Scapegoat of the week Award thread

[creative_username_1]

As a for instance QPR managed to stay up last season (just)

5 of their 10 wins came against opposition they shouldn't be competing against

Everton
Chelsea
Liverpool
Arsenal
Tottenham

they also drew with

Everton
Newcastle

[Alexander Litvinenko]

We need to win against the clubs we're in direct competition with - if we don' we're almost certainly doomed.

We're not expected to do well against the "top" clubs (those competing for European places), so we can't expect to get any points from them.

If we do get any points from them, that's either a bonus that gives us latitude to screw up against the competing clubs, or lifts us higher up the table (e.g. 8th in 2007.)

In 2008 we beat Liverpool and lost to Fulham. If it had been the other way round we'd have stayed up.

[creative_username_1]

Wigan also beat

Newcastle
Manchester United
Arsenal
Liverpool

And picked up draws against

Chelsea
Everton
Liverpool

[Caskeys Lovechild]

All of those points will have been seen as bonus points.

Seriously, if you're that stupid that someone has to explain this to you, then you really ought to be considering watching a simpler sport....

[Ian Royal]

Wigan also beat

Newcastle
Manchester United
Arsenal
Liverpool

And picked up draws against

Chelsea
Everton
Liverpool

And if they'd converted 4 loses against the teams around them to wins and lost to Newcastle, United, Arsenal and Liverpool instead, they'd have been in less danger of relegation.

[Woodcote Royal]

Its not a Scapegoat Harte played shitte

Can we have a poll for the "The most crap written in their first 100 posts"

[creative_username_1]

All of those points will have been seen as bonus points.

Seriously, if you're that stupid that someone has to explain this to you, then you really ought to be considering watching a simpler sport....

lol those bonus points where half their points.

I get that your thinking may seem intuitive but it's incorrect

[creative_username_1]

Wigan also beat

Newcastle
Manchester United
Arsenal
Liverpool

And picked up draws against

Chelsea
Everton
Liverpool

And if they'd converted 4 loses against the teams around them to wins and lost to Newcastle, United, Arsenal and Liverpool instead, they'd have been in less danger of relegation.

And how do you achieve that?

[Caskeys Lovechild]

Seriously....you need to consider a different sport - this is clearly too complex for you.

Games against teams in top half of the table - worth 3 points. Games against teams in and around relegation - worth 3 points, plus the denial of 3 points to your rivals - making them effectively worth double bubble - hence the term "6 pointer" - If they'd played better and competed against their actual competition, instead of only getting themselves "up for it" against the big boys, they'd have been WELL clear of relegation.

Of course the trick, is to compete with your competition, and pick up the odd win and draw against the bigger boys.

[creative_username_1]

Whilst that sounds a great idea it doesn't actually happen in reality, results against 'like' teams are randomly distributed (bias to home team)

How do you practically apply what your saying.

[Ian Royal]

Wigan also beat

Newcastle
Manchester United
Arsenal
Liverpool

And picked up draws against

Chelsea
Everton
Liverpool

And if they'd converted 4 loses against the teams around them to wins and lost to Newcastle, United, Arsenal and Liverpool instead, they'd have been in less danger of relegation.

And how do you achieve that?

Because their rivals would have three fewer points, whilst they had the same.

Lose to Newcastle (H), United (H), Arsenal (A) and LOLiverpooLOL (A)

Beat Villa (A), QPR (A), Sunderland (H) & Bolton (H)

13 Stoke - 45 (45)
14 - Wigan - 43 (43)
15 - Sunderland - 42 (45)
16 - Villa - 35 (38)
17 - QPR - 34 (37)
18 - Bolton - 33 (36)
19 - Blackburn - 31 (31)
20 - Wolves - 25 (25)

Wigan move up a place and are three extra points clear of relegation as well as 16th place.

To quote RL: "HTH".

[cmonurz]

Seriously....you need to consider a different sport - this is clearly too complex for you.

Games against teams in top half of the table - worth 3 points. Games against teams in and around relegation - worth 3 points, plus the denial of 3 points to your rivals - making them effectively worth double bubble - hence the term "6 pointer" - If they'd played better and competed against their actual competition, instead of only getting themselves "up for it" against the big boys, they'd have been WELL clear of relegation.

Really? This makes the assumption that your immediate rivals won't also pick up points against the bigger sides.

[Royal Biscuitman]

The manager has to take the blame for the first half formation and for picking players who were out of form, under-prepared or not capable of doing the job.

I'll give him credit for dropping Frederic, right decision or not it shows he's not afraid to make tough decisions.

I'm behind the manager though - He will learn from this & I'd rather we fail against a potential top 4 club than a potential bottom 4 club, although dropping points is dropping points.

[leicsRoyal]

Seriously....you need to consider a different sport - this is clearly too complex for you.

Games against teams in top half of the table - worth 3 points. Games against teams in and around relegation - worth 3 points, plus the denial of 3 points to your rivals - making them effectively worth double bubble - hence the term "6 pointer" - If they'd played better and competed against their actual competition, instead of only getting themselves "up for it" against the big boys, they'd have been WELL clear of relegation.

Of course the trick, is to compete with your competition, and pick up the odd win and draw against the bigger boys.

Errr, when are you judging the top half of the table? At the end of the season or before each match, in which case we lost 3-1 at home to a team in the bottom half of the table.

[Ian Royal]

We all know you can't rely on the league table until at least 10 games, so atm best to go with last season's final table.

[leicsRoyal]

We all know you can't rely on the league table until at least 10 games, so atm best to go with last season's final table.

What I'm saying Ian is that Tottenham were a team bang out of form with silly speculation around the manager etc. Tottenham were not great on Sunday and if we had showed up we would have had a chance of getting something out of it. This talk about it dpesn't matter so much as we weren't expected to beat them is just daft.

[Ian Royal]

I get what you're saying, but it's still too early to say they were bang out of form and under enough pressure to give us a good chance of beating them. Especially given our 25 day lay off.

[leicsRoyal]

I get what you're saying, but it's still too early to say they were bang out of form and under enough pressure to give us a good chance of beating them. Especially given our 25 day lay off.

We drew 1-1 with Stoke after a 92 day lay off!

If we'd played like we did against Spurs we would have been beaten by Stoke.

[Ian Royal]

I get what you're saying, but it's still too early to say they were bang out of form and under enough pressure to give us a good chance of beating them. Especially given our 25 day lay off.

We drew 1-1 with Stoke after a 92 day lay off!

If we'd played like we did against Spurs we would have been beaten by Stoke.

Stoke had also had a similar lay off. I agree. Had we played like we'd done against Chelsea, we still wouldn't necessarily have won.

[leicsRoyal]

We'd have given ourselves a lot better chance.

My personal opinion is that we are no where near strong enough at the moment for this league and we will probably need to collect some bonus points against the higher sides before January.

Is Tottenham at home that much harder than WBA away?