Viking Supporters Co-operative
Viking Chat => Viking Chat => Topic started by: BillyStubbsTears on February 22, 2014, 07:11:30 pm
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We've picked up 9 points in the last 8 games.
Keep that form up and we'll stay up. There will be some highs. There will be done lows.
Or do you expect us to turn up and win every week in this division?
Have a scrat about for your badgers lads. You're going to need them these next 2 months so make sure they haven't gone AWOL.
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You're right Billy, but unfortunately we've only picked up 2 points in the last 4 games and only 1 point against Barnsley and Yeovil. Had we won both those games we would have been well on the way to being safe.
If we get beat next week and results go against us again it's going to look pretty grim.
Dickov has to sort out the away formation and tactics. One win away all season is dire. If we don't start picking some points up away from home, we will go down. Simple as
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So shite we're dead last and cut vastly adrift, eh.
...hang on..
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What on earth are you talking about? :laugh:
Did you honestly expect this season to be easy? what exactly were you thinking we'd be able to do this season?
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We are still in a good position but we really should have done better today.
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Away form has been absolutely shite this season and 1 point from Barnsley and Yeovil isn't good enough. But at the start of the season we all would have taken 21st at end of the season so bring on Bournemouth next week get the win and make amends for today after all we never beat Yeovil away anyway.
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What on earth are you talking about? :laugh:
Did you honestly expect this season to be easy? what exactly were you thinking we'd be able to do this season?
He's clearly unable to locate his knackers, (or add up, come to that) and consoles himself by spouting this shite every time we lose.
He'll go quiet for the summer after we've stayed up, then start again the first time we lose next season.
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If you want to support a team that wins, week in, week out, clear off and support Man United...
...oh no, hang on...
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This season is all about staying up,and then we can gradually get stronger as the seasons go,this season was always going to be tough. :scarf:
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We've picked up 9 points in the last 8 games.
Keep that form up and we'll stay up. There will be some highs. There will be done lows.
Or do you expect us to turn up and win every week in this division?
Have a scrat about for your badgers lads. You're going to need them these next 2 months so make sure they haven't gone AWOL.
It is true that an average of 9 points from 8 games would (under normal circumstances) be enough to keep a team up at this level as it would leave you on 51-52 points.
The trouble is, if you look at the season to date in eight-game segments then we've only achieved that scoring rate twice, and never exceeded it.
In the first eight games of the season we took 9 points and in our most recent eight we've taken 9. In the other "eights" we've managed 7 and 5 respectively.
If we continue to make an average of 9 from 8 (which as I say is our best level of performance) then we'll finish on 45-46 points, which really will be buttock-clenching stuff. However, if we revert to the kind of form we had in the second and third "eights" then we're toast.
I still think 47 will be a bare minimum to keep a team up this season, so in fact we've got to perform slightly better than our best form to date in order to survive.
The fact that we've gone five games at home unbeaten gives me some cause for optimism, although we've only won two of those five. But unless we sort out the away form (the joint second-worst results record and the worst scoring record in the Championship) the home results won't save us based on what we've done this season.
Statistics- don't you just love 'em?
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TRB
Thing is, the argument you make over form could equally (in fact, moreso) be applied to Yeovil, Barnsley, Charlton, Millwall,Bolton and especially, Blackpool.
For 47 points to be the target for us to stay up, 4 of those have to significantly improve on their recent form.
The following list gives the points per game that each side needs to get from now till May to hit 47 points, and their points per game over the last 8 matches.
Yeovil 1.47 ppg required over 15 games. Recent form 1.00
Barnsley. 1.40 from 15 - 1.25
Charlton. 1.18 from 17 - 1.00
Millwall. 1.36 from 14 - 0.75
Donny. 1.21 from 14 - 1.13
Bolton. 1.00 from 14 - 0.75
Blackpool. 0.86 from 14 - 0.37
Look at that list and who would you put your money on to stay up? And would you think it likely that 47 points will be the target. I'm thinking 44-45 points will be the most likely target to stay up. 10% chance it might be as high as 47-48. 10% chance it might be as low as 40-41.
