Play off race

[Mattyblue]

Like most clubs then.

[lraC]

10 hours ago, waynerovers said:

Wonder what the odds would be on us getting Sammie back if we traded places with Ipswich

It’s crossed my mind that we should go for Adam Wharton too. If we do have a sell on clause, then it could make it more affordable, if we have the premier league money. What a boost that would be getting him back. We can dream I guess. 

[Admiral Nelsen]

8 hours ago, aletheia said:

Curious to know what would happen IF we get into playoffs and IF we got promoted. That is, in relation to the Rao’s, the money, the players and performance in the top league.

 

You'd basically be looking at either i) go full Nottingham Forest and buy a new team to stay in the league, or 2) pick up a few of the best young players in the Championship and bank the rest of the money to be strong in the Championship. The way that we've operated over the last 10 years or so strongly suggests the latter.

 

I think if we were set up to be hard to beat, frustrate teams and be direct, then perhaps one or two of our players could compete with some better quality around them. I'd be interested to see how Travis & Tronstad go especially. But like most teams coming up from the play offs, as things stand there's a massive gulf in quality and we'd do well to even to lay a glove on most teams. 

[Madon]

3 hours ago, lraC said:

It’s crossed my mind that we should go for Adam Wharton too. If we do have a sell on clause, then it could make it more affordable, if we have the premier league money. What a boost that would be getting him back. We can dream I guess. 

It would have to be a dream, there is only one place that lad is going and it is right to the very top.

[lraC]

44 minutes ago, Madon said:

It would have to be a dream, there is only one place that lad is going and it is right to the very top.

I couldn't agree more.

He is a wonderful player.

[TheRevAshton]

I'd say 74 points gets you playoffs this season.

To achieve that, in our final 13 games we'll need 23 points from a possible 39 - 1.77 points per game. 7 wins and 2 draws does it.

If we can maintain what we've seen in the last couple of games, I think it can be done... will have to do a lot of damage before April though, as that's when the tougher games start coming;

Feb
Swansea (a)

March
Norwich (h)
Derby (a)
Stoke (a)
Cardiff (h)
Portsmouth (a)

April
Middlesbrough (h)
Sheff Weds (h)
Luton (a)
Millwall (h)
Sunderland (a)
Watford (h)

May
Sheff Utd (a)

For me, there's;
5 probable wins, 6 could go either way, 2 probable losses.

Edited February 17 by TheRevAshton

[superniko]

13 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

I'd say 74 points gets you playoffs this season.

To achieve that, in our final 13 games we'll need 23 points from a possible 39 - 1.77 points per game. 7 wins and 2 draws does it.

If we can maintain what we've seen in the last couple of games, I think it can be done... will have to do a lot of damage before April though, as that's when the tougher games start coming;

Feb
Swansea (a)

March
Norwich (h)
Derby (a)
Stoke (a)
Cardiff (h)
Portsmouth (a)

April
Middlesbrough (h)
Sheff Weds (h)
Luton (a)
Millwall (h)
Sunderland (a)
Watford (h)

May
Sheff Utd (a)

For me, there's;
5 probable wins, 6 could go either way, 2 probable losses.

 

74 would mean 2 of West Brom, Coventry, Bristol City etc. would have to average 2+ points per game (equivalent of a 92 point season). Very slim chance 2 of those teams can be consistent and put that together (as big as 2.3 ppg for Norwich to reach that).

It's a season where 4 teams have Top 2 form whilst everyone else bunches together so it'll be a low total. I'd be very surprised if 71 isn't enough this year, we have a steady GD too currently (only WBA better)

Edited February 17 by superniko

[TheRevAshton]

5 minutes ago, superniko said:

 

74 would mean 2 of West Brom, Coventry, Bristol City etc. would have to average 2+ points per game (equivalent of a 92 point season). Very slim chance 2 of those teams can be consistent and put that together (as big as 2.3 ppg for Norwich to reach that).

