Lush Gutters

The date is Sunday December 9th 2018, and things are looking grim for Amy Worthington.

Her beloved Red Devils, suffering through the dying embers of the moody and wayward reign of Jose Mourinho, have just been unceremoniously swatted aside 3-1 at Anfield by a Xherdan Shaqiri-inspired Liverpool, leaving them clinging on to 6th place, only two points ahead of Watford in 10th. Their goal difference is zero.

In the ProMax Classic Grand, things are looking equally bleak. By the end of gameweek seventeen, almost halfway through the season, Amy finds herself mired in mid-table mediocrity, head just above water in sixth place, only three points off the foot of the table. She has just recorded her third loss in four games, her sixth in eight. She is thirteen points from the summit.

The date is Sunday December 9th.

She would not lose again until Wednesday April 24th.

A Game of Two Halves

How is any of this possible?

From basement dweller to title winner in a little over half a season, the meteoric rise of The Busby Babe is undoubtedly a tale for the ages. Young and old alike couldn’t help but be carried away as Amy’s rag-tag band of happy-go-lucky rogues swept all before them to claim the inaugural ProMax Classic Grand in the most ridiculous way possible.

And yet a 9th place finish in the ProMax World Championship begs the question: what accounts for this miraculous surge? Was it luck? Did Amy Worthington somehow fluke her way to the top? Or would that be a crass and unfair assessment of an underappreciated tactician? Opinion is, as always, divided. And so in this week’s episode we’re going to find out once and for all.

Let’s run the numbers.

The Case For: The Luck of the Draw

Lucky or not, the rise of the Busby Babe really did come out absolutely nowhere. Over the first third of the season Lewis’ average was higher than only one other player, that being the burning theme park hedge maze that was The Rat Pack. One would imagine that in order to go on and win the title she must have amassed some incredible stats over the latter two-thirds, right?

Well, not really.

Over the middle third of the season she ranked #3, behind Tom Barklamb and Max Selby. And over the final third she’d slipped down to 4th, having been overtaken by Glenzo Woods’ Oh Canada. Not bad, but not exactly world championship form.

So what gives?

Well remember, the Classic Grand is a head-to-head format. Theoretically you can win every week with the second-lowest gameweek score, as long as you keep getting drawn against the player with the lowest. So was Amy’s luck better than everyone else’s?

In a nutshell, yes. Yes it was. Hear me out.

I will be publishing this article alongside another that details how luck can be calculated via verifiable statistical data, so in order to understand why I can say this with confidence you will need to read said article. But essentially Amy had a knack for being drawn against teams that experienced mysterious and uncharacteristic drops in form, and for squeezing out victories by the skin of her teeth.

For example, The Busby Babe were tied with Zordon’s Rangers for the most wins by three points or fewer. She suffered this fate herself only once.

She was also tied alongside Amy Jarrett’s Arkansassy for the most wins against one of the only two teams with a lower GW score than hers. Meanwhile, at no point did she have the misfortune of having the week’s third highest score when drawn against that week’s #2 or #1.

Six times she defeated an opponent whose tally dipped more than ten points below their own average for that section of the season. Nobody else did so more often.

It is important to note that Amy Lewis does not make the fixture lists. Nor does any of this suggest that she was undeserving of her victories. She can, of course, only beat what’s put in front of her. This is simply just a way to explain the discrepancy between her 9th place finish in the ProMax World Championship and her victory in the ProMax Classic Grand.

So, then. Lucky bugger. Case closed?

The Case Against: Strong and Stable

Luck is an awful word. It implies a lack of agency, that were it not for the fickle quirks of fate you’d have been left face down in the dirt wondering where it all went wrong. Yet whilst the facts mentioned above may make a compelling case on the surface, they do not tell anywhere near the whole story.

In fact, if we look at some other numbers, a clearer picture begins to emerge, one where Amy Worthington isn’t so much a brittle autumn leaf swept along by a benevolent breeze, but a capable and savvy manager with an ability to achieve positive results through a combination of smart decision making and sound tactical judgement. In truth Amy Worthington, despite her disappointing start to the campaign, was in fact one of the league’s strongest and most consistent performers.

Consider these facts:

1) The Busby Babe was smart with her substitutes, leaving the lowest number of points on the bench of any team in the league. Her tally of 137 lost points was a colossal two-hundred-and-twenty-two less than ProMax World Champion Max Selby’s The Rhythmic Schism. That’s not luck. That’s good management.

2) Amy Worthington notched the highest gameweek score of the entire season, racking up a meaty 103 points in GW2, her bold call to use her triple captain chip so early in the season paying huge dividends. That’s not luck, that’s clutch decision making.

3) It’s hard to make the case that Amy got lucky against the league’s big hitters: there is only one team in the Classic Grand that could boast a winning record against The Busby Babe, and that’s Oh Canada in 6th. In fact only one other team avoided a losing record against Lewis, with Zordon’s Rangers winning two and losing two. That’s not luck, that’s dominance.

4) Many of the stats used as evidence of her good fortune don’t hold up under closer scrutiny. For example, whilst it is true that in gameweek 33 Amy scored the lowest victorious gameweek score – somehow defeating the melting hall of fun house mirrors that was The Rat Pack by a barely believable 21 points to 18 – it is important to note that she also ties the record for highest the losing score, defeated by achilles heel Oh Canada despite racking up a mammoth 80 points in GW35. That’s not luck, that’s just what went around coming around.

5) Max Selby’s The Rhythmic Schism racked up the highest overall points difference, scoring 208 more points than he conceded over the course of the season. 2nd place? Amy Worthington. By two. That’s not luck, that’s consistency.

6) Whilst Amy may have tied the highest number of games won by three points or fewer (or less than a strikers goal/defender’s clean sheet), she was also tied for highest number of games won by twenty-four or more (in other words, seven striker’s goals/defender’s clean sheets). That’s not luck, that’s pure power.

7) Whilst she may have won a league-high six games by a gap of three points or fewer, it’s important to note that only three teams finished with fewer than four wins by the same paltry margin. If that’s luck, she wasn’t alone.

8) Amy’s consistency is everywhere to see; even if she wasn’t topping a category she’s never in the bottom half. She’s got the third highest points tally from bonus chips, third highest one-off gameweek ranking, fourth highest number of clean sheets, tied third for captain’s points, and scored the fourth highest number of goals. Whilst almost everyone else was booming and busting, Amy was keeping herself on the high end of the straight and narrow. That’s not luck, that’s consistency … again.

The Verdict

Let’s not sugar-coat it; luck is a thing. And it’s certainly amplified in the Classic Grand format. A striker scores a goal and that’s four points in the World Championship. Whoop-de-doo. The Rhythmic Schism ended up with 2142 by the season’s end. Four points is small dividends. But in the Classic Grand, where the most you can earn from a week’s worth of stressful exertion are three vital points, things change. Worthington ended with 76. If we were to reverse the result of one of her victories against Colin Wilkinson, the latter wins the league by a point. We would be in the age of Zordon. I tremble just thinking about it.

However, let’s not beat around the bush, Amy won fair and square. We play this format for a reason; it’s a different kettle of fish, and thus requires a different set of skills. Your boom and bust doesn’t cut it here – consistency is key. Max might have finished top of the pile in the World Championship, but luck simply can’t account for the ten Classic Grand points between The Schism and The Babe.

This final stat, the one I shall leave you with, sums it all up. Amy Worthington’s nine-match winning streak is a formidable record, but what’s really crazy is the player with the second longest winning streak, which stands at an impressive seven. That player’s name?

Amy Worthington.

I think we can wrap a bow on this, don’t you?