Can we make the play offs? | Vital Football

Can we make the play offs?

NorthNottsImp

NorthNottsImp

Vital Reserves Team
Bored so looked at the stats. The average points tally for 6th place in the last 5 seasons (discounting 19/20) is 76 points. To reach this, we’d need 31 points from 13 games. To put this into perspective, our current points per game overall is 1.36. We’d need to up that to 2.3 to reach this milestone. What is good news is that in the last 6 games, our ppg is 2, so not far off. Better is that Oxford, who currently occupy 6th place, have a 6 game ppg of 1.16. Stevenage in 7th have the same. Even better is the fact we play both, albeit Oxford away. Our remaining games are tough, despite the fact they are mainly with teams currently around us. Is it achievable? Yes.
 
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It's certainly possible (and I would be thrilled to see it!) if we can keep everyone fit and put a charge together, but whether we're ready for the Championship? Ummmm....perhaps not this year.
 
It's not impossible but a bit improbable. As you say 31 points from the remaining 39 to get to what normally equates to 6th place in this division is a big ask at this stage of the season. Of course we do have games against 3 challengers for those positions next month with the home game against Stevenage and the trips to Barnsley and Oxford. We'd really have to win all 3 of them to be in with any kind of a shout.
What I will say is that if we do manage do it, we'll be going into the Play Offs as the form side and that's not happened too often in our past attempts at those.
 
Extremely unlikely but if we can somehow win the next 3/4 then winning 6 out of 9 looks easier to do than 10 out of 13.

I’d expect us to finish on 65 points ish
 
Personally I’d rather not. We’re not ready for the Championship and I have a very strong feeling we’d come straight down if we did squeak in. I get the impression, listening to club people, that their intention this year is to finish strongly but, with strong recruitment in the summer and a good pre-season have a real crack at promotion next year. The other factor, which I’ve said before, is that I don’t like the POs. They take us beyond the end of the season compared to other clubs, which gives us a shorter close season/recuperation time, for injuries (including additional injuries to tired players from extra games), makes quality recruitment more difficult (compared to the delay in being able to recruit vs other clubs) because of the uncertainty of which league will be in the following season. Yes, the POs are exciting but overall, for the three clubs losing out they have, I think, a real negative impact in many ways for the following season and would jeopardise our potential promotion push. I’d rather finish 7th and prepare strongly for next season.
 
After the low point of our form around Christmas due to mainly the injury situation I am more than happy and relieved with our recent run of form to almost secure our status for next season . Its good to be looking up the table now rather than down, but development wise we are not ready, and certainly not realistic.
 
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I had the same reaction to boredom, although my analysis was based on a slightly different premise, and posted this elsewhere before Saturday, but the win doesn't change my opinion,

I really can't see us reaching the play-off places, or ever looking likely to this season.

If Stevenage win their game in hand we are 14 points adrift of 6th place, with five other teams to overtake. Our current form is OK, 9 points from 5 games, but not good enough to overhaul the gap. In the last 5 games we have made up 5 points on Peterborough, 4 points on Blackpool, 3 points on Oxford, 2 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost a point to Leyton Orient.

With 14 games left, if we keep that up it looks like 14 points on Peterborough, 12 points on Blackpool, 9 points on Oxford, 6 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost 3 points to Leyton Orient. That would leave us 9 points less than Leyton Orient, 8 points short of Stevenage, 4 points adrift of Oxford, a point off Peterborough and Bristol Rovers and 7 points clear of Blackpool. In other words a single place improvement, to 10th, in a pack of 3 never looking close to 6th and 7th.

To make up the gap we would need an extra 3 points every 5 games, or 12 points, that is 4 wins out of five for the rest of the season. Only Portsmouth have that sort of record over the last 5 games. Do we really look like we have turned that sort of corner, to become the best team in the League? It also presumes that the other clubs don't improve on what they are currently doing and Stevenage and Peterborough don't have to improve much to be out of reach (only 3 of the bottom 5 have a worse record than Posh over the last 5 games).

It is simply too late and we are too far away to mount a play-off challenge. No team lower than 9th has a chance of making the top six and if Blackpool's form continues, no lower than 8th.

I would love to be proved wrong, but the Maths is hard to argue against.
 