It's a season where 4 teams have Top 2 form whilst everyone else bunches together so it'll be a low total. I'd be very surprised if 71 isn't enough this year, we have a steady GD too currently (only WBA better)

Fair shout! Even better if it's 71, very achievable if we can keep it up.

Remember it was 69 the year the year we missed out on GD to Sunderland - christ what an opportunity that was!

[islander200]

28 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

I'd say 74 points gets you playoffs this season.

To achieve that, in our final 13 games we'll need 23 points from a possible 39 - 1.77 points per game. 7 wins and 2 draws does it.

If we can maintain what we've seen in the last couple of games, I think it can be done... will have to do a lot of damage before April though, as that's when the tougher games start coming;

Feb
Swansea (a)

March
Norwich (h)
Derby (a)
Stoke (a)
Cardiff (h)
Portsmouth (a)

April
Middlesbrough (h)
Sheff Weds (h)
Luton (a)
Millwall (h)
Sunderland (a)
Watford (h)

May
Sheff Utd (a)

For me, there's;
5 probable wins, 6 could go either way, 2 probable losses.

Surely it won't be as high as 74 with teams having to play each other and no team with maybe the exception of Coventry getting consistent results?

[RoverKyle]

41 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

I'd say 74 points gets you playoffs this season.

To achieve that, in our final 13 games we'll need 23 points from a possible 39 - 1.77 points per game. 7 wins and 2 draws does it.

If we can maintain what we've seen in the last couple of games, I think it can be done... will have to do a lot of damage before April though, as that's when the tougher games start coming;

Feb
Swansea (a)

March
Norwich (h)
Derby (a)
Stoke (a)
Cardiff (h)
Portsmouth (a)

April
Middlesbrough (h)
Sheff Weds (h)
Luton (a)
Millwall (h)
Sunderland (a)
Watford (h)

May
Sheff Utd (a)

For me, there's;
5 probable wins, 6 could go either way, 2 probable losses.

Love this post; thank you. As you've pointed out, that fixture run gets trickier later in the season. We need to pick up the results now, making a swift (& appropriate) appointment even more critical.

Edited February 17 by RoverKyle
Spelling

[roverandout]

I predict of the fixtures I've looked at, we'll get 6 more wins

[AspRover]

There's a funny little piece in the Spanish press suggesting that Real Madrid might try to leave La Liga and move to compete in another country in protest against the league and 'refereeing bias'

Absolutely laughable as it is, it would be the most us thing in the world to win the playoffs only to be told that only the two auto spots go up this year - Madrid are being given slot #3.

More or less what happened to our women's team with Manchester utd if memory serves?

[aletheia]

14 hours ago, Admiral Nelsen said:

2) pick up a few of the best young players in the Championship and bank the rest of the money to be strong in the Championship. The way that we've operated over the last 10 years or so strongly suggests the latter.

Indeed. Cue this board fed up with watching us lose every week.

wondered what the Raos might do and the hierarchy. (For the record I don’t think we will go up. )

[Hasta]

West Brom currently sit 6th with 48 points after 33 games. That is the lowest points tally for a 6th place team in 20 years after 33 games (and possibly further, I stopped checking).

However its difficult to draw parallels with previous years.

Last season after 33 games, 6th place had 54 points.Therefore this year is tracking 6 points behind last year, where 73 was enough for play offs.

However in 20/21 at this point 6th place only had 49 points (the next lowest I could find), and yet by the end of the season you needed 77 points to get in, one of the higher totals required.

 

Edited February 18 by Hasta

[Ricky]

20 hours ago, TheRevAshton said:

I'd say 74 points gets you playoffs this season.

To achieve that, in our final 13 games we'll need 23 points from a possible 39 - 1.77 points per game. 7 wins and 2 draws does it.

If we can maintain what we've seen in the last couple of games, I think it can be done... will have to do a lot of damage before April though, as that's when the tougher games start coming;

Feb
Swansea (a)

March
Norwich (h)
Derby (a)
Stoke (a)
Cardiff (h)
Portsmouth (a)

April
Middlesbrough (h)
Sheff Weds (h)
Luton (a)
Millwall (h)
Sunderland (a)
Watford (h)

May
Sheff Utd (a)

For me, there's;
5 probable wins, 6 could go either way, 2 probable losses.

