How many goals do we actually need to score to win promotion?

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I don't know how we'll do next year. I can just about understand that bookies might regard us as favourites due to ; our end of season form, we have a good manager and support, finances are ok.

But there will be a big influx of new players and the right mix needs to be found. Same old story, we need to be patient next season.
 

travellingblade said:
Taking that one stage further:-

22 x 1-0 with 24 0-0 draws gets us 90 points, so I would suggest a minimum of 22 goals.
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Yep, 22 goals is the minimum amount.
How boring would it be though.
It's the sort of thing that could only happen to United fans. Win a Championship, be unbeaten and everybody be well and truly pi55ed off.
 
So: 8 games in, over one sixth of the season. How are we doing?

Remember, over the last 10 years:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

Well, despite defensive calamities, this week we've surpassed the goal a game average we were maintaining for the first half a dozen games, even achieving 3 goals in an away game for the first time in nearly 2 years. This gives us 11 goals in 8 games, which is again small sample size, but playing around with a bit of maths that's 1.375 goals per game or 63.25 goals in a 46 game season. Better than last year, and moving in the right direction (if we don't let 7 in for every 5 we score), but still short of where we need to be.

Looking at the top 2:

Bristol City have 18 in 9 games: that's on pace for 92 over the whole season
MK Dons have 21 in 8 games: that's on pace for 120 over the whole season. That's not going to happen, but it's still a healthy start.

Who's scored the goals?

Ben Davies has 4 in 8 games - excellent return for him. 3 of those goals gave us vital away wins.
Jose Baxter has 3 in 6 games (2 as sub) - A good start, he's also won us points and it's a shame he's injured.
4 players - JCR 3 games, 2 starts), Ryan Flynn (7 games, 2 starts), Michael Higdon (6 games, 5 starts) and Mark McNulty (6 games, 3 starts) - have 1 each. JCR and Flynn won us points, McNulty and Higdon didn't. We need more from our forwards, though they can't do anything if they aren't on the pitch.
 
67 goals in our last 67 league games even though we finished 5th and 6th says we are failing to get a good enough number of goals. It goes all the way back to Wilson's last transfer window. Not that Wilson shoulders all the blame at that time.

Let's hope Nigel can fix it with financial help from the Board.
 
Let's look at it another way. How many goals do we need to concede.

I'm a big believer in promotions being won by not losing and not conceding.

Theoretically we could piss the league with 46 goals or less if we either won each game 1-0 or drew 0-0
 
SwissBlade said:
Let's look at it another way. How many goals do we need to concede.

I'm a big believer in promotions being won by not losing and not conceding.

Theoretically we could piss the league with 46 goals or less if we either won each game 1-0 or drew 0-0
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Theoretically we could. Meanwhile, on planet earth, we need a lot of goals.
 
Interesting bit of analysis, though slightly one-sided I fear. I guess that Revolution is purely interetsed in looking at his hypothesis that promotion teams score a lot of goals. I accept the OP's point about SUFC not scoring enough goals and this being a problem. I'd like to see the stats on goal difference and particularly goals conceded too, for the whole picture. I'd also be interested to see what teams in 3rd to 6th scored too. It might be a freak example but we scored 92 goals in 11/12 (ooutscoring South Barnsley by 11) but did not get automatic. 2 years ago Yeovil and Swiindon both scored more than league winners Donny and last year Orient and Rovrum scored miles more than Brentford. If I had time I would go back as far back as when 3 points came in (as 10 is not really a large sample size) and show the complete picture. I am not for one minute saying that scoring lots of goals would significantly increases the chances of a team getting promoted but there is clearly a lot more to it.
 
In 1937-38 Man City scored 80 league goals, conceded 77 but still got relegated from 1st division! (we had positive goal difference in 1980-81 and got relegated too). Norwich scored 61 league goals, conceded 65 but finished 3rd in the Premier League in 1992-93!
 
