Graphs After Matchday 27 – We Stoked Up On Points!

[ucandomagic]

A rather disjointed game against Stoke. We started quite well, moving the ball wide and scored 2 good goals. Bogle and Lowe were outstanding as wing-backs, and Iliman was as good as ever. Then, right at the end of the first half, Powell put in one of those crosses where everyone misses the header, the keeper anticipates a header and the ball just drops in the goal at the back post. That goal seemed to unsettle us, and in the second half we looked a bit nervous and got sucked into their rather chaotic style – at one time 5 successive touches resulted in 5 successive possession changes! Bogle eased our nerves at the end, though, finishing off a nice move. Overall, the stats show that their keeper made zero saves - we had 3 shots on target and scored 3 goals!

Anyway, a few graphs to see where we are and where we might get to:-

Firstly, Hecky did 27 Championship games last season and he has now done 27 this season – so I thought it would be interesting to compare his series of results in those 2 seasons. The bottom line is that we got 52 points from his 27 games last season and 54 points from this year’s 27 games. Graph 1 shows our progress with him over these 2 seasons – he fell behind last year a bit, in our 3 points from 6 games spell this season (Matches 11 to 16), but our current run of 28 points from the last 11 games has got us those 2 points ahead of last year’s 52 point total from the 27 games. A total of 106 points from Hecky’s 54 games is damned good going though.

Graph 1


Graph 2 is the multiple comparison graph with our best recent Championship seasons. Graph 2 shows that after 27 games, on 54 points we are just 5 points behind Warnock’s 05/06 season – which had a remarkable 59 points after 27 games. We are, however, still 4 points ahead of Wilder’s promotion season in 18/19. So this is still our best Championship season for a long time.

Graph 2



Graph 3 is the usual graph, comparing where we are to my benchmark results for each game to achieve an automatic promotion or a playoff season. – You can see from Graph 3 that we are now 1 point ahead of my Autos Certain line and a huge 11 points ahead of my Playoffs Certain results.

Graph 3




Finally, the League Table, and a very satisfying 11 point gap to third place. Defeating Stoke also removed another team from the list of those who could possibly do the double over us. I heard a bit of talk this week about how the first half of our season had been easier games than the second half will be. It’s hard to see why, but I think the table does highlight one interesting point - that we have only lost once to a Top 10 team, but we have lost 3 times to a Bottom 10 side.

League Table


So, we continue to consolidate our position Let’s keep hold of the troops and take this to the end.
Maybe we can have some Mansour Magic to help us!

UTB & Slava Ukraini

 

[Rufus Smalls]

Great stuff mate, very interesting.

 

[brownblade]

Blades are on fire, your graphs and charts are terrifying

 

[Everblade]

Great work, thanks for that.

 

[Scarebus]

Grafikhaus smiling down on these threads. Keep up the good work.

 

[Selly]

It’s hard to see why, but I think the table does highlight one interesting point - that we have only lost once to a Top 10 team, but we have lost 3 times to a Bottom 10 side.

I think this comes from the fact that the 8 games between Boro and Norwich see us play teams currently in

4th
8th (A)
3rd
5th (A)
9th
10th (A)
6th
7th (A)

That's a horrible run - or if you look at it another way, an opportunity to kill off some of our challengers. The fact we have maintained the form we have more or less consistently through Heckys tenure shows that those teams will be looking at the games against us as just as tough.

 

[Tony Currie]

88 points is enough for autos this season.

I make that 10 wins and 4 draws from 21 matches.

Watford would have to average 2.2 points per game to match that.

 

[brownblade]

I think this comes from the fact that the 8 games between Boro and Norwich see us play teams currently in

4th
8th (A)
3rd
5th (A)
9th
10th (A)
6th
7th (A)

That's a horrible run - or if you look at it another way, an opportunity to kill off some of our challengers. The fact we have maintained the form we have more or less consistently through Heckys tenure shows that those teams will be looking at the games against us as just as tough.

Should be entertaining. Certainly back us to get a lot of positive results.

Like you say, we could inflict some scars on potential 2nd place wannabees.

They all have to beat us, must wins for them.

 

[Selly]

Should be entertaining. Certainly back us to get a lot of positive results.

Like you say, we could inflict some scars on potential 2nd place wannabees.

They all have to beat us, must wins for them.

We are bound to lose 2 or 3 of them. They key will be not to lose to the team who emerge as our eventual challengers. Of course there is no way to know who that is at this stage.

