What are the chances of us getting relegated on Sunday? (17 replies)

A friend asked me this question so I thought I would have a go at calculating using results from this season so far.

To recap we only get relegated if we lose and at least two of Barnsley, Burton and Bolton win, in Bolton’s case they would a net swing of at least 4 goals to them.

To calculate I’ve split the division into 3 sections - the top 7 teams still involved in the promotion race (which includes Fulham, Preston and Derby), the bottom 6 still involved in relegation and the remaining ‘mid table’ 11.

First the bad news - against the 6 top teams we have played at home we have lost 4 - so you could estimate our chance of losing to Fulham on Sunday as 4/6 or 67%.

Looking at Barnsley and Burton’s away record this season neither of them have beaten any of the top teams. It’s too simplistic to say they have zero chance of winning so I’ve looked at their record against the top and mid table teams. Barnsley have just won one of their 17 such matches (6%), and Burton have won just two (12%). Turning to Bolton they are playing Forest who are one of the mid table teams. Bolton have won 4 of their 10 matches against mid table teams so far this season - so their chances of winning you could estimate at 40%. However they have won all those 4 by a single goal - to get a turnround of 4 goals Blues would need to lose by 3 goals, something that has only happened in one of our 4 losses to the top teams (against Derby). So putting those two probabilities together I would say the chances of Bolton winning and getting a 4 goal turnround are only about 10%.

Perming any 2 (or all 3) of Bolton, Barnsley and Burton winning gives a probability of just 2.3%. Combining that with our 67% chance of losing and you get an overall probability of us being relegated of just 1.6%.

So we should be confident of surviving Sunday....even if we do go behind....