20 games in

[DearneValleyRover]

There could be another reason, take Butler and Copps out of the equation and the other 15 yesterday had an average age of 23 including 2 of those players in their 30’s. Staying up this season has always been the aim with a squad that young. The hope is that as a unit they will grow into the league and then next season with a few astute signings we can mount a challenge.

[RoversAlias]

The words been mentioned a few times now and I think we're finally getting to the crux of the problems on this forum: massaging.

No, not massaging stats, but I think maybe some of the thornier rivals on the board should all go for a nice, relaxing spa day together? There are some lovely places in the local area you can go. I'm thinking Dickos, the Frosts, CBCB (he can bring his PPG ratio stats with him of course) and a couple of others. Might solve a lot of our problems.

No? 

[drfchound]

There could be another reason, take Butler and Copps out of the equation and the other 15 yesterday had an average age of 23 including 2 of those players in their 30’s. Staying up this season has always been the aim with a squad that young. The hope is that as a unit they will grow into the league and then next season with a few astute signings we can mount a challenge.

Very good words and hopefully that will happen.
There is still a distinct possibility though that next seasons challenge could be getting out of L2 again.

[GazLaz]

Maybe check these stats out instead:

Jesse Lingards CL Yellow cards

Man Uniteds chance of making the CL Knockout stages.

Jose Mourinhos history of telling his players to get deliberately booked.

Odds of lingard being booked tonight.

Just a thought.

3/1 into 1/2 with Hills.

[dickos1]

It's truly baffling. Why would anyone try to pass off as credible analysis a comparison between 8 games and 11?
Hmm. .. a bit lob sided almost as if the metric was picked to fit the preferred outcome.
Maybe I'm wrong and we will always use the 8/11 structure from now on or perhaps you are pointing out the futility of massaging stats in an attempt to satirise the home office or something.

The stats were just showing our form has improved recently which was the whole point of the discussion

[RedJ]

The words been mentioned a few times now and I think we're finally getting to the crux of the problems on this forum: massaging.

No, not massaging stats, but I think maybe some of the thornier rivals on the board should all go for a nice, relaxing spa day together? There are some lovely places in the local area you can go. I'm thinking Dickos, the Frosts, CBCB (he can bring his PPG ratio stats with him of course) and a couple of others. Might solve a lot of our problems.

No? 

Is that a massage with a happy ending?

[Bessie Red]

I can agree with most of that until you get to the part of sacking the manager. If, as you say early in your original piece, the fault lies with a mixture of players and manager, then how suddenly can all the blame end up with the manager! Yes, he brought a lot of those players in, but what did he have to work with, budget-wise? This is the unsanwerable question and one with which I have wrestled with since before the season started. If, as we are told, the budget was competitive, then why are we signing young untried and untested midfielders at this level?
I think the problems we have are much deeper than just players and manager and if the rumour on twitter last night holds any water, we could be in for an uncertain future!

What's the rumour AS?

[RoversAlias]

The words been mentioned a few times now and I think we're finally getting to the crux of the problems on this forum: massaging.

No, not massaging stats, but I think maybe some of the thornier rivals on the board should all go for a nice, relaxing spa day together? There are some lovely places in the local area you can go. I'm thinking Dickos, the Frosts, CBCB (he can bring his PPG ratio stats with him of course) and a couple of others. Might solve a lot of our problems.

No? 

Is that a massage with a happy ending?

I hope not, depends if Dickos asks you or not I suppose! 

[Tarkovsky_Mikluzhkin]

Had to wait until injury time for Culverhouse to get booked last night (Time wasting at 6-0 up!! - Ridiculous)

[pib]

"Judge by what you see on the pitch" - has that been all that impressive??  I'd say what I've seen so far performance wise matches our league position - much closer to the bottom than the top.

We've been good in about 4 or 5 league games this season, to me.

Not really sure which matches people are referring to when they say that performances have been much better than results suggest. I think we've looked pretty poor overall.

[mrfrostsdad]

"Judge by what you see on the pitch" - has that been all that impressive??  I'd say what I've seen so far performance wise matches our league position - much closer to the bottom than the top.

We've been good in about 4 or 5 league games this season, to me.

Not really sure which matches people are referring to when they say that performances have been much better than results suggest. I think we've looked pretty poor overall.