No but we’re looking up not down. Currently 50/1 to finish top 6 and 250/1 to be relegated. If I was putting £1 on it would be on the 50/1 option. I’d probably add 50p on the 250/1 we are to get promoted. I won’t be doing either though I don’t think.
 
cherryexile said:
I had the same reaction to boredom, although my analysis was based on a slightly different premise, and posted this elsewhere before Saturday, but the win doesn't change my opinion,

I really can't see us reaching the play-off places, or ever looking likely to this season.

If Stevenage win their game in hand we are 14 points adrift of 6th place, with five other teams to overtake. Our current form is OK, 9 points from 5 games, but not good enough to overhaul the gap. In the last 5 games we have made up 5 points on Peterborough, 4 points on Blackpool, 3 points on Oxford, 2 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost a point to Leyton Orient.

With 14 games left, if we keep that up it looks like 14 points on Peterborough, 12 points on Blackpool, 9 points on Oxford, 6 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost 3 points to Leyton Orient. That would leave us 9 points less than Leyton Orient, 8 points short of Stevenage, 4 points adrift of Oxford, a point off Peterborough and Bristol Rovers and 7 points clear of Blackpool. In other words a single place improvement, to 10th, in a pack of 3 never looking close to 6th and 7th.

To make up the gap we would need an extra 3 points every 5 games, or 12 points, that is 4 wins out of five for the rest of the season. Only Portsmouth have that sort of record over the last 5 games. Do we really look like we have turned that sort of corner, to become the best team in the League? It also presumes that the other clubs don't improve on what they are currently doing and Stevenage and Peterborough don't have to improve much to be out of reach (only 3 of the bottom 5 have a worse record than Posh over the last 5 games).

It is simply too late and we are too far away to mount a play-off challenge. No team lower than 9th has a chance of making the top six and if Blackpool's form continues, no lower than 8th.

I would love to be proved wrong, but the Maths is hard to argue against.
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Christ you have too much time on your hands mate. A simple No we won’t get into the play offs would have done.
 
Absolutely no chance. We'd have to certainly beat both Oxford and Stevenage, whilst making sure we win around 10 out of 13.
 
cherryexile said:
I had the same reaction to boredom, although my analysis was based on a slightly different premise, and posted this elsewhere before Saturday, but the win doesn't change my opinion,

I really can't see us reaching the play-off places, or ever looking likely to this season.

If Stevenage win their game in hand we are 14 points adrift of 6th place, with five other teams to overtake. Our current form is OK, 9 points from 5 games, but not good enough to overhaul the gap. In the last 5 games we have made up 5 points on Peterborough, 4 points on Blackpool, 3 points on Oxford, 2 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost a point to Leyton Orient.

With 14 games left, if we keep that up it looks like 14 points on Peterborough, 12 points on Blackpool, 9 points on Oxford, 6 points on Stevenage, nothing on Bristol Rovers and lost 3 points to Leyton Orient. That would leave us 9 points less than Leyton Orient, 8 points short of Stevenage, 4 points adrift of Oxford, a point off Peterborough and Bristol Rovers and 7 points clear of Blackpool. In other words a single place improvement, to 10th, in a pack of 3 never looking close to 6th and 7th.

To make up the gap we would need an extra 3 points every 5 games, or 12 points, that is 4 wins out of five for the rest of the season. Only Portsmouth have that sort of record over the last 5 games. Do we really look like we have turned that sort of corner, to become the best team in the League? It also presumes that the other clubs don't improve on what they are currently doing and Stevenage and Peterborough don't have to improve much to be out of reach (only 3 of the bottom 5 have a worse record than Posh over the last 5 games).

It is simply too late and we are too far away to mount a play-off challenge. No team lower than 9th has a chance of making the top six and if Blackpool's form continues, no lower than 8th.

I would love to be proved wrong, but the Maths is hard to argue against.
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Agreed, and here is the major obstacle..
If Stevenage win their game in hand we are 14 points adrift of 6th place, with five other teams to overtake.
We need to perform considerably better than all the other 5 teams above us. When you are fighting relegation a small rise in form is significant because the chances are the teams above you are also losing games. When you are challenging for promotion the chances that 5 teams above you will suddenly fall out of form and none of them will go on a run, given those teams are in the top half largely because of their consistent performance over the course of the season, is incredibly unlikely...
 
Looking back to the 1981/82 season we went on a run at the beginning of March of six wins and a draw to move from 13th place (11 points off the promotion places) to top of the table. Of course we didn't stay there.

But, without getting into a player-for-player comparison with those days, the core of that side had been playing together for two years.
 
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