Ollessendro said:
Interesting bit of analysis, though slightly one-sided I fear. I guess that Revolution is purely interetsed in looking at his hypothesis that promotion teams score a lot of goals. I accept the OP's point about SUFC not scoring enough goals and this being a problem. I'd like to see the stats on goal difference and particularly goals conceded too, for the whole picture. I'd also be interested to see what teams in 3rd to 6th scored too. It might be a freak example but we scored 92 goals in 11/12 (ooutscoring South Barnsley by 11) but did not get automatic. 2 years ago Yeovil and Swiindon both scored more than league winners Donny and last year Orient and Rovrum scored miles more than Brentford. If I had time I would go back as far back as when 3 points came in (as 10 is not really a large sample size) and show the complete picture. I am not for one minute saying that scoring lots of goals would significantly increases the chances of a team getting promoted but there is clearly a lot more to it.
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You've got that right. I really got sick of hearing that it didn't matter that we don't have many goals in the team, and we can go up scoring 50 odd goals or whatever. It hardly ever happens. The point of the thread is to show that if recent history tells us anything, it's that we need a much higher number of goals to be promoted than we've been capable of scoring in recent years.

And of course a team that hardly concedes can go up if it scores, say, 60 odd goals. Forests' promotion team was like that. If people want to check this, go right ahead. It's partially addressed in the original post, at point 2.

As for 3rd to 6th, I suspect you will get more variance, but of course the point of the thread is to determine how many goals we need to win promotion. For us, that has to be 1st or 2nd. We will not win a playoff tournament.
 
16 games in now, over one third of the season.

Remember, over the last 10 years:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

Well, having managed 11 goals in our first 8 games, we've managed 12 in the second set of games, for a record of W5 D1 L2. Not much of an improvement (though our record's a bit better thanks to timely clean sheets - 3 in a row in away games) That's 23 in 16, which is 1.4375 goals a game, which is 66 over a full season. Not enough for the top 2 usually.

Looking at the top 2, Bristol City and Swindon both have 33 in 17 games: that's on pace for 89 over the whole season, and that's promotion goalscoring form.

Who's scored the goals?

In the last 8 games, McNulty has 4 goals - 2 in victories, 1 in a draw, and 1 consolation goal. He has 5 overall. Shame about what happened. I hope it wasn't his fault.
Jamie Murphy has 3 goals in the last 8 games, all in victories, with excellent winners against Donny and Gillingham. He's showing some of his late form last year
Harris, Scougall, Collins, Higdon and McCarthy all have 1 goal in this period: Harris, Higdon and Scougs in victories, McCarthy's was in a drawn game, and Collins' was a consolation. Higdon has 2 league goals overall, and it has been stop-start for him, though in fairness he has scored all our goals in the last 2 rounds of the League Cup.

Ben Davies (who has disappeared off the face of the earth) Jose Baxter, JCR and Ryan Flynn all scored in the first 8 games but haven't scored since. Baxter has of course missed a penalty in this period, and his struggles are well documented here.

The forwards and wide men, and even the centre halves, are chipping in. What do we need? Well, in addition to greater consistency from Baxter and McNulty, and more from Higdon (when selected/fit) we need the midfield 3 to contribute. Scougall is the only midfielder to score a goal this season. Doyle, Basham and Reed haven't looked like scoring, and Wallace missed the easiest chance of the season. I see no reason to persist with a midfield 3 if none of them carries a goal threat. That leaves too much for the lone striker to do.

Improvement still needed.
 
its only really about points , one teams won the title with 62 goals and ones got second with 53
So its only about the number of wins 1-0 or otherwise and getting as many 3 points as possible
10 1-0 and 2 0-0 get more points in 12 games than 6 x 5-0 , 4 x 4-0 a 2-3 loss and a 3-3
draw scoring 51 goals
 
23 games played - halfway through the season

Remember, over the last 10 years:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

Having managed 11 goals in our first 8 games, and 12 goals in the second set of 8 games, we managed only 7 in the last 7 games, for a record of W1 D4 L2. Not very good.

That's 30 goals in 23 games, which is 1.3 goals a game, which is 60 over a full season. That's not been enough for the top 2 for decades.

