At No Point in History

[PeterNdlovu081]

At No Point in History

At no point in history what?

 

[benn5712]

Time for a Christmas party??

And DO NOT win at Anfield.

 

[Houston_Blade]

I know it's not cool to be concerned but I think we are in trouble this season. We seem to have a big dose of thinking we're hard done to around the club and it's not helpful. When we were doing well and a few things going for us "you make your own luck" is trotted out, now we're unlucky and it's not our fault. I don't buy into that.

I'm hoping that a signing or 2 gives us a boost and that we can pick up a few points in the next few games otherwise we are in big trouble.

I'd snap your hand off for 17th at the end of the season.

 

[Foody]

At no point in history what?

Just a really poor pun about no points and it's history.

 

[SK10Blade]

You can prove anything with stats. In the past two years half the teams have been relegated but if you only look at last year then every team with no points was relegated. Sufice to say you can also take other figures that suit and the chances of staying up are greater than 50%. I still think we have a tough run coming up although we have recently done well against Arsenal and Fulham should be winnable.

 

[oldblade]

Good post. We lost the first five games in the second tier in 1995-96, and finished 9th. Mind you this did involve the resignation of a widely adored, club legend manager, so perhaps not a great one to dredge up.

And at the other end of the spectrum, Millwall were the early leaders that season. They ended up being relegated with 52 points.

 

[mattbianco1]

Like a lot of Blade's this evening I'm suddenly finding myself concerned about the threat of relegation. Zero points from the first three suddenly feels like a death sentence, so I found myself digging into the metaphorical history books in search of a crumb of comfort. I have been looking through the previous 10 seasons and looked at all the teams who registered zilch after three games and looked at where they subsequently finished.
Here is the breakdown.

Year	Team	Final Position	Points	Relegated
19/20	Watford	19th	34	Yes
18/19	West Ham	10th	52	No
17/18	Bournemouth	12th	44	No
17/18	Crystal Palace	11th	44	No
17/18	West Ham	13th	42	No
12/13	Southampton	14th	41	No
11/12	West Brom	10th	47	No
11/12	Blackburn	19th	31	Yes
10/11	Stoke	13th	46	No
10/11	West Ham	11th	47	No

* 13/14-16/17 No teams lost all 3 openers

So the statistics say that: of the 10 team to lose the first 3 games , only 2 were relegated (20%), the average league finish was 13th and the average points total was 43.

In summary then, yes we need to improve and yes we have every right to be concerned, but not only would avoiding relegation not require some miraculous turn around, it would be statistically normal. We can certainly take comfort in the fact several teams have been where we are now (for West Ham it's becoming a habit) and not only have they gone on to survive, but they've gone on to be nowhere near relegation and finish midtable (10th with 52 points being the highest).

UTB

What about losing the first 8?

 

[guancheblade]

17th would be just fine this season.

Just fine.

UTB

Not for Sander it won't be.

 

[Foody]

What about losing the first 8?

Then we'll be able to bring back this song, just not in honour of Dowell.

 

[Bartleby]

The only thing that's really concerning me about being bottom is the run of games coming up. I don't see any real chance of us not being bottom after 8 games then it becomes harder to claw back the points.

And there was I taking a crumb of comfort from the OP's stats till you pissed on my chips with that Roy

 

[Sheffsteel]

I often say this.....ignore short term results....instead judge the performance as they are an indicator of future results.

1st game 2 goals down inside 1st 5 minutes against a very good defense counter attacking side.
2nd game played most of it with 10 men. However if Lunny scores the penalty we probably win 1-0.

Basically for both these games our pre match game plan and tactics (worked on all week) were ripped up......so those 2 games tell us very little.

3rd game No Egan or O’Connell but we were still decent/ looked average mid table with a lack of threat up front.
If Lunny scores that easy chance we probably win 1-0.

Reason to be concerned because being near the bottom can drain confidence and you become convinced you‘re unlucky.
However no reason you worry.....still very confident we’ll stay up.

 

[bongleblade]

I reckon we will beat Arsenal narrowly and then smash Fulham

 

[wavy-blade]

There's only one man who can save us from the drop

 

[BladeFisher]

To be honest without going back further, the sample size would be way too small. All I can say is both relegated sides had scored.
I'm not really sure what difference it makes anyway, ultimately if you lose the first three you're either conceding too many or not scoring. Where the issue is doesn't make that much difference.

Frim a purely statistical point of view I'd say our xg is evidence that our lack of goal scoring won't continue. We sit 11th on expected goals (but that's with quite a few teams based on 2 game) , above Leeds. It's highly unlikely we'll continue in the vein, especially considering it's across the team that chances are being missed.

Hi could you explain the xg stuff. Ive seen references to it but no nothing about it.

What I would say is that we are 'just losing' games. I haven't got time at the moment but it would be interesting to look at last season's results and see how many we won by one goal if these had become draws or say half had and half our draws were defeats, how many points would that have given us?

 

[BladeFisher]

Wolves getting dicked by west ham? City getting schooled at home by Leicester? It's starting to look like it's going to be a season with really weird results being pretty common. You watch, we'll lose to Fulham but somehow get 7 points out of Arsenal, Chelse and Man u

Who's your supplier?

 

[Foody]

Hi could you explain the xg stuff. Ive seen references to it but no nothing about it.

What I would say is that we are 'just losing' games. I haven't got time at the moment but it would be interesting to look at last season's results and see how many we won by one goal if these had become draws or say half had and half our draws were defeats, how many points would that have given us?

The simplest way of thinking about Xg is just a way of measuring the quality of the chances you create. Every shot is given a percentage chance of being scored, depending upon distance from goal, angle etc. The % chance of the goal is decimalised and total xg for a game is just the cumulation of all chances.
A penalty is probably the easiest example to give, roughly 72% of penalties are scored, therefore a penalty is worth 0.72 xg, which would be added to the running total.
Xg as a measure of a single game isn't all that useful, but it can be used to look for longer term patterns. A team vastly over or underachieving on xg is fairly rare.

Last season we won so many games narrowly, some of which were somewhat fortuitous I.e. Everton away. Across a season though those types of games tend to come close to balancing themselves out.

 

[John Street West Terrace]

Yeh we’re in deep shit ... how in fucks name are we gonna climb on of the bottom 3 with 35 games left ... Pericles situation .. like lemmings on a cliff edge ..... go shake your head FFS