By Lou Uhler

Almost all has been said about yesterday that can, but I wanted to give a little bit of statistical analysis of what zero points from yesterday means.

I took a look over the last group stages from the last three years of the Champions League. I looked at the average number of points that are gained by teams finishing first, second, and third by those teams, in what amounted to 24 groups (3 years of 8 groups). What I found is: The average number of points gained by the team finishing first is 12.8. Teams finishing second average 10.1. Teams with the “parachute” to the Rafa Benitez Special average 7.4.

I then looked at how Chelsea have fared over that time. It’s hard to equate one team to another, especially across seasons, but what I did was, I looked how Chelsea fared vs teams drawn from Pot 2, Pot 3, and Pot 4, and looked at home and away results against the teams from respective pots. For instance, the past three years, the team from Pot 2 in Chelsea’s group has been Marseille in 10-11, Valencia in 11-12, and Shaktar last year. I looked at the team’s home and away results against those sides, in order to provide at least a decent prediction of what to expect vs this year’s team from Pot 2, Schalke.

In this case, Chelsea have won all three home games against teams from Pot 2, but away have two losses and one draw. Thus, Chelsea average 3 points a game at home vs teams from Pot 2, but only .33 points away from the Bridge. It’s not perfect math, but it wouldn’t be crazy to expect this going forward. I know the thought of .3 points sounds dumb, but read until the end and I hope to explain more. . One thing must be noted, you can argue that the away to Pot 2 number is slightly off, because it included one dead rubber game at the end of the 10-11 group stage (This would add .17 points to the average).

Here is a full table of average points gained in CL group stage games the past three years:

Pot 2 Home: 3 points

Pot 2 Away: .33 points

Pot 3 Home: 2.33 points

Pot 3 Away: 1 point

Pot 4 Home: 2.33 points

Pot 4 Away: 3 points

Now we must decide if Chelsea can expect these results going forward. Now I know it’s not possible to get 2.3 points, or even 2 points in a match, this is simply an average. Chelsea may exceed expectations vs Basel away (average 2.33 points) and win. They could also disappoint even further and lose vs Schalke (average .33 points). The point is to get a total of what we expect will happen given the club’s recent history

If we add up the averages from the games the team havs left (All games listed above, sans Pot 3 Home) and we get 9.66 points.

Back to the top. To get out of the group stages, you need an average of 10.1 points. If Chelsea form holds, they have a better shot of being out than in. In fact, of the 24 groups over the past three seasons, 9.6 points would get you out of only 6 groups.

The magic number here appears to be 10. Only three times in 24 has 10 points seen a team not make the round of 16 (Yes, one of them was the Only Defending Champions League Winner To Be Knocked Out Of The Group Stages.) Looking forward, Chelsea need to gain points where they always have, such as home to Schalke, away to Bucharest, while pulling something from a place they struggle, such as away to Schalke and Basel.

Not much for predictions usually, but the hope would be

Bucharest (A): Win

Schalke (A): Draw

Schalke (H): Win

Basel (A): Draw

Bucharest (H): Win

This gives the team 11 points, but again, is hopeful. As you can see, they have one draw in three away to the team from Pot 2, and have had slip ups at home (as we have so terribly seen).

Taking all of this in, qualification isn’t impossible, but it won’t be easy. Draws between Schalke and Basel would help, and if Bucharest taking some points when they aren’t playing the boys in blue would help as well.

October 1 will be an interesting day, if Chelsea take care of business as we all expect them too, then 21 days later will be the real test. A win there could very well put all of us back to our happy place, although if the club does not win four points from these matches, it could be sad face time.

If you want to tell Louis how much you liked the article, ask him any questions you have, or if you want to yell at him about how wrong he is, follow him on Twitter @StevensBoudreau or email him Lou.Uhler@gmail.com