As when I last looked at this, Bristol City and Swindon are the top 2, and have scored the same number of goals: both have 46 in 24 games: that's on pace for 88 over the whole season, and that's promotion goalscoring form.

Who's scored the goals?

In the last 7 games, JCR has managed 3 goals, scoring in a win and a draw. 4 goals in 15 games overall is excellent for a winger, and he's in a bit of a purple patch with 4 in 3 when you count the cup.

McNulty was the other scorer in the win, and has 6 in 19 games: pretty decent given how few starts he's had, plus he's scored against QPR and Southampton. He and JCR have been good signings.

Murphy, Harris and O'Grady were the other scorers in this period, all in 1-1 draws. Murph has 4 in total this season in the league, a high for his Blades career, and when he does well we tend to win. Shame we couldn't keep O'Grady. Any goals from defenders are welcome and a bit of a bonus so it's nice to see Harris picking up a couple.

The central midfield 3 (whoever they may be) continue to disappoint, with their lack of production being one of the main reasons why we aren't scoring more goals and doing better. Scougall's goal at Crewe remains the only goal any of our 3 central midfielders has scored in half a season of football. Not good enough.

Jose Baxter has not scored in his last 12 league appearances. That's really poor.

Michael Higdon has only played 3 league games since his sending off at Chesterfield and isn't doing himself any favours when he actually does get on the pitch. He's been a major disappointment.

Finally, I keep hearing how it doesn't matter how few goals we score as we can win 1-0. Well, no, we can't because we don't keep cleam sheets. We let in 1 goal in 6 out the last 7 games (Port Vale got 2). We aren't going to make up that ground on the top 2 unless we actually start knocking in 2s and 3s, and I can't see it with this squad and the non production from the 3 midfielders. Playoffs at best.
 

Another 8 games gone - 31 played now - and things have definitely improved on the goals front.

Over the last 10 years:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

We've managed 15 goals in the last 8 games, for a record of W5 D1 L2. That's our best this season since I've been tracking 7/8 game spells - and the trend is for more goals, as we've got 13 in the last 5 - the blank slates at MK Dons and Gillingham drag us down.

That's 45 goals in 31 games, which is 1.45 goals per game - the best this season, I think. That's 66 for a full season. Not enough for the top 2, but we're going the right way.

The top 2 are now Bristol City and MK Dons, who have 61 and 66 goals respectively, both in 32 games. That's on pace for 88 and 95 respectively over the whole season, which is promotion goalscoring form.

Who's scored the goals?

Murph has 5 goals in this spell, scoring in 3 wins and a draw. He's been in great form and looks like our player of the year if he keeps this up. He has 9 in total in the league, excellent for a winger who only plays up top occasionally.

Matt Done has come in and done an excellent job, scoring 4 times in his first 3 appearances for the club, all of which were victories.

McNulty's opportunities have been limited by Done's arrival but he scored last night to give himself 7 for the season in 25 games (of which only 8 have been starts). I'm hopeful he'll end up with double figures.

And don't faint, but we've actually got something from the midfield! Jose Baxter scored twice against Colchester - one a penalty - for his first league goals since August, and Doyle scored his first of the season on Saturday. Goals from defenders - Brayford last night and McEveley against Colchester - round out the scoring.

The only slightly disappointing thing from an attacking perspective in the last few weeks is JCR's dip in form.

So what are the main reasons for this upswing? It's all down to more goals, as we have won 4 and drawn 1 of the last 5 without keeping a clean sheet. Well, Murphy's great play and Done's addition are huge factors - what a treat it is to have someone getting in the box on the end of crosses from the by line. But perhaps there's something else. Stefan Scougall hasn't played in any of the last 5 games, and Louis Reed has played only 70 odd minutes in that time. Have Doyle and 2 from Basham/Baxter/Holt/Coutts made us more forward looking? One for Bergen perhaps. I will, however, leave you with this statistical titbit:

Our record in league games featuring Scougall this season: Won 8 drew 5 lost 8
Our record in league games Scougall missed this season: Won 7 drew 2 lost 1

Food for thought.
 
