You can look for reasons why each of the parachute teams struggled this year. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence personally. There are so many different managers, from totally different backgrounds employing mind bogglingly varied tactics, formations and styles of play - even compared with 2 years ago. If you switch off, don’t adapt and don’t show enough flexibility, you’re screwed, Many teams have been streaky or struggled for consistency.
We’ve been lucky but if you talk to fans of quite a few clubs, they’ve never known injury crises like those they’ve experienced this season.
All of this looks more like a super competitive, gruelling division to me. What’s the evidence cited by the people banging on about it being a crap division this year? I don’t get it.
When you said "We’re projected to hit 95-96 points so that’s why the Opta computers have us at 100% likelihood of promotion", I assumed you were explaining their methodology. I didn't realise you were just guessing yourself!
I'm not disputing what a good side we are, or suggesting we won't get the points. It's the fact that nobody can explain this duff figure of 100.00%.
Edit: just seen Mark82's post above with a link. Suggests that if we played out the season for the next 10,000 years (through multiple ice ages and asteroids strikes) we'd never lose the last 6 games and see a couple of the others overtake us. Fair enough, but they've still come up with a factually incorrect number.
"The main features that power the predictions are:
- The quality of the teams based on their historic performance over the last four years (?!)
- The form of the teams based on their recent performance over the last year".....
My projection is a broad assumption that we’ll continue to hit our averages for the season which is 2.4 ppg at home, 1.75 ppg away. That gives us 12.45 points from our remaining games.
@mark82’s explanation was great, because I didn’t understand how the got to 100% myself. In every simulation, the odds of Millwall and Ipswich* winning all their remaining games whilst we fail to hit 8 points is just insane. We’re a 2.4 ppg team at home with Wednesday & Pompey left, that takes us to 89 alone.
Even during our wobble, I was happy to assume we’ll still finish 2nd because our home form is just that much better than everyone else.
The two games that have defined his tenure to date have been against us and Millwall. Both 6 pointers lost and they will go into the game v Ipswich away needing a win to stay in the race for 2nd rather than extending a lead.
Lose all 3 of those games and questions will be asked. They haven’t recovered since we battered them and Hellberg’s comments get odder by the day.
It’s not even the first time this season, they lose 3/4 around Xmas to NY and given our away woes, ought to have overtaken us sooner (we didn’t win away for nearly 3 months). To go 5 home games against bottom half teams (excluding Millwall) is a bottle job. By contrast, we’ve been fantastic at home.
You can look for reasons why each of the parachute teams struggled this year. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence personally. There are so many different managers, from totally different backgrounds employing mind bogglingly varied tactics, formations and styles of play - even compared with 2 years ago. If you switch off, don’t adapt and don’t show enough flexibility, you’re screwed, Many teams have been streaky or struggled for consistency.
We’ve been lucky but if you talk to fans of quite a few clubs, they’ve never known injury crises like those they’ve experienced this season.
All of this looks more like a super competitive, gruelling division to me. What’s the evidence cited by the people banging on about it being a crap division this year? I don’t get it.
It’s a low-resolution take imo because people need an explanation as how we’re dominating and we’re followed up by Millwall and Boro. If you swap our position and Ipswich’s, no one bats an eyelid and says anything about the strength of the league.
Southampton appointing Will Still cost them and they probably would be pushing 2nd given that no one seemingly wants 2nd place bar Millwall. That too influences the perception of the league’s strength. It’s been a dogfight for the teams chasing us and the cliche of there being no easy games is truer this year compared to most because the promoted teams are comparatively much stronger.