I wouldn’t be putting Portsmouth away as a win. Their home form is on a par with Norwich and Coventry. A draw there and a win at Luton would be my prediction.

Interestingly Swansea are second bottom in the home table (Hull are bottom) so we really should be pushing for the three points there. 

[philipl]

After tonight's Preston v Millwall, one club, possibly two, will no longer be in play-off contention.

[TheRevAshton]

Let's say that 70 points is actually what will get you playoffs this season...

I've copied the league table, and added the amount of points and PPG each team would require from their remaining matches, to reach 70 points;

Barring some sort of record low playoff threshold, i'd say that those teams needing at least 2.00 PPG could be out of the playoff race already.

2.00 PPG is automatic promotion form, very unlikely unless you're one of the current top 4.

One could even go as far as saying that those needing at least 1.9 PPG could be out of the race...

A place in the playoffs is ours to lose at this point, hope the lads can keep it up!

Edited February 18 by TheRevAshton

[superniko]

28 minutes ago, TheRevAshton said:

Let's say that 70 points is actually what will get you playoffs this season...

I've copied the league table, and added the amount of points and PPG each team would require from their remaining matches, to reach 70 points;

Barring some sort of record low playoff threshold, i'd say that those teams needing at least 2.00 PPG could be out of the playoff race already.

2.00 PPG is automatic promotion form, very unlikely unless you're one of the current top 4.

One could even go as far as saying that those needing at least 1.9 PPG could be out of the race...

A place in the playoffs is ours to lose at this point, hope the lads can keep it up!

2 from Rovers, WBA, Coventry and the winner of Bristol City v Boro on Friday I think.

Bristol City have the toughest run in, Sheffield Wednesday and Watford have a negative GD so it's hard to imagine either team suddenly averaging 1.92 (they'd need more due to their GD too). 

Norwich downwards, although they need 2 ppg to reach 70, they're only 4 points off WBA. 7 behind ourselves is a nice cushion.

Interesting that every contender would have to better their current PPG to reach 70 points except for ourselves, who could perform worse and still make it.

[roversfan99]

The thing is, those points per game tallies needed would be really difficult to sustain over a season but over 13 games, surely at least a couple will put together 3/4 wins at some stage and all of a sudden those points per games tallies become achievable.

[superniko]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

The thing is, those points per game tallies needed would be really difficult to sustain over a season but over 13 games, surely at least a couple will put together 3/4 wins at some stage and all of a sudden those points per games tallies become achievable.

For Norwich to reach 70 they'd need:

win 7, draw 5, lose 1 (70 points)

win 8, draw 2, lose 3 (70 points)

win 9, lose 4 (71 points)

All doable like you say, but it's difficult, and that's just the minimum they'd need. It would also require two teams to do it to knock Rovers out now. All we need to do now is be ordinary and we have a real good chance. (though we said the same twice before recently)

[Plastics]

I reckon it'll be around the 75 point mark given the amount of teams in for it. Only takes a few to get a run going

[Nic81]

1 hour ago, Plastics said:

I reckon it'll be around the 75 point mark given the amount of teams in for it. Only takes a few to get a run going

I could be wrong but I think the fact that all the teams around us have to play each other, it would be difficult for someone to put a real run together. Still think that it may just be around 70. 

[Plastics]

15 minutes ago, Nic81 said:

I could be wrong but I think the fact that all the teams around us have to play each other, it would be difficult for someone to put a real run together. Still think that it may just be around 70. 

That's something I hadn't considered

[Nic81]

Preston and Millwall drew tonight and are 6 points off the play offs and 9 points behind us. 

[philipl]

Preston and Millwall play-off mutual destruction last night. 

Need 6 points and goal difference swing and to get past 8 clubs in the way to reach 6th.

The BBC was showing the table 6th to 15th last night as though we have 5th already sewn up- if only!