Exactly pib.
As I said: the league table doesn't lie. We were extremely good second half at Blackburn, very good first 25 minutes against Portsmouth. But equally we were absolutely awful against Walsall, similar at Wigan etc etc.

We are where we deserve to be

[GazLaz]

"Judge by what you see on the pitch" - has that been all that impressive??  I'd say what I've seen so far performance wise matches our league position - much closer to the bottom than the top.

We've been good in about 4 or 5 league games this season, to me.

Not really sure which matches people are referring to when they say that performances have been much better than results suggest. I think we've looked pretty poor overall.

Exactly pib.
As I said: the league table doesn't lie. We were extremely good second half at Blackburn, very good first 25 minutes against Portsmouth. But equally we were absolutely awful against Walsall, similar at Wigan etc etc.

We are where we deserve to be

The league table does lie. 19 games is not a good enough sample size to be very accurate. Do you think the table doesn’t lie after 5 games? Or 10 games? Course it does.

[Chris Black come back]

True that we have not yet played each and every side, but with 42pc of the league season gone, that is a decent sample, surely?

[Bentley Bullet]

Tables lie in respect of they don't reveal all the truth.

They don't tell you that........

Some teams play more games against teams on form than others.
Some teams play more games against teams off form than others.

Some teams play against the top of the table teams more than others.
Some teams play against the bottom of the table teams more than others.
Some teams don't play the top of the table at all.
Some teams don't play the bottom of the table at all

Some teams play with injury-ravaged teams more often than others.
Some teams play against injury-ravaged teams more often than others.

Some teams play against teams who have bought/loaned a new star player/s.
Some teams play against teams who have just sold/had a loan recall on a star player/s.

[dickos1]

Very good post Bentley

[Dutch Uncle]

Tables lie in respect of they don't reveal all the truth.

They don't tell you that........

Some teams play more games against teams on form than others.
Some teams play more games against teams off form than others.

Some teams play against the top of the table teams more than others.
Some teams play against the bottom of the table teams more than others.
Some teams don't play the top of the table at all.
Some teams don't play the bottom of the table at all

Some teams play with injury-ravaged teams more often than others.
Some teams play against injury-ravaged teams more often than others.

Some teams play against teams who have bought/loaned a new star player/s.
Some teams play against teams who have just sold/had a loan recall on a star player/s.

And.....

Some teams play more often against teams who have just appointed a new manager.........

[mrfrostsdad]

"Judge by what you see on the pitch" - has that been all that impressive??  I'd say what I've seen so far performance wise matches our league position - much closer to the bottom than the top.

We've been good in about 4 or 5 league games this season, to me.

Not really sure which matches people are referring to when they say that performances have been much better than results suggest. I think we've looked pretty poor overall.

Exactly pib.
As I said: the league table doesn't lie. We were extremely good second half at Blackburn, very good first 25 minutes against Portsmouth. But equally we were absolutely awful against Walsall, similar at Wigan etc etc.

We are where we deserve to be

The league table does lie. 19 games is not a good enough sample size to be very accurate. Do you think the table doesn’t lie after 5 games? Or 10 games? Course it does.

Really??!!
Strange that. Many of the regular posters in here said at the start of the season that 10 games in is where we start to look where are as a team and our league position. Them, because we were doing crap that was extended to 15 games, then 20 games.
Well, we're 20 games in tomorrow, and unless we win the manager has to go, full stop end of story. What do you want to do? Wait until we're 30 games in and still in the mire?

I will say again: the league table does not lie. We are where we are because, in general, we've not been good enough. And if we finish in the top half, the table still won't lie and we'll have had an excellent second half of the season and all the doubters will be proved wrong.
As it stands, it's not working. We couldn't score in a brothel with a roll of 20's sticking out our top pockets. That has to change before it's too late

[Bezza]

we are were we are at the moment a team fighting relegation, it could change  but it will be a battle starting on saturday we need to lift the gloom, with a good performance and 3 pts, but it will be difficult.

[Chris Black come back]

Unlikely we will go down this season. More likely a season of extreme modesty at or around 46 points. There just does not seem to be much progress.

[mrfrostsdad]

Unlikely we will go down this season. More likely a season of extreme modesty at or around 46 points. There just does not seem to be much progress.