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Here's another way to look at it. If form from the start of December to now is continued to the end of the season this is what the table would look like in May
Bolton 46 points
Barnsley 43
Charlton 41
Doncaster 40
Blackpool 39
Millwall 38
Yeovil 36
Look at that and you can see how unlikely it is that so many teams are going to suddenly improve their long term form by the amount needed to make 47 points the target.
PS. Our position looks decidedly iffy on that analysis, but remember that this takes form over a run that, for us, included a spell where the defence was Wakefield, McCullough, Quinn and Stevens. That defence would struggle at the top end of L2. Unless we are hammered by injuries again, I expect us to get a good bit more than 40 points.
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You're right Billy, but unfortunately we've only picked up 2 points in the last 4 games and only 1 point against Barnsley and Yeovil. Had we won both those games we would have been well on the way to being safe.
If we get beat next week and results go against us again it's going to look pretty grim.
Dickov has to sort out the away formation and tactics. One win away all season is dire. If we don't start picking some points up away from home, we will go down. Simple as
Not really true is it. If we maintain our current home form our away form is totally irrelevant
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I don't know what you mean by "our current home form." Over the season (currently W 6 D 4 L 6) if our form was repeated we'd be taking between 9-10 points from the last 7 games. Our last 7 home games have produced a remarkably similar record- W 2 D 3 L 2, which again gives us 9 points. Neither is likely to be good enough to keep us up.
So, either we make a big improvement at home or we do likewise away. Or both, preferably.
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Some impressive 'statisticing' going on here for sure; a true sign that we're in the clart.
Here's my take. We need 6 away points minimum. Whatever, however. And we then have to work on the basis that our home form will continue to sort itself.
All in all, we need to average a point a game minimum. This seemed doable at the beginning of the month but all the gains we made in January we've blown so far in February.
Supporting Rovers is never easy is it.
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We haven't lost at home since Boxing Day and since then we've taken 9 points from 5 games. Which is promotion form not relegation form, so that's what I mean by our current home form.
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We just need to do as well as/better than the three teams below us, we're all relatively shit in this league. Simples.
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We haven't lost at home since Boxing Day and since then we've taken 9 points from 5 games. Which is promotion form not relegation form, so that's what I mean by our current home form.
Sorry- 9 points from 5 games is mid-table form, not promotion form. Combine that with one point from 5 away games and it doesn't look good at all.
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I've always held the mantra that a point a game will more often than not just be enough. This season I think it certainly will. At the moment, one win will put us back on track for that.
Once we achieve that, a drawn game is an acceptable result, it doesn't matter where or against whom.
To think positive, a win buys you three games, a loss gives you a further two chances to achieve that win. To put another positive spin on it, two defeats on the bounce will make things a little awkward. Two wins on the bounce is a massive step.
Think positive, we can do this !
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Damn it 45 I have looked everywhere for my positivity only to find out that it had flitted over to your house.
I will pop round later and pick it up if that's OK ?
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Go ahead Hoola, plenty of it to go around 😎
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We haven't lost at home since Boxing Day and since then we've taken 9 points from 5 games. Which is promotion form not relegation form, so that's what I mean by our current home form.
Sorry- 9 points from 5 games is mid-table form, not promotion form. Combine that with one point from 5 away games and it doesn't look good at all.
9 points from 5 games is almost 2 points a game, there's only one side in the whole division with a better points ratio than that. Therefore it's promotion form, and if we maintain it we will be approaching midtable come may, even if we don't significantly improve our home form.
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We haven't lost at home since Boxing Day and since then we've taken 9 points from 5 games. Which is promotion form not relegation form, so that's what I mean by our current home form.
Sorry- 9 points from 5 games is mid-table form, not promotion form. Combine that with one point from 5 away games and it doesn't look good at all.
