Last season vs This season

[VivaRovers]

Thought I'd look at how the two campaigns compare after 30 games (two thirds of the league season), especially off the back of a January that saw a lot of fans questioning the manager and the board and so forth.

Truth is there is barely anything between them. Win one of the games we'd drawn (say, hold on against Rochdale) and we'd have the same record as last season, with a better goal difference.

2018-19
6th place.  W14.  D8.  L8.  +16.  50pts 

2019-20
8th place.  W13.  D9.  L8.  +17.  48pts

For me I think what this illustrates most is the marked difference in expectation around the respective seasons. Given the players we lost in the summer, matching last season (or being as close as we are to matching it) should really be seen as more of an achievement than it is.

Moore is perhaps a victim of his own early season success to an extent, where we really hit the ground running in August; exaggerating criticism when that early season form wasn't maintained.

Still a third of the season to go of course, but we're in a very good position and look capable of kicking on following January's bolstering of the squad. As fans, we really should be revelling in this season more than we are.

[Red wizard]

Had we played Bolton away we would probably have 3 extra points.

[NickDRFC]

I agree that it’s an expectation thing Viva, but that expectation has come direct from the club who have said we still have a top 6 budget, we’re in talks with strikers with better records than Marquis, play-offs is the aim etc. Fans naturally latch on to things like that which is why expectations have still been high this season. If you take a step back and compare the outgoings in the summer to their replacements up until January, we had a 4 month period with a weaker squad in terms of numbers, a new manager in only his second job (and first at this level) and a few untried kids (Ennis, Sterling, John) to replace seasoned performers (Marquis, Rowe, Butler).

This isn’t a criticism of the club by the way - if they’d come out and said we’re after a season of consolidation the board-bashing would have been even worse than it was (damned if they do, damned if they don’t), just my take on why expectations have remained high.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Glenn.

So that penalty on Saturday is the difference.

Nick.

Had we played and beaten Bolton away in August, we'd have barely been out of the top six all season.

I don't get this idea that the club has failed the fans' expectations this year.

[VivaRovers]

Glenn.

So that penalty on Saturday is the difference.

Alternatively, had we nicked a winner at the Stadium of Light, not only would we be on the same points as last season, we'd be a place higher in 5th, above Sunderland.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Glenn.

So that penalty on Saturday is the difference.

Alternatively, had we nicked a winner at the Stadium of Light, not only would we be on the same points as last season, we'd be a place higher in 5th, above Sunderland.

Yeah but...that penalty! If we miss out on 6th place by two points after a stupefying decision like that...

[graingrover]

So in other terms the misery is just generated by certain fans .

[Alan Southstand]

There is also the fact that we have missed, what could have been, another 3 point game, v Bury.

On top of that, I can’t help thinking that IF we’d still had TR, JM, HK and Wilks in this season’s squad, we’d be in the top 2.

[Donnybax]

We’re having a very impressive season, under the circumstances

[Colin C No.3]

Just playing devil’s advocate here.

If we make the play offs & secure promotion through them, is the club in a position to ensure we can compete & stay in the Championship in season 1?

Do we think the board are ready & willing to back DM with the finances he will need in order to attract better players or permanently sign those loanees he deems good enough to step up to a much higher grade of football?

Is Darren Moore ‘equipped’ for the Championship with just one season under his belt at the club?

In essence, would promotion this season be a season too early?

[Alan Southstand]

Is it ever too early to get promoted? If players are good enough, hungry enough and ambitious enough to achieve it, then why would anyone want to put the brakes on that?

I think we all realise it would be a tremendous task to stay up there (look at the 3 that went up last season), but who are we to question the mindset of everyone involved, should we achieve it? I would hope the Club would give DM the means to, at least, prepare us for a competitive season back up there.

[drfchound]

Just playing devil’s advocate here.

If we make the play offs & secure promotion through them, is the club in a position to ensure we can compete & stay in the Championship in season 1?

Do we think the board are ready & willing to back DM with the finances he will need in order to attract better players or permanently sign those loanees he deems good enough to step up to a much higher grade of football?

Is Darren Moore ‘equipped’ for the Championship with just one season under his belt at the club?

In essence, would promotion this season be a season too early?

CC3, I remember back in 2008/9, when I saw the fixture list, where are the points going to come from.
Whenever we go up, be it this season or over the next two or three, it will be with L1 players and we will need to add to the squad so we will always be thinking are we good enough to stay up.
Obviously we would need to strengthen the squad but some of the additional income would help towards that.

