How many points will it take?

[Rawlie19]

What with the Doncaster game having been moved, and I assume that Wolves and Brum are still both playing their fixtures that day, we could be potentially be well adrift of 2nd by next Wednesday...

[1960]

OK, for those of you who don't buy the programme like us saddoes, here is a simplified version, as I think it is helpful in this debate. The first figure is what the second auto promotion team got. The second figure is what they actually needed to come second (they could have made second by a big margin):

1989 82 81
1990 85 80
1991 82 80
1992 80 78
1993 88 88
1994 83 74
1995 82 79 (us, but we didn't go up of course)
1996 79 75
1997 80 76
1998 91 90
1999 87 86
2000 89 87
2001 91 87
2002 89 86
2003 92 80
2004 86 79
2005 87 85
2006 90 81
2007 86 84
2008 79 75

Average 85.4 81.55

Perhaps the second column is the most interesting, as it is the number of points that were actually needed to come second. There is a huge range, from a paltry 74 in 1994 to a huge 90 in 1978. Just goes to show really that you can't forecast how many are needed with any accuracy. The average needed is a perfectly doable 81/82, but we can't rely on it.

[weybridgewanderer]

hence the target of 2 points a game, 92 points

that has got you promoted in every one of those seasons

its not guaranteed to get you promoted, you may even get promoted with significantly less, but it does seem like a reasonable target that gets you promoted on the vast majority of seasons

[Snowball]

If my memory serves, then at the start of the season we had the same old stuff .... no ambition, demonstrated by a cut-price nobody from the SPL, a SFU cast off and the demolition of the old guard.

Doesn't seem to have been a bad plan at the moment.

Noel Hunt and Stretch!

[Snowball]

Halfway through the season now.

14 wins 4 draws 5 losses Goals For 48 Let in 21 46 points.

Job done so far. I think if we can do that in the second half of the season we will be up.

and with a game to go we are 21-14-10

14-04-05 48-21 First Half
07-10-05 23-19 Second Half (one game to go)


So it's not so much been LOSSES, just wins becoming draws, and look at the way goals dried up?

[Snowball]

Having seen Birmingham yesterday, I'm revising my prediction down to 84 points for auto promo. Twelve more wins should do it.

not bad!

[Snowball]

I can't see less than 85 being good enough even then....

um...

[Snowball]

81 88 106 94 94 98 99 = 94 average (92 without the 106)
79 86 90 87 86 92 89 = 87 average (88 without the 79)
=======================
75 84 81 85 79 80 86 Play-Off Place


On average, last seven seasons, it's taken 94 points to win the league but take away the 106 record, the average is 92, exactly 2 points a game average.
Of course the last two seasons have been much tighter overall with lower totals required (let's hope so!)
Second place has needed 87 points average but last season's 79 was a freak low, without that the average achieved is 88

Twice in the last seven years 85+ has not been enough

87 looks pretty damn certain, though, meaning we need 33 from 18 to be sure, an average of 1.83 points a game, a tough one!!

So last season and this season has seen the points much more shared-out.

Does that mean mediocrity or lower sides becoming more competitive?

[weybridgewanderer]

with a game to go we are 21-14-10

14-04-05 48-21 First Half
07-10-05 23-19 Second Half (one game to go)


So it's not so much been LOSSES, just wins becoming draws, and look at the way goals dried up?

which most of us pointed out to you weeks ago, however your idea of "recent form" was everything from about september

[SLAMMED]

Gonna take a bit more than last season...


1 WBA 81
2 Stoke City 79
3 Hull City 75

think we are looking at least 10 points higher than that.

[SLAMMED]

Gonna take a bit more than last season...


1 WBA 81
2 Stoke City 79
3 Hull City 75

Christ what a mediocre league it was last year!

Completely different this year. Well at the top anyway.

This year was even worse

[Snowball]

It's NOT correct to look at third and say all we need is third +1

You have to look at what the second side gets: That's because in accruing those points YOU TAKE POINTS OF THE LOWER SIDES.


