It is my firm belief that Zordon has access to extra dimensions.
His second-place finish in the Classic Grand defies logic. I really do mean it. Colin made no secret of the fact that he was barely paying attention, and in the marathon that is the ProMax World Championship this played out as you would expect; Zordon’s Rangers placed twelfth out of fifteen in the league, ahead only of the division’s other two absentee managers – Nial Taylor and Amy Jarrett – and the malfunctioning circus robot that was The Rat Pack.
His GW1 team screamed of somebody that was out for a laugh. Colin, a Burnley fan, threw three Clarets into his opening day squad. Only one other team had even one. In Joe Hart and Ben Mee Colin could claim two that would be reliant predominantly on clean sheets for their points. By GW12, when Colin finally transferred out the first of these (Mee), Burnley were a point from the relegation zone with the joint-fourth worst goal difference in the league.
And yet he won eight of those first twelve, level with F.C. Aubamaschlong, kept from the summit by points difference alone.
This is just the beginning, I sh*t you not.
Colin’s behaviour could sometimes be downright eccentric, almost like he was trying to lose. Just look at the treatment of one of his team’s marquee stars, Paul Pogba.
Paul Explains It All
After a ten point haul in the first game of the season, Pogba went fifteen games without a double digit haul; in that time only twice did he score more than five. Up to and including GW17 Paul Pogba, World Cup winner, the cornerstone of Manchester United’s midfield, had only three goals, three assists, and was averaging a measly three points a game. Three!! And still Colin kept the faith.
But then United canned Mourinho, Solksjaer took the wheel, and United began playing as though if they didn’t win their families would die.
All of a sudden Pogba starts racking up the scores. Thirteen points in GW18. Fifteen in GW19. Eighteen in GW20! Anyone with the moody French bastard was making bank! In those three games alone Pogba doubled his season’s tally for both goals and assists. And Colin had gotten in on the ground floor! His patience had paid off massively.
But then GW21 rolls around, Pogba gets only three points in a 2-0 away win against Newcastle and Zordon throws him out on his arse. It was one of only sixteen transfers he’d make all season.
And here’s the thing; this isn’t the answer to the riddle. It wasn’t remarkable prescience by a clairvoyant gaffer. In fact Pogba would get an attacking return in six of the next seven games, averaging at just over seven points per game. It should have cost him.
Here’s the other thing: it didn’t.
In the ten games before trading away Pogba, Zordon won seven games out of ten. In the ten games afterward he won only one fewer.
And sure, a team is made up of more than just one player. Zordon must’ve been making dividends in other areas. So what was his secret?
Colin Wilkinson’s Wacky World of Fun House Mirrors
Absolutely nothing about Zordon’s season makes even the slightest bit of sense.
Despite being runner-up, Zordon’s Rangers notched the lowest goals tally of any other team.
Ah, so it must’ve been clean sheets that kept him winning!
Nope. He’s tied for 5th in that category.
Then he must’ve been damn good at picking a captain!
Nope. He’s sixth in that category.
The he must’ve made reeeeeeeeal good use of his bonus chips!
Nope. He only used one, his Bench Boost, and that was on the last day of the season, and even that didn’t do much. Of the seven players to use that particular chip, only two got lower scores. Oh, and he didn’t use either of his Wildcards. I guess that goes without saying.
Then … uhh … he must’ve just kept on getting lucky with his opponents!
Well, I ran the numbers for that too. And no … no he didn’t.
The Luck of the Draw
Luck is a sh*tty thing to quantify. What even is luck, anyway? If you lose, you lose, if you win, you win. That’s just life. And I get that, I really do. But just for funsies, let’s look at it like this:
In any given gameweek you are pitted against one of nine potential opponents. Now, imagine that you get a damn good score, one that would’ve beaten all but one of the other players … but your opponent that week just so happens to be that one other player with a higher tally. Tough break, right?
It works both ways. If a team was victorious against the only player with a lower score … well, sure, you can only beat what’s put in front of you, but let’s be honest, that’s a stroke of good fortune, right?
So I decided to figure out how often this occurred. With my metric I broaden the horizon slightly by figuring out the number of times teams were beaten by one of the two teams with higher scores (and conversely, those that defeated one of the only two teams with lower scores). This gave me more numbers to work with, and whilst it does dilute the idea of ‘luck’ a smidge, it does still mean that competitors had a hair under 1-in-5 chance of seeing a highly-likely victory turned to defeat or vice versa. Still pretty slim however you look at it.
Anyway, I was so sure I’d see Colin feature heavily in the ‘lucky’ column. Does he?
Does he bollocks.
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The Lucky Ones – Number of times manager was victorious against one of the only two teams with lower score:
=1. Busby Babe (Amy Lewis) – 4
=1. Arkansassy (Amy Jarrett) – 4
2. F.C. Aubamaschlong (Elys Sargunar) 2
=4. The Rhythmic Schism (Max Selby) 1
=4. Oh Canada (Glen Woodbridge) 1
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I have one question …
…. where the f**k is Colin?!
Giving Up is Hard to Do
Colin seemed to be playing a different game to the rest of us, one where the points don’t matter, like ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ but with Willian and James f**king Milner.
So I looked even harder for an explanation. I split the season up into thirds (or at least as neatly as 38 will go into three – thirteen games for the start, twelve for the middle, and thirteen for the end) and took a look at Zordon’s averages. Maybe there’d be some clues there.
Over the first thirteen games, Zordon had the fifth highest average.
Over the middle twelve he had … the fifth highest average.
Over the final thirteen games he had … the fifth highest average.
I literally give up.
Conclusionz
Colin is a just a dodge. Expect him to be a f**king dodge next season too.
The end.
Lush Gutters 