Surely not another game…..

Villa Park would be the venue for the playoffWell, I thought last season was a marathon. Our clash with Everton will be our 69^th game of this season, setting a new record, and it may not even end there.

As we (hopefully) enter the final game of the season, there is a possible set of results that would lead to a playoff, that decides which of the two teams progresses straight to the group stages, and which unlucky club then has to battle through the qualifying stages of the Champions League.

Simply putting it, if we win, then we grab third spot. Easy. Well, in theory anyway.

If we draw, that is where it gets interesting. Any draw would put the playoff well in the picture, and should Arsenal win by one goal versus Newcastle, we are nearly there. Both of these scenarios have to happen, PLUS, Arsenal must score two more goals than us.

The most likely set of circumstances are us drawing 1-1 with Everton, and Arsenal winning 3-2, or us drawing 0-0, and Arsenal winning 2-1. Apart from that we talk about 4-3s and 3-3s and a whole lot of unusual results. Although Arsenal did beat Newcastle 7-3 at the Emirates, should the result end 5-4 to Arsenal this time around, we would have to draw 3-3 for this playoff. A pretty good choice if you fancy the scoreline double at 16,883/1. Worth a quid surely…

Enough of that anyway, its been worked out that statistically, there is about a 1.12% chance of this playoff happening, but if it should, then the 26^th May is the date it will take place, up in the Midlands, at Villa Park.

After doing the domestic double over Arsenal in the league, we should have no problems should the improbable occur, and after beating Everton away in the league, we should be able to dispose of them tomorrow. However, it would be just like us to go about it the hard way, wouldn’t it?

There is one more problem with this too, we’ve scheduled a match against Man City in New York for the 25^th. That would be an impressive couple of days. Now, im not sure of the possibility of changing this fixture, but shall we just do it the easy way and beat Everton tomorrow? 

By Brad Smith
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