5/1 (1/6) Draw 3/1 (1/4) Crawley 8/11 (11/19)
Hereford 12/5 (5/17) Draw 11/4 (4/15) Torquay 5/4 (4/9)
Southend 2/7 (7/9) Draw 5/1 (1/6) Macclesfield 12/1 (1/13)

So the combinations that get use promoted are:
Acc (1/6) x Hereford (5/17) x Southend (7/9)=35/918 (0.038)
Acc (1/6) x Hereford (5/17) x Draw (1/6)=5/612 (0.008)
Acc (1/6) x Draw (4/15) x Southend (7/9)=28/810 (0.035)
Draw (1/4) x Draw (4/15) x Southend (7/9)=28/540 (0.052)
Draw (1/4) x Hereford (5/17) x Southend (7/9)=35/612 (0.057)

Add those up and we get a probability that we get automatically promoted of 19%!

 

[canveyshrimper]

Just to complicate the issue, we don't actually have to win on Saturday, if both Creepy & Torquay lose a draw given our superior goal difference will be enough. And for the record I won't be putting any of my hard earned on that.

 

[Beefy]

OK, I've crunched some numbers (no groaning at the back). Using the best odds from oddschecker:

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/league-two

I've calculated the odds and added up the 5 possible combinations of Southend/Crawley/Torquay Win/draw/lose that get us automatically promoted. Odds (probability):

Accrington 5/1 (1/6) Draw 3/1 (1/4) Crawley 8/11 (11/19)
Hereford 12/5 (5/17) Draw 11/4 (4/15) Torquay 5/4 (4/9)
Southend 2/7 (7/9) Draw 5/1 (1/6) Macclesfield 12/1 (1/13)

So the combinations that get use promoted are:
Acc (1/6) x Hereford (5/17) x Southend (7/9)=35/918 (0.038)
Acc (1/6) x Hereford (5/17) x Draw (1/6)=5/612 (0.008)
Acc (1/6) x Draw (4/15) x Southend (7/9)=28/810 (0.035)
Draw (1/4) x Draw (4/15) x Southend (7/9)=28/540 (0.052)
Draw (1/4) x Hereford (5/17) x Southend (7/9)=35/612 (0.057)

Add those up and we get a probability that we get automatically promoted of 19%!

Great work.

 

[BLUEBLOOD]

Sorry Jam, but i gotta take you to task on a couple of points ...

The form table looks a lot different over 6 games, we are 2nd and the other 2 are midtable

Damned lies and statistics .. our form over 1 game is MASSIVE compared to Torquay (D) and Creepy (L)

They shouldnt be odds on to win away at Accrington

Of course they should .. we were 5/6 at Oxford i think yet Oxford are miles better than Accrington according to the table

=======================================

I do get people are optimistic, the fact i'm a generally negative type of person is probably why i'm so guarded but when it all goes tits up Saturday i shall be safe in the knowledge that i've steeled myself against failure