Pathway to the Playoffs

[LBA_Blade]

I’m shocked that there’s’ still belief we have a chance with the way we’ve been playing.

Although the Selles era definitely didn’t help, if the goal was playoffs, Wilder for all his success of turning it around has to take some of the blame both games against Norwich and West Brom we dropped points in, a top 6 side win those types of games. That’s 10 points dropped from those 4 fixtures, that would put us on the same points (60) as Wrexham and Southampton and that’s not going into detail about other winnable fixtures. Just need to see ourselves safe and regroup and write this season off

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

I’m shocked that there’s’ still belief we have a chance with the way we’ve been playing.

The bookies now have us at 20/1 for a top six finish which is ridiculous.

I'd want at least 100/1.

 

[Champagneblade]

Path to the playoffs?

• Finish this season
• Recruit well
• Play 46 games and make 75-80 points next season.

Can’t we just carry over the points we didn’t need from last year?

 

[Champagneblade]

Although the Selles era definitely didn’t help, if the goal was playoffs, Wilder for all his success of turning it around has to take some of the blame both games against Norwich and West Brom we dropped points in, a top 6 side win those types of games. That’s 10 points dropped from those 4 fixtures, that would put us on the same points (60) as Wrexham and Southampton and that’s not going into detail about other winnable fixtures. Just need to see ourselves safe and regroup and write this season off

The Norwich home game was very unfortunate. We were on great form, just hammered Stoke and then got a winter virus what caused 8 changes. I’d have expected a win without this.

It’s not just Sellés’ six games. It’s the entire summer that preceded it.

We lost time without a decent number 9. Wilder would have kept Moore. He’d also have signed far better loans in my view. Aside from Bindon, most of the others either got sent back or can’t make the bench.

Plus confidence was rock bottom.

To boil it down to just the 6 defeats does undersell the damage that went with it.

 

[YES Blade]

We lost time without a decent number 9. Wilder would have kept Moore.

It would’ve been a mistake to keep Moore. It was a great deal to get a fee for a highly paid 33 year old injury prone average Championship striker.

The problem was we didn’t replace him during the summer transfer window.

 

[LBA_Blade]

The Norwich home game was very unfortunate. We were on great form, just hammered Stoke and then got a winter virus what caused 8 changes. I’d have expected a win without this.

It’s not just Sellés’ six games. It’s the entire summer that preceded it.

We lost time without a decent number 9. Wilder would have kept Moore. He’d also have signed far better loans in my view. Aside from Bindon, most of the others either got sent back or can’t make the bench.

Plus confidence was rock bottom.

To boil it down to just the 6 defeats does undersell the damage that went with it.

Possibly a bit harsh on the Norwich home match from my side but going 1-0 up at home we should have gone on to win it. It would have been interesting summer if Wilder would have continued, I think McBurnie would have likely returned, would we have signed Bamford too? It’s difficult with Moore as at 32 a £2million offer was probably about right and him and his agent might have pushed the deal knowing he wouldn’t get the move to Wrexham if they get in the Premier League. The decision to sack Wilder I didn’t have a problem with for me it was about learning from past mistakes and not recruiting someone without experience

 

[wavy-blade]

reight happy , just think of money saved going all that way again to lose !! Thank fuck there no chance were getting in them !!

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

It's back on!

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

London n the Midlands in the top 4 lol

 

[Edgar Allan Poo]

It's back on!

Leicester will be very disappointed missing out on automatic promotion, they should have run away with it whereas Wednesday will sell 21st as a victory and create a huge folklore about their past glory days for their future generations of fans.

 

[Selly]

It's back on!

Hamer to QPR in the summer then???

 

[1973Blade]

Is there still a pathway?!

 

[ATL Recs]

The Norwich home game was very unfortunate. We were on great form, just hammered Stoke and then got a winter virus what caused 8 changes. I’d have expected a win without this.

It’s not just Sellés’ six games. It’s the entire summer that preceded it.

We lost time without a decent number 9. Wilder would have kept Moore. He’d also have signed far better loans in my view. Aside from Bindon, most of the others either got sent back or can’t make the bench.

Plus confidence was rock bottom.

To boil it down to just the 6 defeats does undersell the damage that went with it.

Unfortunate for both teams as they had loads missing - just saying

 

[Brian Deane]

Is there still a pathway?!