9 points from 5 games is almost 2 points a game, there's only one side in the whole division with a better points ratio than that. Therefore it's promotion form, and if we maintain it we will be approaching midtable come may, even if we don't significantly improve our home form.
If we maintain that sort of form at home it will give us 13 points from the last 7 games. So that's 43. However, unless we improve the away form we'll be struggling to find more than two points on the road. I'm not convinced 45 will be enough, though 47-48 may be this season.
In any case, as our last 4 results have been DLDL we're hardly a team running hot, are we?
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TRB
See my posts up above. It's very likely that 45 points WILL be enough, unless lots of teams simultaneously start playing above themselves.
Some might, but it's unlikely that most will.
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We are poor away but won't lose them all. Anything can and will happen at the business end of the season.
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To me, it's fairly simple. We need a tad better than 1 point per game from the last 14 matches to stay up. Throughout this season, when we've had anything remotely like our first choice XI available, we've managed to pick up a tad better than a point per game. When we've been badly hit by injuries and suspensions, we've struggled.
Our current first choice XI is probably the best we've had all season. So, failing a serious injury crisis (again) or sudden loss of form by 3-4 players, we ought to be OK.
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Charlton starting to pick up their form. Good win against QPR and now beating Wednesday away, last thing we need is them picking up form with the games in hand they've got.
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Forgot all about Charlton playing tonight.
That'd be a grand result. That'll give them 18 matches to play in the last 9 weeks of the season.
Lovely.
Even better if Wednesday get an equaliser and the Charlton win the replay.
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More thoughts on the number of points needed to stay up.
(Look, I'm stuck in bed ill and bored as hell)
Last season was a bizarre one off. Last season, all the bottom 7-8 clubs had a surge in form at the end of the season. That very, very rarely happens, and last season, it meant that a ridiculously high number of points was required to stay up (55 points).
You can discount last season from any reckoning. It might happen again, but then again a 100/1 shot once won the Grand National, but you wouldn't base your domestic finances on expecting it to happen again in a few weeks time.
So, what usually happens? Looking back over the last 15 years before last season, there is a trend to what happens in the run-in. If you look at the table at the end of Feb and look at the points per game of the third worst team, use that to predict what points the third bottom team will get in May, you usually find that this underestimates the actual number of points of the third bottom by 3-4 points. So, if at the end of Feb, the third worst team is averaging a point a game, that would predict that they would get 46 points in May. But on average they'd actually get 49-50 points.
It's only an average. There's a spread on the figures. In some years the teams do worse that predicted in the run in, in some years they do a bit better. One year, the number of points needed to stay up was 6 higher than the End Of Feb method predicts. In three years it was spot on. In most years it is 3-4 points higher. (All apart from last season of course - last season, the End Of Feb method under predicted the number of points required by 9, but I'll bet my left gonad that this won't happen this season.)
So. What about this season? Currently, the third worst team is Millwall. They are averaging 0.875 points per game. If they kept that form till May, they'd get 40 points. The End of Feb method then says that on average, we expect the number of points that the third bottom side will end up with will be 43-44 points. Once in the last 16 years would give a total as high as 49. Once as high as 46. Other than that, it's been between 40-45.
That'll do for me for a prediction. If we get 46 points and don't stop up, it'll be a rare season.
So. Where are the 15 points coming from?
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A 100/1 shot has won the National twice I think!
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A 100/1 shot has won the National twice I think!
In successive years?
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Filo. Exactly. EXACTLY!
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What are the bookies saying today? They don't get it wrong too often.
(Case in point: http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=245074.msg421556#msg421556)
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What are the bookies saying today? They don't get it wrong too often.
I'm afraid that really IS a trite old cliche. The bookies very often get it wrong on individual issues. They almost always get it wrong on books with big fields (i.e. favourites usually don't win. Favourites in big fields rarely win.) Bookies make their money by getting the spread of odds right so that they attract enough money on losers to cover what they pay on winners.
