Thursday 6 March 2008

Permutations

When my father used to do the football pools, the pools company used to provide you with a book of alternative 'perms' that you could use to generate different combinations of your chosen results. Of course, it didn't help that much because you were invariably let down by one of your 'banker' results, while the more unlikely draws remained as elusive as ever.

Pards now has an incredible combination of players he could put into the team on Saturday. A mathematican might be able to calculate how many possible combinations there are. However, the choices (excluding loan players and the chronically injured would appear to be):

Keeper: Like Batram, Weaver is the one certainty on the team sheet.
Defence: Thatcher, Youga, Powell, Bougherra, Sodje, Monteiro (loan not cleared?), Fortune, McCarthy, Halford, Moutaoukill
Midfield: Semedo (rarely used, a big mistake in my view), Holland, Ambrose, Zhi, Sam, Thomas, Sinclair, Cook, Racon
Strikers: Varney, Iwelumo, Lita, Gray

It's difficult to predict what the team will be, but Pards has a tendency to give new signings some practice in warming the bench.

Just for fun, here is the least likely starting team: Elliott; Powell; Fortune; Monteiro; Moutaoukill; Sam; Cook; Racon; Semedo; Iwelumo; Gray.

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