In 2011-12, had we lost to Hudds and beaten them lot in that Feb, we'd have gone up (assuming all results stayed the same).

 

[RammyBlade]

Great stuff -I love these graphs and even when we have an average performance it cheers me up .

 

[Yewsman]

88 points is enough for autos this season.

I make that 10 wins and 4 draws from 21 matches.

Watford would have to average 2.2 points per game to match that.

There's only 19 matches left! We've played out of 46.

 

[diode_blade]

Great work, thanks for that.

hope your Fuck-o-meter is calibrated to UKAS standards.
Great work ucandomagic.

 

[Champagneblade]

Easy to forget as well that we had that stupid French ruling depriving us of Ahmedhodžić, had Clark playing on the right and had pretty much all the forwards unavailable or unfit except Jebbo and Ndiaye. We were also missing Doyle and had no Bogle or Lowe as starters.

On the other hand, Watford had Dennis, Sarr and Joao Pedro and presently at least they are down to one of those.

 

[MJM]

Stellar work as always!

Cheers!

 

[Sheffsteel]

I think this comes from the fact that the 8 games between Boro and Norwich see us play teams currently in

4th
8th (A)
3rd
5th (A)
9th
10th (A)
6th
7th (A)

That's a horrible run - or if you look at it another way, an opportunity to kill off some of our challengers. The fact we have maintained the form we have more or less consistently through Heckys tenure shows that those teams will be looking at the games against us as just as tough.

But surely that doesnt make any sense...you can't judge future matches so far in the distance based on current league positions

by the time we play those teams they could be in the bottom half and be in a poor run of form

besides recent performances show that when we play easy teams....we lose focus and take our foot off the pedal.
Our best performances have all come against teams near the top...where our players and fans are psyched up because we expect a really tough game.

Accept that on paper some matches might appear easy or difficult but history shows that unless we focus
....then we can lose to any team (for example Rotherham at home).

 

[BladesOnToast]

the table does highlight one interesting point - that we have only lost once to a Top 10 team, but we have lost 3 times to a Bottom 10 side.

We hear a lot on this forum that "as soon as we come up against a better side they'll rip us to shreds" or words to that effect, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

 

[Selly]

But surely that doesnt make any sense...you can't judge future matches so far in the distance based on current league positions

by the time we play those teams they could be in the bottom half and be in a poor run of form

besides recent performances show that when we play easy teams....we lose focus and take our foot off the pedal.
Our best performances have all come against teams near the top...where our players and fans are psyched up because we expect a really tough game.

Accept that on paper some matches might appear easy or difficult but history shows that unless we focus
....then we can lose to any team (for example Rotherham at home).

Ok, a fair point, so lets just look at the matches in Feb.

On a PPG based on the last 8 games, where 1 is the easiest set of fixtures, and 24 the hardest - we are positioned at number 21. (For context if you look at the whole season, and the remaining season we are positioned 24th - this is why people think we have the hardest remaining schedule - based on performances to date we absolutely do.)

Those around us:
Burnley - 14th
Watford - 24th
Boro - =11th
Blackburn - =11th
WBA - 17th
Norwich - 10th
Millwall - 16th
Luton - 9th
Sunderland - 5th
Swansea - 2nd

Now clearly there are 1/2 matches before Feb, and Burnley, Boro, Sunderland, WBA are playing themselves in that period.

 

[joe casey]

Interesting stuff - also encouraging to see that the games we lost, we haven't conceded more than one other than the stoke away where we fielded probabyl our weakest team of the season. If teams are going to beat us its going to be very tight - and I think we're much better defensively in terms of squeezing the life out of games these days

 

[Charlieblade]

Enjoyable post from ucandomagic. Very encouraging when others add positive sentiments too.

I suspect we have reached the stage where our away results are getting better, and our results against top rated sides are also improving.
This not only serves as a positive indicator for automatic promotion this seaso, but puts a decent outlook on our chances next year too.

As a squad we have nothing to worry about. Hopefully Ndiaye will only miss a few games and come back roaring, assuming he’s carrying a knock. I also believe we ease up against lesser sides who get dominated early on. That is a luxury we can’t afford in the EPL.

Of course we will need a few additions, but I trust PH does not make the same mistakes Wilder did when we get to money land. Those select few who are lucky enough to join us need to strengthen the dressing room and not undermine it.

