How many times is that now?

[BillyStubbsTears]

I’m hesitating to get into this figh....

...ahhh b*llocks to it. Here goes.

A couple of points of fact.

1) It’s self-evidently the case that we have had a slightly unbalanced first set of 21 matches. In those games, we’ve played every one of the sides currently in the top half (in fact, every one of the current top 14) and only 9 games against sides in the bottom half.

2) We’ve already played 4 of the top 6 away from home (ie on paper, we’ve played 4 of our hardest 6 games of the season).

3) We’ve played 2 of the bottom 6 at home (ie we still have 4 of our nominally easiest matches of the season to come).

Now, come the middle of January, the situation will have reversed. Between now and then we play 4 home games against sides in the bottom 10 (3 against sides in the bottom 4). Our other 2 games are away to sides in 15th and 10th places. In other words, this is (on paper) our easiest run of the season. 

If we’re still hovering above the relegation zone by then, then yes, we are in a serious relegation fight. Until then, I respectfully suggest that it’s too early to really tell.

My gut feeling from how I’ve seen us play this season is that, given a couple of good additions and a fair run without injuries, we’ll finish about mid-table. But I’m prepared for an arse-wobble if we don’t pick up a good few points from the next 6 games.

[Chris Black come back]

All based on premise that these clubs stay in same positions for rest of season...otherwise it doesn’t make sense.

[BillyStubbsTears]

In other words, the table at the moment is meaningless?

[dickos1]

All based on premise that these clubs stay in same positions for rest of season...otherwise it doesn’t make sense.

In other words, the table at the moment is meaningless?

Surely not

[since-1969]

We have manage to conjure up every denomination or combination of loosing games from wining positions this season . It’s no wonder we can’t get any decent form , when we cat even get a form of an average side .

[dickos1]

How many times have we lost games from a winning position then?

How many times have we won games from losing position?

[drfchound]

Punters wouldn't be happy if the odds on favourite that they had backed threw away a good lead and trailed in third.

We were about 1/10 weren’t we? So not impossible to happen.

I was severely braised off, I had us at 9/1 from before the season started, to win the league.

[drfchound]

The hypocrisy in that last sentence is remarkable

Last season you're classing the end of season as the last 5 games yet the season before you're classing the end of the season as everything but the last 5 games just to suit your argument

Sorry, you are wrong.
I wrote end of season / end of season except for last five games because whenever someone says we had an end of season collapse in the relegation season, you come on and tell us that we didn’t have an end of season collapse that year because we did well in the last five games.
( not strictly true either when you consider the pathetic performance at Crewe).
You conveniently omit to include that 19 game run without a win.

[Bentley Bullet]

I feel sorry for Bury. All their remaining games are against teams above them, they're just having no luck at all!

[dickos1]

The hypocrisy in that last sentence is remarkable

Last season you're classing the end of season as the last 5 games yet the season before you're classing the end of the season as everything but the last 5 games just to suit your argument

Sorry, you are wrong.
I wrote end of season / end of season except for last five games because whenever someone says we had an end of season collapse in the relegation season, you come on and tell us that we didn’t have an end of season collapse that year because we did well in the last five games.
( not strictly true either when you consider the pathetic performance at Crewe).
You conveniently omit to include that 19 game run without a win.

We had a disasterous middle part to the season, nobody ever said we had a disasterous end to that season until we had a poor end to last season. And now all of a sudden the disasterous middle part of that season has now become a disasterous end of the season just so a point can somehow be made that we always fail at the end of the season.

[drfchound]

The hypocrisy in that last sentence is remarkable

Last season you're classing the end of season as the last 5 games yet the season before you're classing the end of the season as everything but the last 5 games just to suit your argument

Sorry, you are wrong.
I wrote end of season / end of season except for last five games because whenever someone says we had an end of season collapse in the relegation season, you come on and tell us that we didn’t have an end of season collapse that year because we did well in the last five games.
( not strictly true either when you consider the pathetic performance at Crewe).
You conveniently omit to include that 19 game run without a win.

