ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
I was pissed off with the Rotherham game – not because of the goal, but because it shouldn’t have been enough to stop us winning. Hell, we were behind twice against Burnley and we thrashed them. In reality, at present we are a fairly average side with 2 above average players in Anel and Iliman. We rely heavily on their performances, plus lately on Oli McB’s much-improved finishing. Those 3 were just OK against Toytown, but not as good as lately, and we drifted into anonymity, playing by numbers.
So – just a couple of graphs to provide a bit of a more optimistic perspective.
Graph1 is my usual graph, comparing where we are to my benchmark results for each game to achieve an automatic promotion or playoff season. You can see from Graph 1 that we have drifted 5 points behind the Autos Certain line, but we are still 3 points ahead of my Playoff Certain results. I’d have taken that at the start of the season.
Graph 1:
Graph 2 provides an interesting overview of our recent Championship experiences over the first 20 games. The similarity with Wilder’s (18/19) promotion season is very clear – and I guess emotionally I’ve felt very similar – a few real highs and lows but generally positive. What I’d forgotten was how well we were doing early on in Wilder’s first (17/18) season. After 17 games we were 7 points ahead of this season (36 vs 29). Game 17 was the win at Burton when Couttsy broke his leg, and we then got 2 points from the next 6 games! For completeness I have also put last season on - but it shows even more clearly that Slavball just wasn't who we are.
Graph 2:
So, overall, I’m managing my expectations to be that the rest of this season will go like Wilder 18/19 – ups and downs and finishing 2nd to 4th. What we clearly don’t need is a Couttsy moment. Avoid those and we will reap what we sow.
UTB & Slava Ukraini
So – just a couple of graphs to provide a bit of a more optimistic perspective.
Graph1 is my usual graph, comparing where we are to my benchmark results for each game to achieve an automatic promotion or playoff season. You can see from Graph 1 that we have drifted 5 points behind the Autos Certain line, but we are still 3 points ahead of my Playoff Certain results. I’d have taken that at the start of the season.
Graph 1:
Graph 2 provides an interesting overview of our recent Championship experiences over the first 20 games. The similarity with Wilder’s (18/19) promotion season is very clear – and I guess emotionally I’ve felt very similar – a few real highs and lows but generally positive. What I’d forgotten was how well we were doing early on in Wilder’s first (17/18) season. After 17 games we were 7 points ahead of this season (36 vs 29). Game 17 was the win at Burton when Couttsy broke his leg, and we then got 2 points from the next 6 games! For completeness I have also put last season on - but it shows even more clearly that Slavball just wasn't who we are.
Graph 2:
So, overall, I’m managing my expectations to be that the rest of this season will go like Wilder 18/19 – ups and downs and finishing 2nd to 4th. What we clearly don’t need is a Couttsy moment. Avoid those and we will reap what we sow.
UTB & Slava Ukraini