[since-1969]

Had we played Bolton away we would probably have 3 extra points.

And Bury

[drfchound]

But if we had got a potential extra three points by playing Bury, so might everyone else, so no gain really.

[dickos1]

It’s a good point, although we only secured the playoffs last season on the last day.
We’ve also played a lot more home games than we had after 30 games last season.
Our away form has picked up recently though so we need that to continue

[BillyStubbsTears]

Interestingly, we only picked up 23 points from the final 16 games last season.

That was relatively poor - about 10th place form - and confirms what I thought at the time: that McCann kind of lost his way in the second half of the season. He made some strange selection and formation choices.

Put it in perspective, if we only get 23 points from the final 16 games of THIS season, we'd finish on 67 points, which I suspect would leave us in 9th or 10th place.

[adamtherover]

So with no strikers we have matched the goal tally of marquis and wilks from last year at the same stage?.  Seems to to suggest we havnt missed them half as much as we think we have...

[NickDRFC]

So with no strikers we have matched the goal tally of marquis and wilks from last year at the same stage?.  Seems to to suggest we havnt missed them half as much as we think we have...

We haven’t matched it, at least not as things stand right now. We had 55 goals from 30 games last year compared to 46 this year. The improvement in goal difference is down to a much tighter defence.

[GazLaz]

We made the playoffs last season and are unlikely to make them this year. That’s the difference.

[Pancho Regan]

An interesting and thought-provoking OP that Glen, thanks.

Certainly surprised me to be honest, and also gives me added hope for our prospects in the remainder of the season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

We made the playoffs last season and are unlikely to make them this year. That’s the difference.

Gaz.

The reason for that is that there's a lot more competition at the top of the table this year.

Last year, after we'd played 30 games, Blackpool had the 7th best PPG. 1.53.

Today, it's Fleetwood on 1.65.

That's a huge difference. Equal to 6 points over the season. This year, competition at the top is much stiffer.

[IDM]

More competition probably means the actual points tally for the play offs may be lower, but the margins between the places could very well be much closer and the number of competitive teams higher..

We are right in the mix at the moment and crucially have a better goal difference compared to most.

We could quite realistically end the season with only one point between say 5th and 8th..

Another reason why we should stay focussed on the next game only - get whatever points we can get, and the other teams will take points form each other.

Win on Saturday and we have a) 3 more points b) a higher goal difference c) a slightly better ppg average d) a net gain over nearby teams who don’t win e) one less tricky away fixture to negotiate.

[steve@dcfd]

We made the playoffs last season and are unlikely to make them this year. That’s the difference.

We made the playoffs last season because Peterborough’s form was slightly worst than ours. I don’t believe teams will fold this year we will have to get at least 75 points to make sixth place. 2pts a game.

[BillyStubbsTears]

No, that's not what I meant IDM.

More of the top sides are beating the weaker ones this season compared to last season. So the average PPG for most of the top positions is higher than it was last season. Certainly it is among the sides that are currently in 7-10th places in the PPG table. So last year it was possible to make the playoffs with a relatively modest points total (which WE did). This year it'll be much more challenging. Because it's pretty much inevitable that at least a couple of the sides in 6-10th place will have decent run-ins and get higher points totals than last season's 6th spot contenders managed.

[IDM]

But those teams will also take points off each other.?

I’ll stick my neck out and say 72 points will get 6th place - not saying which team mind.!

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'm not quite as pessimistic as you Steve.

Ipswich already ARE folding. As are Wycombe. We've all-but overtaken them already. I don't see two of them, us, Fleetwood, Gillingham, Oxford and Burton going on the sort of run that would give the 7th place side 74+ points.

I'd expect 7th place to end up with something like 70-72 points. So the target (given our GD,) is to match that.

[VivaRovers]

Comparing overall points tallies to last season isn't perhaps the way to go... as everyone has two less fixtures this season.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I don't think that's what I was doing.

[IDM]

Funny old game isn’t it.?

If Posh keep up this winning form they could well finish in the top 2, yet we comfortably beat them home and away.  Bolton should and Rochdale may go down, yet we laboured to take 4 points off them in the last week..

Football is predictably unpredictable (mostly) which IMHO is one of the main reason why we keep going, even in our dire seasons..

[VivaRovers]

I don't think that's what I was doing.

I didn't say you were, was just added as a reminder.

Though you did make reference to the final 16 games of the season, and I didn't know if you were including our last two in that figure.