Final table based on form

[PDX_Rover]

Mark: the sort of downward trajectory like our own played 5, won none, drawn 1 trajectory?

Lol!

BobG

Blackpool's has been much longer than ours though.... That is the thought I am sticking with...

[Donnywolf]

I was sure we would be relegated before a ball was kicked this Season and I continued to believe that throughout the Season

Then when Billy signed I suddenly "flipped" into becoming an optimist - we were going to survive come what may. I have said on here and to many people that 43 points might even be enough. That Yeovil Barnsley and Blackpool would not get to that target

Then during the Millwall game they showed the Table as it stood on SSN and if Rovers had gone one down they would have dropped into the bottom 3 courtesy of their Goal Diff and suddenly my optimism was gone.

We need anything we can get from Reading - because I don't but it that Leicester will be "on the Beach" and again point people to the Wolves game at the end of the Season they were going up. They and Leicester WANT a suitable result before picking up the Championship Trophy and whereas Wolves spoiled "our day" Leicester have the opportunity to ruin our Season

As RTR says above its

[River Don]

Rovers managing to stay in this division is always a huge achievement.

It's a nail biter again but we are in a position that it's in our own hands, we might be safe already, one more point could be enough, we'd all be able to relax if we could take all three on Satdi.

Somehow I think it's going to the last game, where we'll find ourselves behind and needing a point and time running out and then...




It's never dull following the Rovers is it? Some clubs just bumble about in mid table for years you know.

[BillyStubbsTears]

You know I've been saying for months that 45 points would keep a side up this season?

I'd prefer not to have been proved right this way.

Knackers...

[Filo]

Just looked Millwall's fixtures. Oh dear.

3 games against play-off contenders (QPR, Wigan, Forest)

3 against solid top half sides (Blackburn, Bournemouth, Watford).

2 matches against decent form bottom half sides. (us, Middlesboro).EDIT: I was looking at the wrong data for Boro. They are actually in poor form. Still better than Millwall mind.

No wonder the longest odds you can get on them to go down are 1/6.

They did n't do too badly out of those 8 games did they?

[The Red Baron]

If you look back at BST's initial analysis (on 13th March) then the spread of points is remarkably accurate. It is just the team names that aren't quite right.

Final table based on last 8 match form

Donny 51 points
Birmingham 48
Blackpool 45
Yeovil 43
Barnsley 41
Millwall 38
Charlton 37

Based on last 5 match form
Donny 51
Yeovil 48
Blackpool 47
Birmingham 46
Barnsley 43
Millwall 40
Charlton 39

[BillyStubbsTears]

Filo.

Aye. What do I know.

TRB

That was kind of the point. It was never about predicting WHO would survive or go down. It was about the statistical improbability that so many teams would hit form as to lead to the survival target being 48-50. With hindsight, it might have been more sensible (and saved one or two posters' blood pressure) if I'd not given team names, but just said what form was predicting that the final points total would be of the teams ending up in 24th, 23rd, 22nd etc place.

The whole point I've been making by this analysis was that it's a myth that there is a cross the board improvement in form by a the sides at the bottom in the final quarter of the season. And so, we shouldn't get het up about team A hitting form, because it is typically balanced by Team B losing form.

Unfortunately, we've ended up being Team B. Doesn't change the basic analysis though.

That is why I'm bloody annoyed about the fact that the club seems to have gone for the old wive's tale about 50 points. I wonder if we'd have chucked away the first half hour against Bolton if someone had sat down and thought about whether we REALLY needed to bet the pot on winning that match?

[Filo]

Filo.

Aye. What do I know.

TRB

That was kind of the point. It was never about predicting WHO would survive or go down. It was about the statistical improbability that so many teams would hit form as to lead to the survival target being 48-50. The whole point I've been making was not to get het up about team A hitting form, because it is typically balanced by Team B losing form.

Unfortunately, we've ended up being Team B. Doesn't change the basic analysis though.