What you're trying to say is you can score your way out of this league and i completely agree. Good post 'btw'.
 
10 games gone since the last update, not the usual 7 or 8. I blame Australia.

Anyway, over the last 10 years:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

We've managed 16 goals in the last 10 games, for a record of W4 D3 L3. That's 4 wins in 5 after 5 games without a win. All 3 defeats at home.

That's now 61 goals in 41 games, which is 1.48 goals per game - the best this season, which would be 68 over a full season.

The top 2 are Bristol City and Preston, who have 79 goals (41 games) and 68 goals (40 games) respectively. That's on pace for 88 and 78 respectively over the whole season, which is promotion goalscoring form.

Who's scored the goals?

Jose Baxter has top scored in this spell - primarily because we have been awarded a number of penalties, which is I suspect a sign of greater attacking intent. He has 5, 4 of which were pens, for a season total of 10.

Matt Done has continued to score regularly despite fewer opportunities - he has 3 (though 2 of these were in defeats) giving him 7 in 14. What an excellent signing he has been thus far.

Jason Holt didn't look much when first seen at Gillingham but he has been amongst the goals, something we haven't had much from central midfield this season - he had a spell of 3 in 3 games, with the Barnsley goal the most important. Steve Davies has finally broken his duck and scored two excellent - and vital - goals in the derby games. I was not keen on this signing but it seems to be clicking. Fingers crossed he can stay fit.

The remaining scorers are McNulty at Crawley from the spot - sadly his opportunities have been limited of late and his performance against Peterborough did not help him - Murphy, who like Baxter has double figures - an excellent return for a wide man - and Freeman has chipped in with a goal at Scunny.

If we had managed to score a bit more regularly early on, we might be up there with Preston. All the same, we are in our best goalscoring form of the season - encouraging with the playoffs around the corner all being well.
 
Silent Blade said:
Scoring more goals will increase our chances of getting promotion but Clough might still prefer our style that is difficult to score against and safeguarding our goal lead
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In theory,
Trouble is we aren't difficult to score against as every single average and poor quality Third Division team has proven. They've even managed to take away the enjoyment of winning.
There should be something special about a promotion season, it's something that should give you great memories for year to come, it's something that should be talked about for years. But if this season ends up being a promotion season it will be the most forgettable promotion season that any football club on the planet has ever inflicted on it's supporters.

We've had more enjoyable seasons when we've done nowt.
 
JJBlade said:
In theory,
Trouble is we aren't difficult to score against as every single average and poor quality Third Division team has proven. They've even managed to take away the enjoyment of winning.
There should be something special about a promotion season, it's something that should give you great memories for year to come, it's something that should be talked about for years. But if this season ends up being a promotion season it will be the most forgettable promotion season that any football club on the planet has ever inflicted on it's supporters.

We've had more enjoyable seasons when we've done nowt.
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If we get promoted I won't give a good double fuck about the rest of the season. Right at this moment we need to move forward, whether that's by design or default.
 
i've checked the analytics and we need three more goals for promotion
 
We've lacked consistency all season, seen some baffling decisions from the management and as Revolution has pointed out lacked goals most of the season, but if we go up this season i will certainly not forget it for more reasons than one. Now come on Blades, give the fans what they deserve and that is promotion to the league in which they atleast deserve to be in, the championship, and that's been honest not greedy.
 
JJBlade said:
In theory,
Trouble is we aren't difficult to score against as every single average and poor quality Third Division team has proven. They've even managed to take away the enjoyment of winning.
There should be something special about a promotion season, it's something that should give you great memories for year to come, it's something that should be talked about for years. But if this season ends up being a promotion season it will be the most forgettable promotion season that any football club on the planet has ever inflicted on it's supporters.

We've had more enjoyable seasons when we've done nowt.
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Not sure about that. It's always easy to look back on nostalgia with rose tinted glasses. The 1989-1990 promotion season was memorable for the finale at Leicester. Much of the season fans bickered about bassets playing style and we struggled to get crowds of over 15K. We had the cup run (similar to this season) but also some pretty heavy defeats - Leeds / West Ham.

