40 Points

[The Fonz]

If other teams do well in their games in hand, then we're already in the relegation zone, but points on the board worth way more than games in hand at this end of the table. If it goes to goal difference, we're done for.

Thing with games in hand bottom teams don't usually get as many points as top teams.
Very unlikely a team averaging not much more than half a point per game will suddenly win 2 or 3 on the trot.

The way those teams are likely to close on us is by beating us so for me the Burnley and Newcastle matches are massive.
Win them we are likely we'll on way to safety, lose them and we are in the dogfight.
Draws wouldn't be a disaster but would leave us with one eye looking over our shoulder.

[Davycc]

Draws wouldn't be a disaster but would leave us with one eye looking over our shoulder.

And we'd never win any games playing like that

[johnh]

We should be OK for getting points from our games in May as we may have Bamford back by then.

[Selby White]

Overview of points taken by team finishing 18th the last 15 seasons:
20/21: 28p
19/20: 34p
18/19: 34p
17/18: 33p
16/17: 34p
15/16: 37p
14/15: 35p
13/14: 33p
12/13: 36p
11/12: 36p
10/11: 39p
09/10: 30p
08/09: 34p
07/08: 36p
06/07: 38p

As we can see, in general there is a clear trend that more points was needed to be safe from 06/07 to 15/16 than the last five years. The last five season the avg point of team number 18 is 32,6 points.

I think the key difference is that in the last 5 seasons the top teams are better and the difference between the top teams and the bottom teams are much bigger. Given the avg points by the bottom 6 (I'm including Southampton that are at 1point/game avg) I struggle to see how 35 points will NOT be enough to survive this season.

Here we have the bottom 7 since 99, with the points they finished on plus the points they had after 18 games (click for full image). There are plenty of instances of teams surviving who were on less than we are at this stage.
As to the "magic 40" the last time 39 wasn't enough was 10-11 and before that 02-03. In the last 22 season's 9 times would 35 points send you down, and only 4 times was 37 not enough to stay up.



I'm sure most of us agree Norwich are going down, but there seems to be a difference in view for Newcastle. Personally, I think they are already gone. To stay up they would need to buy a new team, not just one or two individuals. There won't be the big rush of signings, more just a few journeymen with maybe one marque who has a release clause should they go down. If they are aiming for "40" then that's 30 points from 20, or 1.5PPG, and that's the form of a top half pushing for Europe team. I expect they will get some players and do a lot better than another 10 points, maybe they will get another 20, but for that to be enough it means another team has to really fail in the second half of the season.

Good Post really does show that the gap between bottom and top is getting wider.
On that I've a feeling somewhere just above 30pts will be enough.

[Nic]

We have a lot of injuries and the questions are
- would we be where we are now if we didn't have as many?
- will we have as many for the rest of the season?

For the first, I believe not and it is a major influence on why we've not performed as well. If you then think about the teams below us, they are still below us with much fuller squads.

For the second, I hope not. It would be incredibly unlucky if we did. So given that we should play better with a full squad, then as players return results will improve. The teams below us don't have that bank of players to return to improve their results (Newcastle might get more players using the royal wealth bank, but that's not as effective as good players returning).

If you say roughly that you are likely to get similar results from teams in a certain area of the table, then you could use the results so far to predict the rest of the season.


click for larger version

We've lost all games to the top 7, but only lost one game outside this group. A major factor this season v last is the number of draws. If the rest of the season follows a similar pattern we'll finish below 40 but above the relegation zone, and 30 won't be enough to stay up.

In all likelihood I'd expect the final tallies to be higher on some of the clubs near the bottom with a push to survive.

Looking at overall trends is interesting too. Newcastle have lost all their games to top half teams, but none to the bottom half. On the face of it you would think it would not be a relegation form team, but they have drawn too many games. If they do acquire players to either score more or stop shipping as many goals, converting these draws to wins might be enough to lift them upwards.

Burnley are another team drawing too many games, but they are unlikely to get an influx of players, and if they continue risks sending them down.
Watford have grabbed a few wins that's kept them just out of harms way so far. They will need to keep doing that if they are to survive, but should that fail to continue, they are likely to end up being sucked in.

[Nic]

So the relegated of every season since the changed to 20 teams



The two righthand columns are the cumulative total of the bottom 3 sides, after 18 and 38 games.

So as Newcastle and Norwich were on 10 a piece. The third side is most likely to have 16 or less, and come the end of the season the bottom 2 will be on well under 30, with 18th likely to be around that, so are we looking at 5 wins plus maybe some draws?

Of the remaining matches we won ten last season, so only need half as many with some of the others as draws.

[Polkadot]

19 games done, 19 points. 40 points looks possible. Likely 35 would be enough to stay up.

[Nic]

Not many teams have been on 22 after 21 games and gone down, after all it's not whether we reach 40, but whether we stay up that matters.

[Selby White]

40pts is a myth going back to when football was a level playing field.
Personally would be shocked if 3rd bottom gets more than 32pts this season.

[Nic]

40pts is a myth going back to when football was a level playing field.
Personally would be shocked if 3rd bottom gets more than 32pts this season.

Looks set for another low threshold for relegation. Higher than 28 was all that was needed last season.