Thought I should share this, produced by our friends at @saddlersstats:
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I’ve sent it to my mates at Bletchley Park for deciding. They’ve promised to let me know after 7:45pm on Saturday if we’ll stay up. I think we need snookers! All we can do is try to beat Shrewsbury- that ain’t going to be easy - and then pray.
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Interesting…obviously the hardest part is beating the shrews .If we show the same desire and commitment like we did against the posh we will .And from the chart there is every reason to be optimistic that we will stay up.
That was quite easy to understand, I went to “did Walsall beat Shrewsbury “ No then Relegated 
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Fantastic - really good piece of work! 
Pure mathematics, from the Shrewsbury match thread:
The various scenarios that could occur to keep us up are considered to give an overall probability. WDL are all considered as 1/3 each individual probability. We are already in the position of having to win so everything is 1/3 as likely before we start, no other result for us will suffice.
We need to overtake two other teams and there are several ways this can occur, please let me know if I have missed any out !
As Plymouth play Scunthorpe, we can treat that as one entity. I will consider Plymouth only for this as they are the team above us.
Walsall W 1/3 [49]
Wimbledon L 1/3 [49]
Southend L or D 2/3 [46 or 47]
Plymouth Any 1 [47, 48 or 50]
Probability = 1/3 x 1/3 x 2/3 x 1 = 2/27
Walsall W 1/3 [49]
Wimbledon L 1/3 [49]
Southend Any 1 [46, 47 or 49]
Plymouth L or D 2/3 [47 or 48]
Probability = 1/3 x 1/3 x 1 x 2/3 = 2/27
Walsall W 1/3 [49]
Wimbledon Any 1 [49, 50 or 52]
Southend L or D 2/3 [46 or 47]
Plymouth L or D 2/3 [47 or 48]
Probability = 1/3 x 1 x 2/3 x 2/3 = 4/27
Overall Probability = 2/27 + 2/27 + 4/27 = 8/27
Or if you like horse racing approximately 4-1.
The interesting thing is that chances of the other results dropping for us (ie taking us out of the equation) is 8/9. So the biggest hurdle we face by far is ourselves.
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The flowchart is easier to follow as a diagram, but is more complicated due to ‘successive eventualities.’
The top and bottom of it all though is that we have to win!
Great fun chart, but it makes things seem too complicated.
We have to win or we are relegated.
If Walsall win on Sunday Scunthorpe cannot overtake us unless their margin of victory is at least seven goals better than ours, so in reality a win will mean that we are not going to finish in the bottom two, and we can take Scunthorpe off the chart and not worry about them.
To get out of the bottom four we have to overtake two of the three teams above us, namely Plymouth, Southend and Wimbledon. We will do that if we win and at least two of these three things happen:
Plymouth Draw or Lose,
Southend Draw of Lose,
Wimbledon Lose.
We will stay up if we win and only one of the following happens, but go down if two or three of those bad results for us happen:
Plymouth Win
Southend Win
Wimbledon Draw or Win.
The interesting thing is that chances of the other results dropping for us (ie taking us out of the equation) is 8/9. So the biggest hurdle we face by far is ourselves.
AFKALS post is an interesting example of stats, most of which is correct but (as I am sure he knows) problems can arise if you add probabilities that are not mutually exclusive. I suspect that when he got his figure of 8/9 probability of staying up if we win he would have thought that it seems a bit too good to be true.
If Walsall win we will stay up as long as at least two of the following happen: Plymouth lose or draw, Southend lose or draw, Wimbledon lose. Using AFKALS assumption that all results are equally likely then the probability that Plymouth gives us the right result is 2/3, Southend 2/3 and Wimbledon 1/3.
The probability that Plymouth and Southend both fail to win is 2/3 x 2/3 = 4/9, and in that case it does not matter what Wimbledon do, so we could forget about them.
If Plymouth win then we would need Southend to fail to win and Wimbledon to lose, the probability of that scenario is 1/3 x 2/3 x 1/3 = 2/27. The same applies if Southend win, giving the probability of us staying up after one of Plymouth or Southend win as 4/27. If Plymouth and Southend both win we are relegated.
That makes the probability of us staying up (based on these assumptions) if we win as 16/27, which is better than even money, but not by any means a dead cert.
Bernie, I am indebted to you.
That was me attempting a shortcut that was clearly incorrect.
Namely: (8/27) / (1/3)
The flowchart is very useful for clearly indicating the mutual exclusivity.
My maths is very concise (would you believe) but doesn’t cover the exclusivity of all permutations.
Utlimately, this is the second time is as many weeks that my maths assumptions have been proved incorrect, having done most ot the work. I’m still more consistent and correct than the players though!
And there lads & lasses is the yardstick to just how far this club has fallen…
Agree. Walsall being better that Shrewsbury should be an unspoken base criteria of any season.
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Fear not…we can stop up with draw.
That is if Sunderland stick 9 up Southend.
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Any road up…I ain’t seen us lose this season.
And the answer to your next question is 6.
For some of the years we were in the Championship they were in non-league! That is crazy. Don’t think they have been in a League above us since 1992.
Now they get more home fans than us, take the same numbers away (historically we always took the ■■■■ out of their away numbers) and they can relegate us on Saturday. Now all those people that mention a slow death - there it is illustrated by a simple comparison.
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Only if Plymouth and Scunthorpe both lose to each other.
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Spoilsport…lol
2 other scenarios.
We win 1-0, Southend lose and Scunthorpe beat Plymouth 9-0. Now that would be sickening.
What if Bolton fail to play their last 2 games. Might they get relegated 2 divisions or am I clutching at straws?
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Plymouth will beat Scunny I reckon.
All down to Southend not beating Sunderland, very possible and Bradford beating Wimbledon, possible ish.
Oh and the easy part of winning your own game.
well Fleetwood beat Sunderland tonight 
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