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Easy tiger, genuine query. What are they saying today?
I'm not sure this qualifies as a standard "field" anyway does it - teams are on different points, have different opponents to play etc.
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I've seen nowt on what they are predicting for the final points spread, which is one book that might be of interest. Regarding relegation, we are currently 4th longest odds to stay up
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/championship/to-stay-up
And 4th shortest to go down
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/championship/relegation
Personally, I'd consider those odds to be useless in predicting whether we will go down or not, and whether whether we'll finish fourth bottom or not. Those odds are set to protect the bookies' positions vis-a-vis the bets that they have taken.
Last Friday, they had us at significantly shorter odds than Charlton to stay up, but the situation has totally reversed as a result of 2 goals on Saturday. That is almost certainly a reflection of a relatively small number of relatively uninformed bets tipping the odds on a relatively small book.
As for whether this is a standard field, it depends what you mean by "standard". It is a handicap field, with each runner starting from a different point. Bookies are well versed in setting odds for such fields. But as I say, the odds reflect nothing more than what the sum of punters' opinions are. The operative word being "opinions".
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4th longest/shortest would seem about right to me.
Yeovil only ever seem to beat us. I don't see them doing enough to stay up.
Blackpool have a novice in charge and a team in freefall. We saw in 2010/11 how hard it is to stop a run of form like theirs. Unfortunately for them I think they started their plummet too soon and will come 19th.
Barnsley's time has come. They sneak home every year, but I think their out of luck this season.
I'd put us level with Millwall in terms of expected outcome - 21st/20th.
I think Charlton will be fine.
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I really don't see where this big love in for Charlton has come from.
They are in appalling league form. The win on Saturday was their second in 3 months. They have picked up 10 points in 13 games. they have lost their best striker and have a squad no stronger than ours man-for-man. And they are heading into a nightmare fixture pile-up, with a strong possibility of a run to the cup semi.
Millwall and Blackpool are the two in dreadful long-term form. Millwall have picked up 17 points from their last 23 games. Blackpool have 4 from their last 15 games and 19 from their last 26 games stretching right back to mid-September. I cannot see either of them suddenly hitting the sort of form that would get them well above 45 points.
Barnsley are the interesting one. Since they sacked Flitcroft, they are a different side. Under him, they had 11 points from 17 games. Since he left, they have picked up 15 from 13. Carry on that form and they are looking at 44-45 points which gives them a chance.
If they can pick up the 18-19 points they need to reach a total with a decent chance of staying up whilst playing two matches a week for 9 weeks, they'll be showing more ability and resolve than they have shown so far this season.
Course, if they DO stay up and we go down, Lady Luck will have pissed on us from a great height, given that we ought really to be 6 points further ahead of them than we currently are.
For us, everything depends on injuries. If we stay injury free, I expect us to end up on 47-48 points. We are comfortably good enough to pick up a bit more than 1 point per game with a full squad. Lose 3-4 players and we're in a real scrap.
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Charlton's cup match against Sheff Utd is played on Sunday 9th March, and then they have a League Match against Huddersfield the following Tuesday, 1 days less rest for them, The fixture pile up they have will finish them off!
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The fact Charlton have a fixture pile-up doesn't necessarily mean they'll lose them all. They've won the last two, and playing game after game may give them a bit of momentum.
I suppose it'll depend on how their fitness holds up, but we can't really make predictions on that.
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Pib
Of course it doesn't automatically mean that they will lose. But it is a factor against them. No club wants to play 2 games a week for an extended period. There's no time to recover from a physically demanding match. There's more of a chance that niggles and knocks will not have time to recover and will turn into something more serious. And there is less time to train and prepare for the next match.
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Charlton's cup match against Sheff Utd is played on Sunday 9th March, and then they have a League Match against Huddersfield the following Tuesday, 1 days less rest for them, The fixture pile up they have will finish them off!
