Newcastle United, The Premier League and…Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

The phrase ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’, often attributed to Disraeli, has been used to show how statistics can be manipulated by those who wanted to portray a weaker proposition to support a particular argument.

However, while statistics can be distorted, they can also be good at helping us understand potential performances and likely outcomes.

After all, how many of us Newcastle fans think about how many total Premier League points we can accumulate compared to other teams and, above all, where we are going to finish in the table at the end of the season.

As a crude statistical measure we could just take the last 19 games from the previous season, where we achieved a brilliant 39 points, then double that to get to an equivalent 38 game year total for the 2022/23 season – by the way, a remarkable forecast of 78 points!!

However, we have had two transfer windows to deal with since the end of last season, with corresponding team changes in terms of outgoings and incomings; both of which could affect performance this year.

Therefore, in trying to understand what our likely end of year point tally will be, and our position in the table more importantly, I think it is better to start with statistics that are more up to date as they may produce a more reliable indicator of our finishing opportunities to come.

So what I decided to do was just use our points achieved to date as a basis to work from. These are factual after all and not open for dammed statistical distortion!!

After 21 games played this season we have amassed an amazing 40 points and wow, I am so proud of this Club for such a commendable achievement to date. When I say Club, I mean every single person who works for the Club, owns it, volunteers and most of all supports it. I am of Eddie’s camp here in that our success is just that and not down to an individual, no matter how brilliant, competent, committed and capable that person is.

Forgive me for digressing.

So we have 40 points after 21 Premier League games to work with as a reliable and factual statistical base. Now, if we take the form performance from our last 12 games, we achieved 26 points, which if added to the 40 points after 21 games, would equal a likely 66 points after 33 games. Not bad I must say!!

However, we need to get to a likely end of season tally for 38 matches. So if we take the performance from the most recent five matches (as much as I would prefer not to but, hey, damned lies are not for me) and add that to the forecast after 33 games, we get 66 points for the first 33 games and then six points for the remaining five, to equal a forecast end of year total of 72 points.

Not that far off from the simple double the last 19 games performance for last season to get a total for this, however, the process I have outlined is less open to lies!!

What does any of this rubbish tell us anyway, as they are only numbers and complete nonsense in isolation of the performances of others in the Table. So I applied the same logical statistical process to the top seven teams in the Table as they currently stand.

The Table below shows my forecast end of year position – as long as Bruno can do his utmost to avoid those horrible red cards.

Now note, I threw Liverpool and Chelsea into the above mix because I frequently hear from one pundit after another, to just wait as both those teams will be flying up the Table in the second half of the season.

Their only logic being that of previous years’ performance which, when applied to this year, just leaves us entering into the realms of damned lies again, as their arguments are too weak to have any meaningful logic anymore. Just emotive football banter that we can do without if we really want to understand the remaining season ahead.

Either way, Liverpool are hardly going to do well if they can’t finish above Brentford and Brighton who, let’s face it, are firing on all cylinders at the moment and at full steam ahead.

As for Chelsea, well they may buy up half the footballers in the world, and spend more money in two transfer windows than it cost our wonderful owners to buy NUFC, but the forecast does look a wee bit grim for their end of season points tally. Funny nevertheless.

Hey, the above could all end up being so wrong; there are too many variables to factor into football to obtain really reliable and robust data that can be used to provide a healthy forecast.

However, fourth for me with 72 points, plus a trip to Wombley (as Eddie’s youngest child calls it) isn’t bad for a first full season under our new ownership model, and I will be dancing on the roof if we win at Wombley, as nothing could make me prouder.

Howay the Lads!