The 2005-2006 season got off to a cracker and had the double over the pigs, but we had the Warnock to Portsmouth saga mid way through the season, everyone thought he was leaving and then when we had our bad patch in feb/March some fans were calling for Warnocks head!! It all ended rosey with promotion in the end.

I think this seasons negatives have been amplified because of the big expectation levels at the start of the season and because everyone is desperate to get out of this league. Had this been a season in the championship and we were heading for the playoffs, having been in a cup semi with the same results performances I think everyone would probably be a lot more positive.

If we do break the play off hoodoo and get up this season I think people will soon forget some of the negatives.

UTB
 
So, that's it. 5 goals in the last 5 games (4 draws, one defeat) leaves us with 66 for the season.

Remember, over the last 10 seasons:

1st place average goals scored: 80.5 Median: 83
2nd place average goals scored: 73.5 Median: 76.5

The top 2 this year scored 96 and 101 respectively. That's promotion goalscoring, alright.

The scorers in this mini spell were Jason Holt, who got the goal against Bradford and one of the two in our Oldham comeback, Jamie Murphy, who got the other goal at Oldham, Bob Harris, who got us into the playoffs with his goal at Orient, and McNulty, who got us fifth place with his goal against Chesterfield and will probably be dropped as a reward.

The 66 goals break down as follows:

11 - Murphy (41+2 games, very good for a winger)
10 - Baxter (28+6 games - a lot of pens, but not bad I suppose)
9 - McNulty (11+20 games, excellent return given its his first season in England and he was messed about so much)
7 - Done (12+3 games, excellent again, a major contributor to getting a playoff place)
5 - Holt (11+5 games, great return from a midfielder who has done what his peers could not. Has his detractors but his goals have been vital)
4 - Ben Davies (11+3 games) and JCR (14+5 games) - good contributions from both players and it's a shame we didn't see more of them, particularly JCR
3 - Harris (35+5 games: decent tally from a full back)
2 - Higdon (9 + 4 games) and Steve Davies (10+3 games) disappointing contributions from both, though I am not surprised in Davies' case.
one goal wonders can be divided into:
the respectable - McEveley (31+3 games), McCarthy (10+1 games), Freeman (13+6 games), Brayford (22 games) Collins (8 games) and O'Grady (4 games). Goals from defenders always welcome, and it's a shame we didn't see more of O'Grady
the poor: Scougall (20+5 games), Flynn (18+14 games), Doyle (35+8 games) - we need more from players who play in these positions if we're going to play 4-5-1
Notable non scorers: Basham (35+2 games) Coutts (19+ 1 games) Reed (10+9 games) - it really is amazing how poor our central midfielders not called Jason Holt have been in terms of goalscoring.

So there we are. I said if we scored less than 70 odd goals chances were we wouldn't get in the top 2, particularly after the Maguire sale left a big hole at the back, and so it proved. Plus it turns out that automatically promoted teams score shed loads of goals. For us, there have been far too many 1-1 draws and midfielders blazing over from good positions.

I hope that whatever division we are in next year Clough actually tries to bring in people who have decent scoring records....
 
Good call at the outset Rev (despite the nay sayers).

Perhaps next season, whichever division we are in, we'll either go rock solid defence and 20+ clean sheets, or open and attractive with 80+ goals and we'll be well in for the automatic spots.
 
Hear what you say, Rev but, apart from the four teams who finished (well) above us, only Chezzie and Rochdale scored more than our pitiful 66 goals. Which just proves what a fucking poor division this has been this year.
 

grafikhaus said:
Hear what you say, Rev but, apart from the four teams who finished (well) above us, only Chezzie and Rochdale scored more than our pitiful 66 goals. Which just proves what a fucking poor division this has been this year.
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Is true Graffers but Rev's point was about the number of goals required for promotion (the title of the thread)
I suspect in years to come the number required will rise
Still, 66 goals in a piss poor division is nothing like enough to challenge.
It's also the factor most likely to trip us up in the play off campaign
 
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