Snowball
So what you are saying is that the third-best GD predicted the finishing position within a single place for 10/11 (91%) of the teams and was only 2 places out for the last club. Oh, and Looooook. I said the correlation is 91%. Correlation is not an absolute predictor. It doesn't even necessarily mean causality. But 4 x 3 (12), plus 4 x 2 (8) plus 2 x 4 (8) + 1 x 5 (5) total 33. Divide by 11 teams = 3rd.
"within a single place"
A team with the third best goal difference is highly likely to finish somewhere between 2nd and 4th, which
includes 2nd and 4th places. The fact that it "averages out to 3rd" means nothing.
I checked again for League 1&2 for the same period.
Collating them all gives
2nd - 11 / 37
3rd - 12 / 37
4th - 8 / 37
5th - 4 / 37
7th - 2 / 37
so yes, the
most likely final place of a team with the third best goal difference is third, but it only happens 32% of the time.
In other words, the team with the third best goal difference is more than twice as likely to NOT finish third than it is.
That is why saying having the third best goal difference means we'd probably finish third is utter crap. The team with the 3rd best goal difference is more likely to finish 3rd than any other individual position, but
probably will NOT finish third.
You don't understand the fundamental difference between something been the most likely outcome, and something being the probable outcome.
For example, if you had a doctored roulette wheel, where the number 15 was wider than the other numbers, there would be a higher probability of 15 being the number the ball rests in than any other number. It would be the most likely number, but you could not say that the ball will probably end in 15 as that's just wrong.
However you have pretty much proven the point I was making. Even someone from HNA should understand that just occasionally teams have an odd set of results and buck a trend, or that one very bad defeat or huge win can distort things... but the generality. over the whole season is highly, highly predictable
Yes, but you are presenting it as some kind of revelation, while most are expressing a "no shit, sherlock" response.
That is not what I said.
It's not, but it's kind of the crux of the whole thread. We have the third best, and you claim that if we maintain that we'll finish 3rd.
That's a rather big if to gloss over.
And that's also the fundamental point of predictive statistics - looking at the situation now to try and predict future events.
Now either...
a) the fact we have the 3rd best goal difference was pure coincidence to you starting this thread, and you made no connection between our current GD and a hypothetical one in May - which in itself would be pretty stupid as you might as well just say "if we have 75 points in May then we should be in the play-offs". i.e a pointless hypothesis.
or
b) you were taking it as probable that we'd have the third best goal difference, but because you implication wasn't written down, you are now denying it in an attempt to move the goalpost.
or you could learn to read?
see "b"