Say you have this at the end of the season

92 Wolves
84 Reading
82 Bimingham

but we get there by winning the last game versus Brum... Had we drawn that game, then

83 Birmingham
82 Reading


So look at what sides in second get, NOT what sides in third get

So, Sunday's game, Birmingham "only" getting 81 restricts Reading to 78

Reading "only" getting 80, restricts Birmingham to 80

Exactly my point... vindicated.


Oh and Bristol (as I said when they were in fourth place) "will finish out of the play-offs in 9th/10th/11th"

The highest they can finish is 9th. The lowest 11th.

I also said said they were crap against top ten sides. In the whole of the season they have had just one win against a top ten side, us!

[londinium]

...to finish in the top two.
I read on here a couple of weeks ago that 78 points would be enough. No way Jose.
I reckon we could be looking at 90 to guarantee a top two place

1 more than either Birmingham or Wolves.

Not a bad guess.... 1 more point than Wolves and you would have obviously but being 1 point above Brum may still not be enough as that would take you to 81 and heaven forbid Shef Utd may just get 82.

[weybridgewanderer]

...to finish in the top two.
I read on here a couple of weeks ago that 78 points would be enough. No way Jose.
I reckon we could be looking at 90 to guarantee a top two place

1 more than either Birmingham or Wolves.

Not a bad guess.... 1 more point than Wolves and you would have obviously but being 1 point above Brum may still not be enough as that would take you to 81 and heaven forbid Shef Utd may just get 82.

and as we can't get more than 80 that would mean the team with 1 point more than brum, sheffield utd, gets promoted. so what royal with cheese wrote was right, 1 more point than brum would get you promoted

[PEARCEY]

...to finish in the top two.
I read on here a couple of weeks ago that 78 points would be enough. No way Jose.
I reckon we could be looking at 90 to guarantee a top two place

1 more than either Birmingham or Wolves.

Not a bad guess.... 1 more point than Wolves and you would have obviously but being 1 point above Brum may still not be enough as that would take you to 81 and heaven forbid Shef Utd may just get 82.

Well my guess was way out...it may only take 80 points to finish second although it could go up to 83 I suppose.

[Snowball]

1 more than either Birmingham or Wolves.

Not a bad guess.... 1 more point than Wolves and you would have obviously but being 1 point above Brum may still not be enough as that would take you to 81 and heaven forbid Shef Utd may just get 82.[/quote]

and as we can't get more than 80 that would mean the team with 1 point more than brum, sheffield utd, gets promoted. so what royal with cheese wrote was right, 1 more point than brum would get you promoted[/quote]

NO! You guys just don't get it, do you?

Of course, if some fourth club suddenly appeared, AFTER 46 games you might say "one point more" (or in fact, goal difference)
but that (again) misses the point that it's not just points gained, but points taken off your rivals.

Ignore the Sheffield game and you see the point completely explained by Reading v Brum

We have to win to get 80, but our getting 80 stops them getting 81, and it's that second part that is crucial.

Had we drawn at Birmingham the gap would be 81-75, all over

It's incorrect to think in terms of merely beating third by a point


Of course, now it's one from three and only one game left, it seems that way
but Sheffield United must beat third by TWO points, anyway

[SLAMMED]

Oh shut up snowball.

[CMRoyal]

Whichever way you try to spin this snowball, your theory has proven to be wrong. Most of us who went on the "third + 1" model came up with a prediction in the range 80-83 (possibly 85 max) - a spot-on analysis by us. You with your analysis-to-paralysis redistributive twists and turns implied that more points would be needed than actually proved to be the case.

I'm amazed you have the brass neck to come back to the thread to lecture us on how it's panned out. Do you have any self-awareness at all?

[Arch]

There's an appearance of paradox that I think is bedeviling both sides of the argument.

TRUE: to get automatic promotion, you only need 1 point more than the team that ultimately comes third (how anyone can deny this defeats me)

but

TRUE: for any given season, taking points tally of the team that came third (say 81) and saying "one point more than this tally (e.g. 82)would have been enough" is not correct. Snowball's reasoning fits this conclusion fine.

What everyone misses is that these two propositions are not contradictory.

[weybridgewanderer]

[quote="Snowball']...Sheffield United must beat third by TWO points, anyway[/quote]

Tosh!

Brum draw = 81 points
Sheffield win = 82 points

so sheffield beat third by 1 point