I'm not knocking your analysis, I think you've been spot on with the points target, I just saw that regarding Millwall and no one could have predicted their points haul from those 8 games, it's unbelievable, we only had to stumble over the line, instead we tripped up over the kerb and let others overtake us

[BillyStubbsTears]

Filo

It's alright cocker. I don't do smilies, but if I did, there would have been an ironic one at the end of my response to you.

[River Don]

Filo.

Aye. What do I know.

TRB

That was kind of the point. It was never about predicting WHO would survive or go down. It was about the statistical improbability that so many teams would hit form as to lead to the survival target being 48-50. The whole point I've been making was not to get het up about team A hitting form, because it is typically balanced by Team B losing form.

Unfortunately, we've ended up being Team B. Doesn't change the basic analysis though.

I'm not knocking your analysis, I think you've been spot on with the points target, I just saw that regarding Millwall and no one could have predicted their points haul from those 8 games, it's unbelievable, we only had to stumble over the line, instead we tripped up over the kerb and let others overtake us

Ian Holloway is a force to be reckoned with.

[BigColSutherland]

Filo

It's alright cocker. I don't do smilies, but if I did, there would have been an ironic one at the end of my response to you.

Careful now:

"Strangely, when you contest any of his profound proclamations he rails and reverts to parochial banter to deflect the shortcomings in his pronouncements"

[BillyStubbsTears]

Filo

It's alright cocker. I don't do smilies, but if I did, there would have been an ironic one at the end of my response to you.

Careful now:

"Strangely, when you contest any of his profound proclamations he rails and reverts to parochial banter to deflect the shortcomings in his pronouncements"

I think yer man has trouble differentiating between railing/deflection of shortcomings and healthy self-deprecation. I'll make it more obvious in future. I'm actually very, very good at self deprecation, even if I do say so myself.

[Colin C No.3]

Filo.

Aye. What do I know.

TRB

That was kind of the point. It was never about predicting WHO would survive or go down. It was about the statistical improbability that so many teams would hit form as to lead to the survival target being 48-50. The whole point I've been making was not to get het up about team A hitting form, because it is typically balanced by Team B losing form.

Unfortunately, we've ended up being Team B. Doesn't change the basic analysis though.

"It was never about WHO would survive or go down"!

Come on BST, enough now.

I admire your continued 'optimism', but your constant regailing against anyone who suggested (especially after the Birmingham debacle) that the likelihood was our survival in this division would depend on others & your 'reliance' on your stats to prove 'on current forms' we were the team most likely to stay up, all got a tad tedious & blinkered.

I am het up that Teams A (Millwall & Blackpool) can go away & get results against QPR & Wigan while Team B (Us) 'throw away' points at home in games where we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot by seemingly making the same errors on the pitch, annoying almost 'schoolboy' errors, which have left us in a situation where (& I bite my tongue so as not to repeat my earlier threads) we pray Wigan beat Birmingham tonight to give us any hope of survival when Saturday comes & even then our best hope of survival lies not with a result against Leicester (let's get a grip & be sensible here) but with Bolton beating the boys from the Black Country again.

"...we've ended up being Team B. Doesn't change the basic analysis though."

Three cheers for your analysis?

As I said, I admire your optimism & I know all those stats were aimed at keeping 'chins up' in the end they've proved to be just what they always were, meaningless.

So please don't tell us the analysis remains 'sound' because you now recognise actually we've been Team B for some time now.

You can't have your cake & eat it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Colin C

You've mis-read me if you think I've been using any reliance on stats to show that we were the most likley team to stay up. I didn't and I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. I used the stats to predict what was the likely target points required to stay up, not WHO would stay up. I used my opinion to state WHO I thought would stay up.

I'll freely admit, at the start of April, I didn't see any circumstances in which we wouldn't get to a target of 45 points. I didn't see us collapsing into what now looks like equalling our worst run of form over 7 matches since Weaver was in charge. But that is a different issue. That's my opinion failing - I'm as fallible as anyone on opinion and worse than most.  But it's not valid to claim that because I appear to have made a wrong value judgement, then the whole numbers-based prediction was wrong.

