A look at our chances of making the playoffs

I thought I'd have a look at our playoff chances given the last 10 years of stats in the Championship (cue nearly everyone moving on from this thread).

Firstly, let's try and predict the number of points needed this season.

The average points required for 6th place has been roughly 75.
The average number of points gained by 6th place after 34 games and at the end of the season is 19 points. Currently, the team in 6th has 56 points. 56 + 19 = 75. This was the case in 2011/12 when we finished in 6th on 75 points. After 34 games, the team in 6th had 56 points. This points difference has varied; it's been as much as 22 points once and an unusual low of 13 points once, but for calculation purposes, let's say 75 points will be needed to finish in the top 6.

What does that mean for us? We're on 50 points at the moment. That means winning another 25 points from our last 12 games. That's 7 wins, 4 draws and a defeat or 8 wins, 1 draw and 3 defeats. 25 points from 12 games is an average of 2.08 points a game, so we'd need to show better form than we did overall in our 2017/18 promotion season. That's up to the individual to consider whether that's likely. My feeling is that we have no chance.

Over the last 10 seasons, only 5 sides from outside the playoff positions have gone on to claim a top 6 spot. Quite often I hear that there's always one team that comes from nowhere, something I believed to be true. It's clearly not as regular an occurrance as I thought.

Only 1 team in the last decade has been in 10th place at this point in the season and finished in the playoffs. That was Reading, our playoff conquerors in 2011. They had 48 points at this stage in the season and picked up an incredible 29 points from the last 36.

Fulham in 2016/17 managed 27 points from their last 12 games and leapt from a position outside the playoffs to a position inside, though they were in 7th and ended up finishing 3rd. Those are the only two occurrances in a decade of teams winning 25 points or more to go from outside the top 6 to inside (what we need to do).

Blackpool and Brighton came from 9th and 8th respectively to finish in the top 6 but in both seasons the points gained by the team in 6th at both the 34 and 46 point mark were low. Blackpool managed 23 points in 2009/10, which would be unlikely to be enough this season.

In short, we would need to achieve something that happens much more rarely than some of us might think.

Let's play the optimist role and look at how we might get 25 points.

Given our position as draw specialists, 7 wins, 4 draws and a defeat sounds more plausible than 8 wins. There's an interesting table on soccerstats.com showing the points per game averages of teams we've played and teams we've yet to face. This is its current calculations on our run-in:

(H) vs Nottm Forest (PPG away = 1.65)
(H) vs Brentford (PPG away = 1.41)
(A) at Barnsley (PPG at home = 1.22)
(H) vs Leeds Utd (PPG away = 1.65)
(A) at Preston (PPG at home = 2.00)
(H) vs Charlton (PPG away = 0.81)
(A) at Bristol City (PPG at home = 1.47)
(H) vs Blackburn (PPG away = 1.24)
(A) at Fulham (PPG at home = 1.88)
(H) vs Derby County (PPG away = 0.69)
(A) at Middlesbrough (PPG at home = 1.47)
(H) vs Hull City (PPG away = 1.18)

It suggests Forest, Brentford, Leeds, Preston, Fulham, Bristol City and Middlesbrough are going to be tough matches. Can we win the remaining other 6? Given our failings against sides like Stoke, Wigan, Charlton, Reading and Millwall, you'd have to doubt this very much. More to the point can we avoid defeat to Forest, Brentford, Leeds, Preston, Fulham, Bristol City and Boro? I doubt it. You'd have to be the eternal optimist to think so.

We play 7 sides above us in the last 12, where we've won 1 of those 7 games played against those sides earlier in the season.

At the end of the day to finish in the playoffs we need to get better results than when we won promotion 2 years ago, produce a run of form only seen twice in a decade by teams from outside the top 6 and at least triple our win rate against teams above us in the table while not losing to them. Fiver on that, anyone?

It ain't happening. Let's give as much playing time to promising youngsters and start planning for the future

It depends whether we can fill Tomlin's hole or not

Great stats Eric and you should be warmly applauded for the efforts you’ve put in mate.
It’s a pity the players don’t put as much effort in as obviously you and other fans do.
Without Tomlin I’m not holding out any hopes for a play off place.
Mid table mediocrity for us.
As Rjk says - let’s give a few of the youngsters a chance - we’ll the ones we’ve still got left 😉👍

I am the eternal optimist

Six points out of six in our next two home games will put us right back in the mix

Wether we will get them is an entirely different matter

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Originally Posted by Kitman

It depends whether we can fill Tomlin's hole or not

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I am prepared to take on that task

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Originally Posted by Kitman

It depends whether we can fill Tomlin's hole or not

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:hehe:

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Originally Posted by Padraig1968

Great stats Eric and you should be warmly applauded for the efforts you’ve put in mate.
It’s a pity the players don’t put as much effort in as obviously you and other fans do.
Without Tomlin I’m not holding out any hopes for a play off place.
Mid table mediocrity for us.
As Rjk says - let’s give a few of the youngsters a chance - we’ll the ones we’ve still got left ����

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Thanks.

