Fulhamerica play for their EPL (suck it, Barclay's) life tomorrow. And the baby Jesus must love the lads because, miraculously, they control their own destiny, although they are at Pompey while Reading get to play the Washington Generals Derby County, so they are by no means a favorite to avoid the drop.
But even if the Cottagers fall, they could end up in Europe next season.
Huh?
Okay, by "could" we mean we're guessing at a couple of things without bothering to look them up because the thought of them adds just one more layer of delicious intrigue to the final week viewing of EPL football but it still doesn't seem entirely impossible.
Follow along after the jump as we walk irresponsibly through this.
Where Enlgand the country suck as football—enjoy that summer vacation, boys—their league teams are very nice in the way they go about their business. So the EPL has managed to earn another UEFA Cup spot by topping Europe's fair play (or is that Fair Play?) rankings.
Currently EPL Fair Play 5th placers Man City are the highest ranked team without a guaranteed spot in Europe.
The entire table can be seen here but it's not the soap opera that is Man City that's of interest here, or of interest to us—frankly we can't collectively bring ourselves to care much about Citeh around these parts save maybe for their sweeping of United—its the MLS East club sitting in seventh.
So the first thing we're too lazy to look up: Is it possible to jump .06 of a fair play point in one weekend? We could probably do the maths but that seems like a lot of work when this kind of wild baseless speculation is more fun.
But if that kind of jump is possible, Fulham could conceivably get to that last Fair Play spot on points.
Perhaps some loyal Svenites at Citeh are so upset with the way that Trashcan Sinatra has left the coach dangling, that they might be happy to pick up some gratuitous cards, harass the refs and the opponents, and just generally have a good old time dropping Fair Play points this weekend.
In that instance, assuming Everton sew up their spot, Fulham would be the highest ranked remaining Fair Play team left in the Prem.
What we also don't know is that if there is some provision stating that a club has to maintain its top flight status to keep the spot. But still, how awesome would it be if Fulham couldn't keep it up but managed to snake a spot in Europe next season?
Might almost taking the sting out of dropping. Okay, it won't mitigate a full £50M sting, but still, it's a decent parting gift.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
This Might Be One of the Funnier Things Ever
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10 comments:
If Fulham can't win tomorrow, I want this to happen.
I want Fulham to win tomorrow AND this to happen.
well, richard dunne just received a red card in the man city match.
Way to quit Citeh. I think I might go back and 'do the maths' now to see if Fulham made up that .06 points.
In any event... Hooray for non-relegation.
Do the math Roy! Please, I don't understand how to do it (Math is hard;)
This is great!
Fulham had no cards and City had the red and two yellows.
The premiership fair-play standings as quoted here were only updated through match 36, so two weeks need to be added. In match week 37, Fulham had two yellows and Man City had zero cards. In match week 38, Fulham had zero cards, Man City had a red and a yellow. Assuming that Fulham and Man City tie in all other categories besides cards (a huge assumption given that Man City was likely behaving poorly while getting mauled 8-1), I predict that Fulham cannot quite make up the points (Man City 8.38, Fulham 8.35)
@smp: nice catch, but the note above the table says that the table includes matches up to and including May 5, 2008. So, there appears to be some discrepancy...how it affects the table is unclear at this point.
discrepancy indeed -- these "standings" are bizarre in that they are mostly based on purely subjective criteria -- does anyone know where a more detailed set of standings can be found?
Also, how much does a team receive for playing in the UEFA Cup?
Just a note: Fulham would have had to stay up to get the Fair Play spot, if they had dropped they wouldn't have been eligible.
The Premiership "games through" date has been corrected to reflect only games through April 28 confirming that two rounds of games need to be added (the math only made sense if dividing by 36 before, but now the "games through" date matches as well -- quite a high-budget operation they have over there at the most valuable soccer league on earth).
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