Will we qualify for the CL?

[Brazilian Villain]

Yeah, all we have to do is not win any of our next three very difficult games and that gap is potentially gone. Let's not celebrate too hard too early.

Not gonna happen though. We won't fail to win all three of those.

Draw, draw, loss, is perfectly plausible.

[Mellin]

I'm not saying we won't, but you are talking as a matter of fact about something which can't be certain. Football's a complicated game. One injury or loss of form to a kay player and the entire balance of the team is potentially gone. It's why seasons ebb and flow.

I know we're doing well, I think we'll recruit smartly from a position of strength in January and we'll qualify, as I (and you) said in about October two years ago.

But it isn't done.

[Smirker]

I'm not saying we won't, but you are talking as a matter of fact about something which can't be certain. Football's a complicated game. One injury or loss of form to a kay player and the entire balance of the team is potentially gone. It's why seasons ebb and flow.

I know we're doing well, I think we'll recruit smartly from a position of strength in January and we'll qualify, as I (and you) said in about October two years ago.

But it isn't done.

Can't shirk the Smirk 

It isn't literally done, no. As in mathematically.

But realistically as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much done.

[eye digress]

Of course we could get a slew of injuries that throw us off track.

But that’s no more likely to happen to us, I don’t believe, than any of our rivals for the 5th Chump’s League spot.

[Brazilian Villain]

It's not done yet, there's still a 13% chance we don't make the Top 5.

[Dave]

If I were putting money today on who the top five are going to be, their five most likely would be where my money goes.

[Monty]

It's not done yet, there's still a 13% chance we don't make the Top 5.

But what does Nate Silver say?

[Baldy]

After last weeks matches, fifth spot looking even better for English clubs:

https://www.uefa.com/nationalassociations/uefarankings/country/?year=2026

[cdbearsfan]

That's the wrong list. You need the one year average rankings, ie divided by all the clubs.

Edit: here it is:

https://bsky.app/profile/footrankings.bsky.social/post/3m7v6hiqvx32f

[Baldy]

That's the wrong list. You need the one year average rankings, ie divided by all the clubs.

Edit: here it is:

https://bsky.app/profile/footrankings.bsky.social/post/3m7v6hiqvx32f

Cheers, these lists confuse me.

With PSR, FFP et all you need to be a rocket scietist to follow football these days.

[Brazilian Villain]

Cheers, these lists confuse me.

With PSR, FFP et all you need to be a rocket scietist to follow football these days.

You need to be even smarter than that, you need to be an accountant.

[Drummond]

Cheers, these lists confuse me.

With PSR, FFP et all you need to be a rocket scietist to follow football these days.

You need to be even smarter than that, you need to be an accountant.

Yeah, but it's not exactly rocket science, is it?

[algy]

Cheers, these lists confuse me.

With PSR, FFP et all you need to be a rocket scietist to follow football these days.

You need to be even smarter than that, you need to be an accountant.

Yeah, but it's not exactly rocket science, is it?

My dad had to go in to the QE a few weeks ago cos he'd had a brain haemorrhage.  Come out of it fine, thankfully.  Anyway, whilst he was waiting for the surgery we were talking about it and he was saying that it was a fairly routine operation and they were going to drain some blood from inside his skill, so I'd said "well that's alright then ... if it's routine then it's hardly going to be brain surgery is it?".  Took him a second to register, which was a bit .. well, it wasn't great.  Thankfully after the operation I made a similarly stupid joke ("I bet that's a weight off your mind") and he was back to normal speed responding, so happy days there.

--

Anyways, I did some spreadsheet analysis on Sunday night and came up with ...

Based on the past 10 seasons, you need at least 81pts to win the league and on average 92pts.  4th place is 70pts on average (66pts minimum) and 5th place is 67pts average (62pts minimum).

Looks like so far we're well ahead of what we'd need to be doing to get a top 4 places (averaging 2.06pts/game so in theory look to end the season on around 78pts currently).  It also puts Arsenal as currently on course to finish on 86pts, so a bit lower than average but not the absolute minimum.

There's more than half a season left, so it's all a bit meaningless really at this stage.  But I do think based on all of that, there may well be a relatively small gap separating 1st from 5th/6th come the end of the season.  Depends how things go, I suppose.

[paul_e]

Given how congested the table is, outside the top 3 and bottom 4, it wouldn't be a massive shock for this to be lower points total for the winner, similar to when Leicester won it.

[eye digress]

So maybe your trigger point might be, depending on results, next match day, or in 2 or 3 match days, or in 15 or 20 match days if things go against us in the short term.

A game further on, and the gap with our (assumed) rivals for 5th now stands at 10, 13 and 14 points (Yernited, Jaudis, Spudz).

Does that tip any other punters into the “nailed on for CL” camp?

Not quite for me personally, but I do think it could be a matter of a few games away.