Binning the wage cap should give PH more first choices than Wilder got. Yes football is a business, but a successful business needs quality and commitment.

 

[ekke287]

Interesting that we’ve not doubled anyone yet. Plenty of opportunity though.

 

[Everblade]

hope your Fuck-o-meter is calibrated to UKAS standards.
Great work ucandomagic.

Who cares

 

[ThirdGenBlade]

Although we are 4 points ahead of the Wilder 18/19 promotion season we got 39 points from our last 19 games in that season and finished on 89, so we will do well to stay much ahead of 18/19.

89 points should be enough to finish second again though - so that would mean another 35 points this season from the last 19 games to match that season and head back to the "promised land"!

 

[Blade56]

A rather disjointed game against Stoke. We started quite well, moving the ball wide and scored 2 good goals. Bogle and Lowe were outstanding as wing-backs, and Iliman was as good as ever. Then, right at the end of the first half, Powell put in one of those crosses where everyone misses the header, the keeper anticipates a header and the ball just drops in the goal at the back post. That goal seemed to unsettle us, and in the second half we looked a bit nervous and got sucked into their rather chaotic style – at one time 5 successive touches resulted in 5 successive possession changes! Bogle eased our nerves at the end, though, finishing off a nice move. Overall, the stats show that their keeper made zero saves - we had 3 shots on target and scored 3 goals!

Anyway, a few graphs to see where we are and where we might get to:-

Firstly, Hecky did 27 Championship games last season and he has now done 27 this season – so I thought it would be interesting to compare his series of results in those 2 seasons. The bottom line is that we got 52 points from his 27 games last season and 54 points from this year’s 27 games. Graph 1 shows our progress with him over these 2 seasons – he fell behind last year a bit, in our 3 points from 6 games spell this season (Matches 11 to 16), but our current run of 28 points from the last 11 games has got us those 2 points ahead of last year’s 52 point total from the 27 games. A total of 106 points from Hecky’s 54 games is damned good going though.

Graph 1
View attachment 151072

Graph 2 is the multiple comparison graph with our best recent Championship seasons. Graph 2 shows that after 27 games, on 54 points we are just 5 points behind Warnock’s 05/06 season – which had a remarkable 59 points after 27 games. We are, however, still 4 points ahead of Wilder’s promotion season in 18/19. So this is still our best Championship season for a long time.

Graph 2
View attachment 151073


Graph 3 is the usual graph, comparing where we are to my benchmark results for each game to achieve an automatic promotion or a playoff season. – You can see from Graph 3 that we are now 1 point ahead of my Autos Certain line and a huge 11 points ahead of my Playoffs Certain results.

Graph 3
View attachment 151074



Finally, the League Table, and a very satisfying 11 point gap to third place. Defeating Stoke also removed another team from the list of those who could possibly do the double over us. I heard a bit of talk this week about how the first half of our season had been easier games than the second half will be. It’s hard to see why, but I think the table does highlight one interesting point - that we have only lost once to a Top 10 team, but we have lost 3 times to a Bottom 10 side.

League Table
View attachment 151075

So, we continue to consolidate our position Let’s keep hold of the troops and take this to the end.
Maybe we can have some Mansour Magic to help us!

UTB & Slava Ukraini

In true blades fashion can you do one that includes our worst mid season collapse, just out of interest like?

 

[Selly]

In true blades fashion can you do one that includes our worst mid season collapse, just out of interest like?

View attachment 151364

As humorous as this is - in 17/18 we got 27 points from the final 19 games - which would leave us on 81. The rot had already set in by game 28 however, we had won only 1 (drawing 4) of our previous 10 league games.

Although we are 4 points ahead of the Wilder 18/19 promotion season we got 39 points from our last 19 games in that season and finished on 89, so we will do well to stay much ahead of 18/19.

89 points should be enough to finish second again though - so that would mean another 35 points this season from the last 19 games to match that season and head back to the "promised land"!

If we get to 89 points Watford need to W15, D2 and L2 of their 19 remaining matches to overtake us. If 89 isn`t enough to finish second I'll be very very surprised.

 

[Keen Blade]

Should be entertaining. Certainly back us to get a lot of positive results.

Like you say, we could inflict some scars on potential 2nd place wannabees.

They all have to beat us, must wins for them.

That's true but we have to approach those games without thinking that a draw is ok.
I remember Wigan at home on that fateful day in 2007.
The psychology is simple for the side which must win but tricky for the opposition.