But you’re assuming that the event has to happen at least once in every five instances and that’s not how probability or injuries work. A 20% chance of something occurring doesn’t mean that it’s an inevitability on the 5th instance if it didn’t happen in the first 4. The chance remains at 20% for that 5th instance.
The odds on flipping heads on a coin for any particular coin toss don’t change regardless of how many times the coin has landed on heads in any previous sequence.
No it doesn’t it increases a lot just not to 100%!
I think the chance of VvD suffering an lay off injury is much more likely if an opposition player flies at him feet first like in a kung fu movie. That’s not chance that’s thuggery!
That happens only if injuries to a player through his career is similar to a toss of a coin. And you have a fixed outcomes of equal probability of being injured and not injured on a set of similar timelines for any player anywhere. Technically what @Kopstar said is right, the chance remains 20% at that moment, but if you zoom out and have a set of outcomes defined where sequence doesn’t matter, it’ll increase. But the caveat is you need to treat any football player to have a fixed period of being injured and fixed period of being fit throughout his career.
Secondly, considering your logic, Gomez and Matip should have a pretty injury free season this one. We all know where we stand with that.
I think I’m being misunderstood.
When Van Dijk came to Liverpool, looking at his personal history, it was highly likely (Not inevitable) that he would get maybe 2 or 3 injuries within his first 4 years. Nobody knows exactly how likely as it’s definitely not an exact science. Just because he didn’t get injured during the first 2 and half years doesn’t change the probability as it stands it does however mean that there are less available years for that to now happen in. Increasing the chances that the likely injury/injuries would happen in the remaining time period (as they now can no longer happen in the other years as they didn’t). This does not make it completely inevitable and definitely going to happen 100%. It’s still just chances and probabilities. But it was always more likely he would get injured during this year and next because he didn’t get injured in his first 2 and a half. Not less likely.
Matip, based on his own history, is very likely to get at least one injury per season, as close to 100% as you can get with chance and probability.
Gomez, based on his own history, has a high chance of getting an injury per season.
Now in all 3 cases those injuries can be anything from a niggle that stops them playing a single game through to a full on career ender or anything in between. There are many more low end injuries of 1 to 10 games missed and that’s where most chances would land but VVD got right near the worst of the worst that is really unlucky.
If you’ve tossed a regular coin 99 times and got heads every time, the outcome on the 100th toss is still a 50-50 chance. The issue of independence is an important factor in understanding probability.
We should flip Pickford and see if he lands on his head or his tail.
preferably off a tall building…
The taller the better
In my opinion this is not comparable to a toss of a coin, as you have fixed outcomes defined and the probabilities change depending on when you are looking at that final outcome. A nice article to explain the same.
Secondly, on your point ARD the probability in this scenario will keep changing as seasons progresses and won’t remain the same which one would have calculated two years ago. On basis of how the two years went, your historical data will change and hence your probability calculations.
Can agree to disagree. In my opinion the staff would have foreseen VVD availability on a higher side at the beginning of this season. And hence this freak incident is an anamoly that was not possible to be planned for and a calculated risk to have Fab as fourth choice CB, atleast till Jan window.
Only when Ben Mee is on the same field. 
I am not sure of the correlation but surely it cannot be a coincidence that whenever our players got injured, the s.un rises from the east and sets in the west.
EDIT: There is a full stop in between s.un because the forum disallows me to post that word! “Your post contains a word that’s not allowed: s un”
This is part of the probability calculation though. Which is way way way beyond me. But the injuries fit into two broad categories “twangs” where something has internally gone wrong and “knocks” where something external has caused damage. The playing style of the team, playing style of the opposition, the standing of the opposition vs you (often leads to that Match of the Day highlights type of player that raises their game against top opposition) and the importance of the player all heighten the probabilities on knocks from outside sources. Put simply in a league like ours with plenty of dickheads when we are a target as we are good and play good football, our players are always more likely to get hurt by the Mee’s and Pickfords than the same types of player at Villa or Shef U etc.!
For all we know VVD has been injured before now and played through the pain. How would that change the probability that a cunt like Pickford lunges at him and puts him out for the season?
Is the probability the same for each match?
Lovren had a very high probability of suffering contact injuries in training. Clearly he was a numpty as in matches it’s very rare for our players to cause injury to the opposition.
Matip is like Sturridge he just feels he’s falling to pieces all the time.
We definitly need a Cummings alogorithm to sort all this stuff out!
Sorry, but no.
Unless you can demonstrate a causal relationship between van Dijk’s previous period of non-injury and the injury he just suffered, you are using fallacious reasoning.
This is not how probability works.
Edit: Or, maybe more troubling, perhaps we live in a deterministic universe and ARD is the only one who knows.
You’re ignoring a whole career before he came to Liverpool in which he got injured the same as everyone else in the sport to choose to use a 2 and a half year period with us to determine his likelihood of injury this season and next therefore determining that there is very low chance of him getting injured this season or next. Kind of in denial of what happened but whatever go ahead knock yourself out have fun with that. Kind of like getting ten coins flipping them all into the air finding the first 7 are all heads and predicting the final 3 you find will be heads or at least have a 50% chance each of being heads. You’d already had luck return an above average result of more heads than tails (VvD being uninjured for a long period) but you expect even luck on the remaining results. If that’s how you think it works that’s fine fed up of this pointless discussion I come wanting to talk about football not how chance works. I’m sure everybody is extremely bored of this now.
Carlsberg never had this trouble
Not only is he not ignoring anything, but you have now mischaracterized his point. He isn’t saying Virgil is at less risk of injury than other players, he is saying your premise, that he is due one, is incorrect and based on a commonly held misunderstanding called the gambler’s fallacy.
Not sure about that 
Go for a walk.