PS: The stats WEREN'T aimed at "keeping our chins up". They were aimed at dispassionately predicting how many points we'd need to stay up. Nothing more, nothing less. My conclusions, based on those numbers may have been aimed at keeping our chins up, but that's a different thing. One looks like being spot-on right. The other looks like a mistake.

[River Don]

BST

Your analysis back then was right, who would have thought we would run straight into such poor form? I certainly thought we'd pick up a win somewhere but then injuries have taken their toll.

That Holloway would have a transformative effect on Millwall was perhaps more predictable, as was Charlton pulling away. Birmingham and Blackpool haven't really improved.

It's a funny old game as someone said once.

[The Red Baron]

I certainly thought we'd pick up a win somewhere but then injuries have taken their toll.

Was it just the injuries, or was it our failure to come up with a plan to deal with them? Or with one injury in particular?

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

Counterfactual thought experiment.

We didn't play Wellens against Bolton. We grubbed a point (or maybe even lost) in that match. Wellens was fully fit for the final 4 games of the season.

Likely to be a better scenario than what actually transpired?

[belton rover]

I think BST was using all the right teams, but not necessarily in the right order.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I think BST was using all the right teams, but not necessarily in the right order.

See my post at 08:54.

[The Red Baron]

TRB

Counterfactual thought experiment.

We didn't play Wellens against Bolton. We grubbed a point (or maybe even lost) in that match. Wellens was fully fit for the final 4 games of the season.

Likely to be a better scenario than what actually transpired?

I have to say I was thinking more of whether we could set up the team to cope with the absence of Wellens.

The idea that the Keegan/ Furman combination can provide us with an effective midfield has surely been tested to destruction now. I'm not sure we'd have done any better had Furman started the game against Bolton. However, if we'd been prepared to sacrifice a striker for an extra body in midfield...

[BillyStubbsTears]

TRB

It worked perfectly well in the first half of the Reading game. But I agree that losing Wellens has been crucial. As I've said elasewhere, if we hadn't had to have a conveyor belt of defenders coming in to replace the ones being injured, I suspect that we could have added a bit more quality or  cover in central midfield.

I know where you're coming from on the sacrificing a striker idea. Problem is, if you sacrificed Brown, with Sharp in his current mood, we'd never hold the ball up front. And if you sacrificed Sharp, we have no player who could act as a link to an isolated Brown (Forrester could have done it had he been fit I guess). It's a shite of a problem.

[belton rover]

I think BST was using all the right teams, but not necessarily in the right order.

See my post at 08:54.

Billy, your 08.54 post was my inspiration. I thought it would be funny to quote Eric Morcambe.

My mistake.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Belton

No miatake. I chuckled. Then I metaphorically grabbed you by the lapels.

[River Don]

I certainly thought we'd pick up a win somewhere but then injuries have taken their toll.

Was it just the injuries, or was it our failure to come up with a plan to deal with them? Or with one injury in particular?

For the most part we have missed Wellens but throughout the same period we haven't seen Husband and little of Duffy. Both are players I would argue, who bring more creativity and little more attacking bite to the side.

[DonnyBazR0ver]

Fed the fixtures of the bottom 7 clubs in to Squeekybumtime.com and here's the scenario coming in to the last game.

2 teams will have been relegated before last day fixtures being on 37 & 40 points after game 45.

3 teams will battle it out on the last day for the final relegation spot and will be on 43, 44 & 46 points respectively after game 45.

2 teams will be safe on 47 & 48 points after 45 games

Squeekybumtime.com says the 5 teams at risk are:- Barnsley, Millwall, Blackpool, Yeovil & Birmingham. 

Well Squeekybumtime.com almost had it bang on in terms of the points tally. Pity it got one major prediction wrong with one of the names of the teams excluded from the 'at risk' list. Bloody us.

I'm withdrawing my subscription!!