Form

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[mrfrostsdad]

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

[RedJ]

So shite we're dead last and cut vastly adrift, eh.




...hang on..

[RedJ]

What on earth are you talking about?

Did you honestly expect this season to be easy? what exactly were you thinking we'd be able to do this season?

[Dare to dream!]

We are still in a good position but we really should have done better today.

[Donnyrovers]

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.

[BillyStubbsTears]

What on earth are you talking about?

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.

[DRNaith]

If you want to support a team that wins, week in, week out, clear off and support Man United...


...oh no, hang on...

[Sammy Chung was King]

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.

[The Red Baron]

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?

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[dickos1]

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

[The Red Baron]

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.

[BigH]

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.

[dickos1]

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.

[Spud]

We just need to do as well as/better than the three teams below us, we're all relatively shit in this league. Simples.

[The Red Baron]

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.

[RedRover45]

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 !

[hoolahoop]

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 ?

[RedRover45]

Go ahead Hoola, plenty of it to go around 😎

[dickos1]

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.

[The Red Baron]

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?

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[GazLaz]

We are poor away but won't lose them all. Anything can and will happen at the business end of the season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[Dare to dream!]

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.

[BillyStubbsTears]

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.

[BillyStubbsTears]

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?

[GazLaz]

A 100/1 shot has won the National twice I think!