How many games can you lose?

Vital Blackburn member Ex Ewood Resident's thoughts on the number of games you can lose before you are out of the title race.

Given the relatively poor start (by their standards) of the top four Premiership contenders, how many games can a side lose before we can consider their title race over?

Of course this is all pure conjecture, as we know because the title is rarely won before the end of July.

However, just like the magic 40 points that is every teams first target that usually ensures survival, is there a number of dropped points that could rule out their chances of being crowned Champions? Or is it the number of losses, ignoring draws, that counts?

Over the past 5 seasons the number of lost games that could have still won the Premiership is between 4 and 6 (remember this is based on beating second place) Arsenal's 0 losses in the 2004 season were tempered by 12 draws (the highest number of draws by any champion in the past 5 seasons). Rovers won the Championship in 1995 with an amazing 7 defeats! So that implies that it is points dropped that counts...

So what is the magic figure?

30

Over the past 5 seasons no one has won the Championship without dropping less than 30 points. Second place has always dropped more than 30 points. The exception to this was in 2003 when United won the title by dropping 31 points to Arsenal's 36

The full results:
2006
Chelsea - 23 Dropped Points
United - 31 Dropped Points

2005
Chelsea - 19 Dropped Points
Arsenal - 31 Dropped Points

2004
Arsenal - 24 Dropped Points
Chelsea - 35 Dropped Points

2003
United - 31 Dropped Points
Arsenal - 36 Dropped Points

2002
Arsenal - 27 Dropped Points
Liverpool - 34 Dropped Points

This article was written by Vital Blackburn member Ex Ewood Resident.

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