I guess the Huddersfield match will be moved back to the Wednesday. Still gives them a heavy schedule though.
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Charlton's cup match against Sheff Utd is played on Sunday 9th March, and then they have a League Match against Huddersfield the following Tuesday, 1 days less rest for them, The fixture pile up they have will finish them off!
I guess the Huddersfield match will be moved back to the Wednesday. Still gives them a heavy schedule though.
Would n't that have to be with Huddersfield's agreement? There's a full league schedule on that night
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A 100/1 shot has won the National twice I think!
In successive years?
In 1928 Tipperary Tim won the Grand National at a SP of 100/1. A year later the winner was Gregalach, also at 100/1.
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A 100/1 shot has won the National twice I think!
In successive years?
In 1928 Tipperary Tim won the Grand National at a SP of 100/1. A year later the winner was Gregalach, also at 100/1.
Oh bugger. We're doomed. Doomed ah tell thi.
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OH, WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! Charlton stayed up!
Good thread, this.
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Pib
Pat on the back spadger. Well done.
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Pib
Pat on the back spadger. Well done.
Thanks very much.
Send me an e-medal, if you like.
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I'll send you an e-blow job if you like.
For the record, I've said all along that I'm shite at making specific opinion-based predictions. But I'll admit that when I do give in the the lure, I tend to make my predictions with gusto. I'm impressed with folk who do better than I manage by thinking hard about the specifics and coming up with correct predictions based on qualitative analysis.
So (genuinely) well done for spotting Charlton as a survivor. I thought that they were a bag of shite who were going to collapse in the pressure of the end of season glut of matches.
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Another club who will look at sacking the manager as a big success.
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A few weeks ago I made the point that, based on a review of the last 10 seasons - or, as meteorological people might say, since records began - those teams in the bottom 3 (or 4) at or around the 40 game mark were the ones that ended up filling the relegation places.
The one team that was in that place at that time but which may end up bucking the trend is Millwall. They're still not out of it but their recovery has been nothing short of miraculous. It perhaps shows that Holloway is THE manager for this division given his previous success in getting Blackpool and Palace promoted. Keeping Millwall up would be an equally great achievement.
Regrettably, the same stat also highlights just how woeful we and Birmingham have been in our end of season run-ins.
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Regrettably, the same stat also highlights just how woeful we and Birmingham have been in our end of season run-ins.
Sky Sports News stated that Brum's run of games without a home league win is the longest in history? Given how bad we were in 97/98 that's some serious shitness on their part if so.
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Ahem, if we're handing out plaudits then I think I'm top of the pile.
Yeovil down - check
Barnsley down - check
Blackpool 19th - check
Millwall 20/21 - check
Donny 20/21 - check
Charlton fine - check
Now, whether I meant to put Blackpool "19th" and not "22nd" is another matter. But it's there in black and white, and not a sign of a Mad Mick post event edit. Where do I collect my prize?
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Regrettably, the same stat also highlights just how woeful we and Birmingham have been in our end of season run-ins.
Sky Sports News stated that Brum's run of games without a home league win is the longest in history? Given how bad we were in 97/98 that's some serious shitness on their part if so.
Did they mean THEIR history or all of history, though? I can believe its their worst home run of results ever.
To be honest, if Lee CLarke had to get me gee'd up for a game I think I would struggle to perform too. It'd be like getting a pep talk from Suicidal Syd in Viz
(http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/13038.gif)
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Wouldn't surprise me if it is the longest in all football history. 18 games without a home win is quite stupendously bad. Worst we had in 97-98 was 9
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Regrettably, the same stat also highlights just how woeful we and Birmingham have been in our end of season run-ins.
Sky Sports News stated that Brum's run of games without a home league win is the longest in history? Given how bad we were in 97/98 that's some serious shitness on their part if so.
Yep truly shite. Brum have amassed only 2 wins in 2 months; one against Millwall and one against...yep you guessed it.