I avoided mentioning Tomlin as I've covered him elsewhere.

My feeling is that we'll do well to stay in the top half. If we somehow go on a great run and get close, fantastic. If not, then I can see the season petering out with barely a whimper, understandably so.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

It ain't happening. Let's give as much playing time to promising youngsters and start planning for the future

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This.

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Originally Posted by Rjk

It ain't happening. Let's give as much playing time to promising youngsters and start planning for the future

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Have we got any? Seriously, have we?

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Originally Posted by NYCBlue

This.

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Double this, let’s chill out and hit the beach.....it’s beautiful out there

"only twice in a decade" sounds a lot harder than it is - that's a one in five chance 2011 & 2017 - so we're due another one soon ( probably not us but you never know )

Possibly a more over-riding factor is that we are nowhere near being the 6th best side in the league ( i think at 10th we're punching above our weight ).

It's always interesting to read this in retrospect!

One thing I notice, flicking through league tables in this division after 39 games is that 60 points is quite low at this point in the season. It's even more unusual to have a side in 6th on 60 points with a 3 point gap to 7th!

Looking back on my post, I worried about us avoiding defeat to Brentford, Leeds and Preston. 7 points seems to be a reasonable tally from those 3 games, I guess! On paper, our most difficult remaining games are Bristol City and Fulham away, and both have come back after the restart playing quite poorly.

I'm thinking 72 points will be enough for a playoff spot. 4 wins will surely be enough, barring a phenomenal run from a team below us.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

It's always interesting to read this in retrospect!

One thing I notice, flicking through league tables in this division after 39 games is that 60 points is quite low at this point in the season. It's even more unusual to have a side in 6th on 60 points with a 3 point gap to 7th!

Looking back on my post, I worried about us avoiding defeat to Brentford, Leeds and Preston. 7 points seems to be a reasonable tally from those 3 games, I guess! On paper, our most difficult remaining games are Bristol City and Fulham away, and both have come back after the restart playing quite poorly.

I'm thinking 72 points will be enough for a playoff spot. 4 wins will surely be enough, barring a phenomenal run from a team below us.

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You have 75 points as the average for the team finishing in 6th.

What is the average for the team finishing in 7th?

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Originally Posted by Harry Paget Flashman

You have 75 points as the average for the team finishing in 6th.

What is the average for the team finishing in 7th?

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No idea. Not 75 points. At a guess I'd say 2-3 points lower. Sometimes 6th and 7th are very close. Sometimes they're not at all.

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Originally Posted by Eric the Half a Bee

No idea. Not 75 points. At a guess I'd say 2-3 points lower. Sometimes 6th and 7th are very close. Sometimes they're not at all.

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Just checked and it's 72.

Hopefully 73 points will be enough for us this year.

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Originally Posted by Harry Paget Flashman

Just checked and it's 72.

Hopefully 73 points will be enough for us this year.

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It won't be 72 this year as the points tally around 6th etc is unusually low. We might even see the side finishing 7th not reach 70 points.

Average 2 points per match and we should make the play offs. The difference this year is that the form book has been reset after the break. We have the advantage of players coming back from injury and the use of 5 subs, a strategy well worked in the last two matches. The team seem more relaxed and focussed. We are certainly on track, at the moment, to better the 10th to 15th I was predicting at the start of the season. 70 to 74 points is doable and might just squeeze us into 6th place.

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Originally Posted by IanD

Average 2 points per match and we should make the play offs. The difference this year is that the form book has been reset after the break. We have the advantage of players coming back from injury and the use of 5 subs, a strategy well worked in the last two matches. The team seem more relaxed and focussed. We are certainly on track, at the moment, to better the 10th to 15th I was predicting at the start of the season. 70 to 74 points is doable and might just squeeze us into 6th place.

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Derby and Preston now need to win 5 of their last 7 to get 72 points. 72 points is going to be enough easily.

A draw in the Preston v Derby game on Wednesday would help.

good read and its typical of the championship to see how much has changed in just 5 games.

looking at this, weve played 4 games against teams that are, or were above us in the league. but we still have a very challenging run in. hopefully warnock has boro safe by the time we play them, but he will want to get a win in that one regardless.


we have a chance tomorrow to really put a marker down for a top 6 place against a good, improving on form charlton team. 3 wins and 3 draws from the last 7 is achievable and realistic

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Originally Posted by Taunton Blue Genie

A draw in the Preston v Derby game on Wednesday would help.

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Derby v Forest coming up, too. Indeed, Forest have got some interesting fixtures coming up where we could be wanting Forest to win, lose or draw depending on how our results go.