ucandomagic
Well-Known Member
I have to say, I have spent less unpleasant 90 minutes at the dentist, in A&E and, long ago, in exams! Donovan is a luxury, highly-skilled, “looks good in training” forward-looking, physically weak winger. Playing him in front of a green young centre back who you have put out of position at right back, away at a team with a strong left-side attack, is called hanging Baptiste out to dry. We all thought it, when we realised Doherty wasn’t playing and it wasn’t even Tanganga at RB. Barry-Murphy clearly saw it, and exploited it from minute 1. Keeping Sydie Peck on the pitch for 90 minutes, when he continued to embarrass himself over the full period with dispossessions, bad passes, poor first touches and falling over rather than shooting, was pure nepotism.
However, I had us only needing a point to stay on my playoff schedule – and, somehow, get a point we did. Bright spots were McCallum, Tanganga, O’Hare, Cannon’s best, most aggressive performance to date, and RND’s and Phillips’ excellent sub contributions. Allowing a team 28 shots, 10 on target and getting a point is quite a result!
Turning to my graphs, remember that based on the last decade, I am taking a 92 points target for Automatics, a 70 points target for 8th (playoffs) and an 81 points target for 4th (playoff semis). I’m only showing the first 10 matches on the graphs at the moment, so that the difference between the lines is visible.
Graph 1 plots our progress against those promotion targets, with my forecast for each match that will deliver those targets. After three games, we are still exactly on my playoffs line and 2 behind the Automatics schedule – because it was, after all, a decent point.
Graph 1:
Graph 2 is the comparison with our last 2 seasons – and with 3 points we are now 3 points ahead of last season – as we had no points from our first 6 games (!) – and we are only 2 points behind Wilder’s 92 point season in 24/25.
Graph 2:
I’m still optimistic that we will make the Top 8, but with everyone’s relegation favourites, Charlton, winning 3 on the bounce, and West Ham 19th on 2 points anything can happen!
League Table:
So Bolton on Tuesday night – my first Sheffield overnighter of the season in my favourite Buddhist AirBnB! Hopefully, I’ll be meditating on a win, and a better performance than today – although the Bolton keeper, Jack Bonham, is the top-rated Championship keeper so far this season. He's on a net 2.5 goals prevented in just 3 games, more than double any other keeper. Let's hope he doesn't play as well as Bonzo the Beast always did! (one for Zeppelin fans!).
A good time for us to bring his stats back down to average?!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
However, I had us only needing a point to stay on my playoff schedule – and, somehow, get a point we did. Bright spots were McCallum, Tanganga, O’Hare, Cannon’s best, most aggressive performance to date, and RND’s and Phillips’ excellent sub contributions. Allowing a team 28 shots, 10 on target and getting a point is quite a result!
Turning to my graphs, remember that based on the last decade, I am taking a 92 points target for Automatics, a 70 points target for 8th (playoffs) and an 81 points target for 4th (playoff semis). I’m only showing the first 10 matches on the graphs at the moment, so that the difference between the lines is visible.
Graph 1 plots our progress against those promotion targets, with my forecast for each match that will deliver those targets. After three games, we are still exactly on my playoffs line and 2 behind the Automatics schedule – because it was, after all, a decent point.
Graph 1:
Graph 2 is the comparison with our last 2 seasons – and with 3 points we are now 3 points ahead of last season – as we had no points from our first 6 games (!) – and we are only 2 points behind Wilder’s 92 point season in 24/25.
Graph 2:
I’m still optimistic that we will make the Top 8, but with everyone’s relegation favourites, Charlton, winning 3 on the bounce, and West Ham 19th on 2 points anything can happen!
League Table:
So Bolton on Tuesday night – my first Sheffield overnighter of the season in my favourite Buddhist AirBnB! Hopefully, I’ll be meditating on a win, and a better performance than today – although the Bolton keeper, Jack Bonham, is the top-rated Championship keeper so far this season. He's on a net 2.5 goals prevented in just 3 games, more than double any other keeper. Let's hope he doesn't play as well as Bonzo the Beast always did! (one for Zeppelin fans!).
A good time for us to bring his stats back down to average?!
UTB & Slava Ukraini!
