The Snowball stat thread

[themadstad]

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose, they'll make it tough and Leicester I maintain will be tough.

As many have already said though, do you really think players will be giving it there all and possibly risk injuring themselves when they aren't even being paid?

They kept Leeds quiet yesterday. What I'm saying though is they'll for sure not want to lose and will make it difficult. A banana skin game you could call it.

[Tails]

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose, they'll make it tough and Leicester I maintain will be tough.

As many have already said though, do you really think players will be giving it there all and possibly risk injuring themselves when they aren't even being paid?

Its a bit pointless trying to extrapolate from these circumstances. Maybe they have every reason to fight tooth and nail as they are genuinely in a shop window, looking for an employer that may actually pay them.

[Snowball]

Well yes we could be bookies favourites but we still will NOT win the next 6.

I presume you are offering 50/1 against then?

I will be AMAZED if we win all six. It's so rare that these things happen. But on known form we should win four and easily could win 6.

Form (and class) is only ever a guide, and for a side that loves on close margins, luck or opposition brilliance
or us having a bad day in front of goal could turn a 1-0 win into a 1-0 defeat.

We missed out at Palace with a disallowed last-minute goal.

We missed out at Blackpool with a good goal disallowed, and then they had one moment of quality.

We lost to a freak shot at Hull

We lost to an outrageous "off-side" goal at home to Hull.

We conceded to what looked like a block at home to Cardiff.


ALL those, given Lady Luck on our side at the time, might have gone our way.

NOT want to get into an exchange over luck. I'm just agreeing that the margins are thin.
We are not Southampton, who can just go down the other end and score 3 at will.

But, until the bubble bursts, I have to go with form, class, with recent history, with method, with the manager

And that says, until it is, unless it is, corrected, the run continues.

Mm but didn't Burnley pick up 11 points in theIr 8 games prior to yesterday where Millwall picked up 5 in their 8 games prior. Millwall are better at home than they are away.

11 in 8 is a 63-point season, and they are quite patchy, but sure;y you're arguing that "on form" Burnley
should have won? I agree. On form we should get 12 or more from our next six. SURE, accidents and upsets
happen, and of course they MIGHT. Where would you bet your life if you had to?

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose, they'll make it tough and Leicester I maintain will be tough.

Of course and I'm not thinking, "Yippee we WILL win our next six."

I keep thinking we are due a "correction". But the manager is going to be hammering the team to go
for 18 from these six, as these six games are their BIG chance, the chance to get into the top 2 maybe even top
before they have the four REALLY tough games at West Ham, Southampton, Brighton, Birmingham.

They could easily lose all four of those so they need wins NOW

[Snowball]

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose, they'll make it tough and Leicester I maintain will be tough.

As many have already said though, do you really think players will be giving it there all and possibly risk injuring themselves when they aren't even being paid?

They kept Leeds quiet yesterday. What I'm saying though is they'll for sure not want to lose and will make it difficult. A banana skin game you could call it.

(a) Reading are a better side than Leeds.

(b) Leeds were away.

(c) Our game is at home.

(d) There squad is extremely thin (tho' their first 11 is good) and injuries, suspensions will have a major effect as the season wears on.

(e) We are still improving. We have confidence and belief.


Agree it's a banana game, but if we want to be worthy of automatic
we have to grind out wins. Put it this way, I wouldn't want less than
8/1 to back Portsmouth to beat us.

[themadstad]

Grinding out wins we'll have to do to be a 2nd spot contender. Though with our run in I can't see how we'll amass enough points. It looks very much as though we'd need 8 wins from our remaining fixtures as long as we only lose 3 (max) of the remaining 14 games.

We saw when we went to Cardiff we conceded 3 goals yet we had just won 4 before that without conceding.

[Snowball]

14 Games to go, 57 Points. 2 ppg = 28 pts and that will be 85 Points


That's enough for auto, may be enough for top.

9 wins from 14 games (3 wins less than the latest 14 games) will get us up.

[Simon's Church]

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose.

Controversial!

I wonder if any other teams have thought of trying that?

[RockheadRumple]

Portsmouth like I say will be fighting and won't want to lose.

Controversial!

I wonder if any other teams have thought of trying that?

[Maguire]

Talking of Pairings

Here is Roberts and Hunt

5 Games, 5 Goals 3 Assist

Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Hunt Assist
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Roberts Assist Coventry
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Derby
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Burnley
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Roberts Assist Middlesboro

Hunt didn't get an assist against Bristol City did he? There was no assist, Roberts missed a pen then bundled in the rebound.

[Maguire]

Which is not to say i'm not glad we've settled on a first choice strike partnership

[Fox Talbot]

Different tack from Snowball Stats here - call it destiny, numerology, coincidence, whatever ...

"Last season - this season" reminds me of 10 years ago, 2001 vs 2002. We played more interesting football (Butler Cureton) in 2001 and 'should' have gone up. We didn't look so good in 2002 but had a really solid run of form in the middle and did go up.

We've never won in the play-offs but we have always played in 'odd' years (1995, 2001, 2003, 2009, 2011).

It's even years that tend to favour Reading - 7 out of our 8 promotions have been in even years - 1926, 1976, 1984, 1986, 1994, 2002, 2006 vs 1979. 2012 is looking good.