We had a disasterous middle part to the season, nobody ever said we had a disasterous end to that season until we had a poor end to last season. And now all of a sudden the disasterous middle part of that season has now become a disasterous end of the season just so a point can somehow be made that we always fail at the end of the season.

Really?
You are telling me that no one suggested we had a disastrous end to the season in the year we went down?
Almost everyone said it.
As far as I remember it was only you who differed because you said we had done well in the last five matches.

[dickos1]

The majority of people were saying why haven't we been playing like this for the last 20 games? Why are we beating Wigan now when we couldn't beat anyone a few weeks ago.

[anne honemous]

I’m hesitating to get into this figh....

...ahhh b*llocks to it. Here goes.

A couple of points of fact.

1) It’s self-evidently the case that we have had a slightly unbalanced first set of 21 matches. In those games, we’ve played every one of the sides currently in the top half (in fact, every one of the current top 14) and only 9 games against sides in the bottom half.

2) We’ve already played 4 of the top 6 away from home (ie on paper, we’ve played 4 of our hardest 6 games of the season).

3) We’ve played 2 of the bottom 6 at home (ie we still have 4 of our nominally easiest matches of the season to come).

Now, come the middle of January, the situation will have reversed. Between now and then we play 4 home games against sides in the bottom 10 (3 against sides in the bottom 4). Our other 2 games are away to sides in 15th and 10th places. In other words, this is (on paper) our easiest run of the season. 

If we’re still hovering above the relegation zone by then, then yes, we are in a serious relegation fight. Until then, I respectfully suggest that it’s too early to really tell.

My gut feeling from how I’ve seen us play this season is that, given a couple of good additions and a fair run without injuries, we’ll finish about mid-table. But I’m prepared for an arse-wobble if we don’t pick up a good few points from the next 6 games.

I don't think you're far off with that summary.

Even without the necessary additions in January, I still think this crop of players are good enough to carry us to a respectable finish.

Until January, even early February, I still expect results/performances to yo-yo on a weekly basis as when we do sign new players they'll need time to settle in and make their impression.

We'll see what happens.

[Chris Black come back]

Of the six teams currently below us, we have played five, hammering Plymouth and squeeking past ten man Bury, losing to Rochdale and Wimbledon and drawing with Gillingham. It is a modest record.

[dickos1]

We've played all 6
We lost to Northampton too,
An important factor in your analysis is that 5 of these 6 games were away from home.
So not that modest really

Of the 6 sides directly above us we've played 4 of them and beat 2, drawn with 2 and lost to none of them.
8 points from 4 games and no defeats.
An excellent record
3 of these 4 games were at home

[Chris Black come back]

Sorry, you are right - we lost to Northampton as well. I am not sure it is credible to expect any saviour in playing these teams at home - we have won as many games away as at home this season in the league and only two teams in the entire league have won less than us at home. It is not on th basis of evidence, any kind of advantage for us this season.

[dickos1]

Sorry, you are right - we lost to Northampton as well. I am not sure it is credible to the point expect any saviour in playing these teams at home - we have won as many games away as at home this season in the league and only two teams in the entire league have won less than us at home. It is not on th basis of evidence, any kind of advantage for us this season.

I thought you might ignore the point about us getting 2ppg against the 6 sides immediately above us..
As I said 3 of these 4 were at home which kind of makes a nonsense of your arguement

[drfchound]

Sorry, you are right - we lost to Northampton as well. I am not sure it is credible to the point expect any saviour in playing these teams at home - we have won as many games away as at home this season in the league and only two teams in the entire league have won less than us at home. It is not on th basis of evidence, any kind of advantage for us this season.

I thought you might ignore the point about us getting 2ppg against the 6 sides immediately above us..
As I said 3 of these 4 were at home which kind of makes a nonsense of your arguement

Not when you take into account that we have won as many away games as home games.
With our ppg record against the teams below us that doesn't bode well.

[dickos1]

But we're unbeaten against the 6 sides above us! This is a prime example of the negative people ignoring anything that is positive.

