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Cup draws
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I've noticed a consistent trend of getting drawn in the League Cup against clubs that I'm due to play in the League this same week. It's happened three time out of three times this season and, although I obviously no longer have the data to back it up, I distinctly remember it happening often in previous seasons (it sticks in my mind because it's usually Peregrinos).

Does anyone else have a similar experience?

Same happened to me this week.

And me.

Same here

I can't say I've noticed.

But if there is a thing here I suppose a statistician or mathematician might be able to explain it?

I don't think my degree in Mathematics is needed here- it is happening more frequently than random chance would suggest, and apparently to multiple managers, and for me at least, over multiple seasons. If anything, the counterargument would be confirmation bias, which is more psychology than mathematics.

The problem is, of course, that it would need Ron to double check the coding to make sure nothing's going awry, and my understanding is that he doesn't have time to work on the game.

I'm just glad it's not just me that's going crazy

Interesting subject. Confirmation bias is definitely a possibility here but I also think it's not all that unlikely to happen anyway. 5 league games in a week so you're playing a smidge over a quarter of the teams in your division in the week after a cup game. If we simplify by assuming in the early rounds you only face lower division clubs but in the last 16 onwards you only face top division clubs, and if we also assume you get to the final then you're playing 4 games against clubs from your division and there's a 26% each time that you're facing them in the league in the following week, so you should expect it to happen at least once each season.

If you expand to count the week before and the week after (which is possibly where some of the confirmation/memory bias comes in) then you'd expect it twice per season and that's just from the league cup alone.

If you're also going late in the IAG cup and you're in a strong league like FS is then the late stages of the IAG cup provide extra opportunities for that 26% chance to kick in so I don't think twice is unlikely, even three times isn't outrageous.



As an aside to add to the data set - I've noticed it in the past but hasn't happened to me yet this season (even counting the week before and the week after) which is arguably an anomaly in itself..

Just to add to my comment about including both the week before and the week after the cup game making it twice as likely... 2 out of 3 times it happened to FS this season were actually where the league game was in the week before the cup game.