Devils Benefit From Late Kick-off

On the final day of the season, all the matches kick off together to ensure no-one benefits from knowing the result they require in advance. Although results do not matter in the PRoBrum Match of the Day Running Order Index, those who played on Wednesday benefited from an earlier appearance on Match of the Day, allowing Manchester United to return to the top of the PRoBrum MOTD Running Order Index as well as the Premier League.

Does this mean the scoring system is unfair? I think not. The BBC made a decision to have one MOTD on Wednesday rather than one on each day, and in any case, they could have shown the matches in chronological order which cynics might say they would have done if it had benefitted Manchester United. Birmingham City, who lead the league throughout February, dropped to third as a result of the lower exposure of the Tuesday contests.

More interestingly, Villa and Blackburn who got 8 point by appearing as the only Premier League matches on Saturday probably would have got more if they had played on Tuesday or Wednesday night as a result of the multiplier related to the number of games. I don't think this is a huge problem, as the PRoBrum MOTD Running Order Index was always supposed to be a measure of how much overexposure a team gets on MOTD with a fullish fixture list rather than a measure of which teams are always last on the show; for the latter, it's the Gubbometer you are after.

Manchester United ....130+(10-2)*9=202
Chelsea ........................120+(8-1)*9=183
Birmingham City.........154+(4-2)*9=172
Tottenham ..................100+(7-0)*9=163
Arsenal ........................140+(5-3)*9=158
Reading .........................68+(8-1)*9=131
Everton .........................64+(7-0)*9=127
West Ham United.........50+(9-1)*9=122
Newcastle United........102+(5-3)*9=120
Liverpool ......................40+(9-1)*9=112
Middlesbrough ..............85+(3-1)*9=103
Fulham ..........................80+(2-0)*9=98
Portsmouth ..................18+(10-2)*9=90
Bolton Wanderers ........70+(2-0)*9=88
Manchester City ..........40+(6-2)*9=76
Derby County...............16+(6-2)*9=52
Sunderland ...................28+(4-2)*9=46
Aston Villa ....................(no match) 40
Wigan Athletic .............16+(3-1)*9=34
Blackburn Rovers ........(no match) 29

Finally, I will have to retire from blogging early from RSI if I keep having to type "PRoBrum MOTD Running Order Index" every time, so I have decided to shorten it. Taking the initial letters, a few inbetween and adding "ship" to the end, you get "Promroiship", which quite interestingly, nearly sounds like a bad cockney impersonation of a drunk Brummie saying "Premiership".

A perfect name, I'm sure you will agree.