“United are in a much better situation but we know if we take nine points from our last three games and United lose six points then we’ll be okay. It’s not easy to lose six points but anything is possible in football.”
Not easy to say the least, two out of Chelsea’s remaining three games are against Arsenal and Manchester United (Everton being their third and final game of the season).
With the Gunners game being played at Emirates Stadium coming away with three points will not be an easy task. Granted last time these to sides played, for the Carling Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium, Chelsea walked off with the trophy.
However, their last Premiership encounter at Stamford Bridge required “Michael Essien’s best goal of his Chelsea career on 84 minutes (to rescue) a point for Jose Mourinho’s side” (Quote from chelseafc.com Match Report).
Moreover, Wenger’s men have had a four game winning streak, while Mourinho’s are limping off their draw to Bolton.
Still, come match day we could be looking at two completely different sides, The Blues could be reinvigorated from a win over Liverpool in the Champion’s League Semi-Final and because one has to wonder when all the takeover talk will take its toll on the Gunners.
Next, Chelsea will have to take three points from the clutches of Man Utd. Now if you were to ask my opinion as a Man Utd Fan-Attic, I would say, “Dream On!!!” But since this is my first crack at whipping out a Soccerlens article, I keep a minimum of objectivity.
Till now, these sides have met only once this season. Man Utd dominated that first-half at Old Trafford and Chelsea dominated the second with Ricardo Carvalho equalizing (68th minute) Saha’s goal (28th minute).
This game will be a preview or a dressed rehearsal if you will, for the FA Cup Final and even possibly the Champions League final. There is so much at stake for both teams that I honestly find it very hard to see a clear victor. A Draw is, in my opinion, likely to be the most probable of situations.
So, if we consider that Chelsea’s odds at beating Arsenal are at 11 to 8 (Draw 9/4, Arsenal 13/8), which equate to a probability of 42.1% and that their odds of beating Man Utd is at 7 to 4 (Draw 2/1 and Man Utd 7/4) , which equates to a probability of 36.36%. Odds for their game against Everton have not been issued yet, but lets consider them to be equal to Man Utd’s game against Everton, that’s 8 to 11 which boils down to 57.89%.
(Odds from oddschecker.com , conversion were done by myself, if you care to second guess me on them check out Converting Fractional Odds to Probability)
So if we were to consider a simple statistical model Chelsea chances of winning all three games are: 42.1% x 36.36% x 57.86% = 8.85%. Chelsea has a 8.85% chance of winning all three games and walking away with nine points.
If we were to take into consideration the fact that Man Utd has to lose yet another game for Chelsea to come out on top that would lower the probability even more. But since were at it, let’s get cracking and find that final number.
Let’s say Manchester United loses against Man City (it’s more probable than West Ham). The Odds of that happening are at 9 to 2 (Draw 5/4 Man Utd 11/10), so that’s 18.18%, making Chelsea’s chances of finishing on top of league table 1.60%.
“Anything is possible in football“? Maybe, but the odds of that anything are 1.60%.
(P.S: For those of you who will be tempted to challenge my mathematics, don’t bother, I’m an Economics major, I do this for a living)
Update: Updated for corrections based on a discussion in the comments
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