Out of interest, when did your games against us go from an annoying few results to a full blown hoodoo?
When three defeats turned to four; when five became six?
Did the football gods see that we'd beaten you a few times, and then to start to mix their spells and potions to turn it into a full blown hoodoo for shits and giggles, like the capricious ne'er do wells that they are?
That's exactly what they did. They're known for their shits n' gigs are the Gods.
Well done for getting the word "capricious" into a post btw
But in all honesty it's a strange one as it's not just how many games there are, but how close together. If we lost to a side once as they got promoted, spent a season apart, lost twice when they came back down, relegation separated us for a year or two, then re-promotiom caused another loss it would be less likely to be considered a Hoodoo than if they were in consecutive seasons for example. After four games would be the amount most likely I reckon as it was the end of last season when our lot starting mentioning it as a jinx.
The shortest amount of time I've known a hoodoo to develop was in a little under 8 months, when we got to the playoff final under Karanka. Brentford fans considered it as such and we tended to agree when we beat them 4 times in that short period, twice in the league and in both legs of the playoffs, with a combined score of 10-1.
This continued the following season where we beat them home amd away with a combined score of 4-1, got promoted and they were understandably over the moon to see the back of us.
When we came back down, changing leagues seemed to conquer the Hoodoo as we then drew both our games against them.
Strictly speaking, yes if we’re min-maxing the outcome. Our immediate priority is to pull away from Boro and then losing to Millwall in 2 weeks is optimal for us and depending how the results pan out, an Ipswich win v Boro may actually be the day we all but confirm we’ve won the league/prooted.
Current state of affairs:
Cov - 74 pts, 104 max
Boro - 69 pts, 99 max
Millwall - 68 pts, 95 max
Ipswich - 65 pts, 95 max
If Millwall, Ipswich and Boro teams draw their games each other, each team loses 4 points from their maximum so 95 and 91 respectively.
A scenario where Millwall beats Ipswich and Boro, then Ipswich beat Boro. The maximums look like:
- Millwall - 95 pts max
- Boro - 93 max
- Ipswich - 92 max
Objectively, Millwall are still the weakest team in the Top 4 and I’d expect them to drop the most points outside of their ties. In short, I’m not worried about them.
94 would be by my final best guess. There is a margin of error and feel like 92-96 is our range now and anything outside of that is over/underperforming.