Our home record is better than our away record regardless of how many we've won, 

[drfchound]

But we're unbeaten against the 6 sides above us! This is a prime example of the negative people ignoring anything that is positive.

Our home record is better than our away record regardless of how many we've won,

Not considering rose tinted specs people ignoring any negatives then and thinking all is rosy.

[dickos1]

Who's suggesting everything's rosy?
Your mate suggested our record against the 6 sides below us isn't very good,
I pointed out the record against the 6 above us was extremely good.
Neither of you can bring yourselves to acknowledge this

[drfchound]

Who's suggesting everything's rosy?
Your mate suggested our record against the 6 sides below us isn't very good,
I pointed out the record against the 6 above us was extremely good.
Neither of you can bring yourselves to acknowledge this

How can our record against the six sides immediately  above us be considered as very good when we have only played four of them ?

Maybe that can be judged when we have played them.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sorry, you are right - we lost to Northampton as well. I am not sure it is credible to expect any saviour in playing these teams at home - we have won as many games away as at home this season in the league and only two teams in the entire league have won less than us at home. It is not on th basis of evidence, any kind of advantage for us this season.

How about the fact that all three of those home wins have come in the past 5 home league games? And perhaps you add into that the superb home win against Scunthorpe in the Cup. That makes it W4 D1 L1 in our last 6 home games against L1 opponents.

Like I’ve said times many, we struggled to find our feet early in this season. But we’ve been in really quite reasonable form for a while now, especially at home. Seems odd that the more our form and performances improve, the more you insist that we are rubbish.

[dickos1]

Who's suggesting everything's rosy?
Your mate suggested our record against the 6 sides below us isn't very good,
I pointed out the record against the 6 above us was extremely good.
Neither of you can bring yourselves to acknowledge this

How can our record against the six sides immediately  above us be considered as very good when we have only played four of them ?

Maybe that can be judged when we have played them.

You just can't bring yourself to do it can you?

Ok we've played 4 of the 6 sides above us winning 2and drawing 2.
I.e. No defeats

By the way it was your mate who begun the compare and attempted to compare 5 results from those 6 below us!
You must have missed that

[drfchound]

Who's suggesting everything's rosy?
Your mate suggested our record against the 6 sides below us isn't very good,
I pointed out the record against the 6 above us was extremely good.
Neither of you can bring yourselves to acknowledge this

How can our record against the six sides immediately  above us be considered as very good when we have only played four of them ?

Maybe that can be judged when we have played them.

You just can't bring yourself to do it can you?

Ok we've played 4 of the 6 sides above us winning 2and drawing 2.
I.e. No defeats

By the way it was your mate who begun the compare and attempted to compare 5 results from those 6 below us!
You must have missed that

First of all, the poster you are calling "my mate" is not known to me, apart from his forum name of course.

Secondly, i didn't miss the 5 / 6 game thing.
However, he did apologise and correct himself when it was pointed out to him.

You have to abide by the same rules though when making comparisons though, trying to compare our record against six teams when it is actually only four.

Also, i think a point was being made that our record against the teams below us isn't good.
After it was pointed out that we had mostly played them away a poster said that our wins at home only matched our away wins so playing the teams below us doesn't guarantee that we will beat them.

[IDM]

Bloody hell folks! 

We are too close to the wrong end of the table, and need to pick up points regardless of the opposition and their relative positions in the table, at home and away..

The games that have gone are past.

The most important game of the season is the next one, and then the next one after etc..

[dickos1]

I agree,
Just winds me up same people going on about the past and finding something negative about everything

[drfchound]

Yep, and those people who say everything is ok because we aren't in the bottom three/ picked up so many points in the last so many games / blew a title when we should have won it easily / are playing well but not winning / accept that one ppg (ish) is acceptable etc wind other posters up too.

[dickos1]

I've never once said everythings all ok, I can just acknowledge improvement. And not just ignore it just because I've never liked the manager.

[bobjimwilly]

can't we all just wait until after the next 4 games have been played before carrying on this very interesting [sic] debate?