I don't think we'll go down either Chris, but didn't we all say this two seasons ago?
And would 46 points really keep us up? To be honest, I don't know what the minimum number of points is, in general, that keeps you up

[IDM]

The table doesn't lie if the analysis is on results.  Ultimately that is what matters at the end of the day.

Where performances count, is that they show we can play better.  The likes of the Walsall game isn't the best we can do for example, if it was I would be very worried, and didn't we play maybe our best vs Shrewsbury yet still lost?

The performances show that we can get better results, if things go for us in individual games.  Yes, the last 30 minutes vs Walsall was mostly pants, but had Marquis tucked his chance away before half time, it's a different game.  Had Moore skied his 96th minute shot into row V, we would have won the derby match too.

The worrying thing is that goals have dried up, FA Cup exploits aside.  The players and the team are capable of getting better results, which is what leads me to conclude we should be OK.  Of course, things could go badly wrong but that's football!  They could go the other way too, look where Barnsley were at a similar stage of the season a couple of years ago and then what happened to them?

[drfchound]

Unlikely we will go down this season. More likely a season of extreme modesty at or around 46 points. There just does not seem to be much progress.

I don't think we'll go down either Chris, but didn't we all say this two seasons ago?
And would 46 points really keep us up? To be honest, I don't know what the minimum number of points is, in general, that keeps you up

I dearly hope that DF and the team prove many of us wrong and turn things around.
However i can't say that i am confident right now of us staying up and certainly would not risk putting any money on it.
I will always give my best support to the team on match day though and unlike some supporters, won't be heard slagging players off whatever happens on the pitch.

[eastender]

The worrying thing is that goals have dried up, FA Cup exploits aside.  The players and the team are capable of getting better results, which is what leads me to conclude we should be OK.  Of course, things could go badly wrong but that's football!  They could go the other way too, look where Barnsley were at a similar stage of the season a couple of years ago and then what happened to them?

Yeah, they ditched their manager and never looked back. 

[dickos1]

The worrying thing is that goals have dried up, FA Cup exploits aside.  The players and the team are capable of getting better results, which is what leads me to conclude we should be OK.  Of course, things could go badly wrong but that's football!  They could go the other way too, look where Barnsley were at a similar stage of the season a couple of years ago and then what happened to them?

Yeah, they ditched their manager and never looked back. 

He left to go to a bigger club

[IDM]

The worrying thing is that goals have dried up, FA Cup exploits aside.  The players and the team are capable of getting better results, which is what leads me to conclude we should be OK.  Of course, things could go badly wrong but that's football!  They could go the other way too, look where Barnsley were at a similar stage of the season a couple of years ago and then what happened to them?

Yeah, they ditched their manager and never looked back. 

Lee Johnson left Barnsley in Feb 2016 - voluntarily - when they were well into their recovery.  And your point is??

[eastender]

The worrying thing is that goals have dried up, FA Cup exploits aside.  The players and the team are capable of getting better results, which is what leads me to conclude we should be OK.  Of course, things could go badly wrong but that's football!  They could go the other way too, look where Barnsley were at a similar stage of the season a couple of years ago and then what happened to them?

Yeah, they ditched their manager and never looked back. 

He left to go to a bigger club

He left before he was pushed.

[pib]

Tables lie in respect of they don't reveal all the truth.

They don't tell you that........

Some teams play more games against teams on form than others.
Some teams play more games against teams off form than others.

Some teams play against the top of the table teams more than others.
Some teams play against the bottom of the table teams more than others.
Some teams don't play the top of the table at all.
Some teams don't play the bottom of the table at all

Some teams play with injury-ravaged teams more often than others.
Some teams play against injury-ravaged teams more often than others.

Some teams play against teams who have bought/loaned a new star player/s.
Some teams play against teams who have just sold/had a loan recall on a star player/s.

Balances out over the season I think. Easy to forget that 2 of our 5 league wins came against teams missing their best player (Carey at Plymouth and Pitman v Portsmouth)

[bobjimwilly]

At the beginning of the season, a lot of people on here were saying a good yardstick of the season is 10 games in and to review things then and not to panic before those 10 games.

I can't find anyone who mentioned 10 games in apart from you and drfchound, who was also referring to "people" who said we should wait until 10 games in?
(Happy to be proven wrong though!)