[Mr Angry]

If we are serious about auto, we have to win 4 out of our last 6 home games (I can see Pompey and Leeds being the 2 where we can drop points), and then also win away at Doncaster, Millwall, Barnsley and Peterborough. That would give us not less than 24 points on top of what we have now - 81 points.

The 10 year average for champions and runners up from this division are 94 points and 86.7 points respectively.

The range of points needed to secure 2nd spot in the last 10 years is from 79 to 92.

On that basis, 4 away games are going to decide our season; West Ham, Southampton, Brighton and Birmingham.

Given the scenario above, we would then need at least 6 points from those 4 games to get the average number of points needed for teams to finish 2nd - and then hope that one of West Ham or Saints fail to acheive more than that, and that no other teams (Birmingham/Cardiff/Blackpool) have the sort of finish we did last season.

Squeaky bum time............

[melonhead]

Talking of Pairings

Here is Roberts and Hunt

5 Games, 5 Goals 3 Assist

Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Hunt Assist
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Roberts Assist Coventry
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Derby
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Burnley
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Roberts Assist Middlesboro

Hunt didn't get an assist against Bristol City did he? There was no assist, Roberts missed a pen then bundled in the rebound.

its a "snowball" assist for winning the pen

[Maguire]

Talking of Pairings

Here is Roberts and Hunt

5 Games, 5 Goals 3 Assist

Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Hunt Assist
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Roberts Assist Coventry
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Derby
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Burnley
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Roberts Assist Middlesboro

Hunt didn't get an assist against Bristol City did he? There was no assist, Roberts missed a pen then bundled in the rebound.

its a "snowball" assist for winning the pen

But Hunt didn't win the penalty :-S

[themadstad]

It is us who have all the work to do to get a 2nd spot. Games that 'look' like winds become difficult and teams like Southampton, West Ham, Birmingham and Blackpool were always be tough.

[Snowball]

Talking of Pairings

Here is Roberts and Hunt

5 Games, 5 Goals 4 Assists

Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Bristol Hunt Assist, Roberts Assist!
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Coventry Roberts Assist
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Derby
Roberts-Hunt W 1-0 Roberts (1) Hunt (0) Burnley
Roberts-Hunt W 2-0 Roberts (0) Hunt (1) Middlesboro Roberts Assist

Roberts-Hunt W 7-0 Roberts (3) Hunt (2) TOTAL 3 Roberts Assists, 1 Hunt Assist

[Wycombe Royal]

We have nothing to fear from going away to the other clubs at the top of the table. We have the best record against top half teams in this division and have just gone to boro and got a win.

[Maguire]

How did Hunt get an assist against Bristol City?

He didn't win the penalty, and the penalty was missed anyway

No assists v Bristol.

[melonhead]

itll probably be some new measure of assists that snowball has invented then.


did hunt play teh ball to the bloke who won the penalty?

[Snowball]

If we are serious about auto, we have to win 4 out of our last 6 home games (I can see Pompey and Leeds being the 2 where we can drop points), and then also win away at Doncaster, Millwall, Barnsley and Peterborough. That would give us not less than 24 points on top of what we have now - 81 points.
The 10 year average for champions and runners up from this division are 94 points and 86.7 points respectively.
The range of points needed to secure 2nd spot in the last 10 years is from 79 to 92.
On that basis, 4 away games are going to decide our season; West Ham, Southampton, Brighton and Birmingham.
Given the scenario above, we would then need at least 6 points from those 4 games to get the average number of points needed for teams to finish 2nd - and then hope that one of West Ham or Saints fail to acheive more than that, and that no other teams (Birmingham/Cardiff/Blackpool) have the sort of finish we did last season.
Squeaky bum time............

Understand the points, but not the basic logic. The ten-year averages look higher than this year's requirements.

Southampton have 13 games left. At 2ppg (26 pts) they would finish on 88.
Southampton's Season to Date is 1.88 ppg, their latest 12 games is 1.54 ppg)

West Ham have 14 to play. At 2 ppg (28 pts) they would finish on 89.
West Ham's Season to Date is 1.91 ppg, their latest 12 games is 1.75 ppg)

It will be truly remarkable if either of these two manage this. They have to step up noticeably on season form and current form.

Reading's form since September 17th is clearly the best in the league at 2.04 ppg
Their season to date is lower (1.8 ppg) but their last 12 is a MONSTER 2.5 ppg.)

The STATTO website predicts the winner on 84 points and has Reading at the highest rating.

Of course Reading having to go to both Southampton and West Ham is now HUGE

LOSE both and very probably it's the play-offs. WIN both and we could well be champions

I worry that Southampton have "turned the corner" and are starting to play like champions
but nevertheless, measured over their last dozen games they have a lot to do. WHU won't
be far away, obviously, but they have a VERY tough run-in with 9 of their last 14 against
better clubs. I believe if we can avoid defeat at West Ham we will probably make the autos,
but I've said for a while now, it might go to the last day.

Current Table

1 33 +29 62 3-3-0 Rating=825 82 Predicted Points Southampton
2 32 +19 61 3-2-1 Rating=837 84 Predicted Points West Ham
3 32 +14 57 5-0-1 Rating=840 80 Predicted Points Reading
4 33 +13 55 4-1-1 Rating=832 76 Predicted Points Blackpool
5 32 +21 54 3-2-1 Rating=833 76 Predicted Points Birmingham
6 32 +11 53 2-1-3 Rating=821 75 Predicted Points Cardiff C