Not now Sothampton have won tonight.

 

[Dkc]

Not now Sothampton have won tonight.

Southampton won again today which means play offs are officially out of reach. They have 69 points and Hull in 6th have 68. The maximum we can get is 66. Play-offs were effectively over midweek but not mathematically

Still a miniscule chance of relegation I think. Not checked all the fixtures but if Oxford win their next four they can get to 56 points. If we lose our next four we remain on 54. But then there are five other teams below is that must out-perform us too. We might even be safe now.

Looks like those saying 71 could be good enough for play-offs will probably be wrong. More likely to be 74 or 75

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

I just have a hunch we win the last 8 games.

 

[SwitchBLADE Smiles]

Getting to the playoffs is going to be really difficult and will be a huge achievement for Wilder - up there with his best at the club. Looking at the fixtures for the remainder of the season this is what I see as our path.

My assumption that we will need 74 pts (1.61pts/Game) to have a chance of play off. 74pts was good enough 5 of the last 10 seasons including the last 3. Watford in 6th, however, are earning enough pts per game for 75pts.

To get to 74 pts we need 42 pts out of 21 games (2pts/game which is the same as last season 92pts over a whole season)

Here is the path as I see it:

6W1D (2.71pts/Game) - 19pts
Home: Oxford**, Wednesday, West Brom, Swansea, Blackburn
Away: Charlton, Portsmouth

3W1D1L (2pts/Game) - 10pts
Home: Boro, Wrexham, Hull, Preston*
Away: Derby

2W1D1L (1.75pts/Game) - 7pts
Away: Southampton, Millwall, QPR*, Birmingham

2W3L (1.2pts/Game) - 6pts
Home: Ipswich*, Coventry*
Away: Norwich*, Watford, Bristol*

* Games will be played after 3 day break
** Most likely rearranged to Feb 3 or Feb 14, if rearranged to Feb 3 will be played after 3 day break.

Based on Months and fixture strength that looks like this:

Jan: 7pts from 4 games (1.75pts/Game - 2W1D1L)
CHA (A), SOU (A), IPS (H), MIL (A)

Feb: 13pts from 6 games (2.17pts/Game - 4W1D1L)
OXF (H)**, MID (H), POR (A), SHW (H), COV (H), QPR (A)

March: 7pts from 4 games (1.75pts/Game - 2W1D1L)
WBA (H), NOR (A), BIR (A), WRE (H)

April/May: 15pts from 7 games (2.14pts/Game - 5W2L)
SWA (H), BRI (A), HUL (H), WAT (A), BLA (H), PNE (H), DER (A)


Its going to be really difficult to achieve this, and I don't have high confidence that we will. If we get behind this schedule, its going to be really difficult to get back on it, with very little room for error. We may not break into the the top 6 even until April even on this schedule.

Thought it would be interesting to see the outcome of this thread at the end of the season.

Your assumption of 74 needed for 6th spot was absolutely bang on, although we could have done it with 73 and an additional 5 goals. We ended up finishing 13 points short of that.

IMO, as poor as the last few weeks have been, the start we had this season really killed any hopes we had of getting anything positive. We started on the back foot and it’s been a proper slog ever since.

Ultimately, considering the state we were in when Wilder came back, I’d mark this season down as a success. We were in serious danger of getting relegated, but we’ve ended up finishing comfortably mid-table.

Some serious consideration now needs to be given as to whether we stick with Wilder and the state of the playing squad. IMO, we stick with him and the side needs a complete clear out.

 

[Nick Jansky]

Thought it would be interesting to see the outcome of this thread at the end of the season.

Your assumption of 74 needed for 6th spot was absolutely bang on, although we could have done it with 73 and an additional 5 goals. We ended up finishing 13 points short of that.

IMO, as poor as the last few weeks have been, the start we had this season really killed any hopes we had of getting anything positive. We started on the back foot and it’s been a proper slog ever since.

Ultimately, considering the state we were in when Wilder came back, I’d mark this season down as a success. We were in serious danger of getting relegated, but we’ve ended up finishing comfortably mid-table.

Some serious consideration now needs to be given as to whether we stick with Wilder and the state of the playing squad. IMO, we stick with him and the side needs a complete clear out.

We would have made the playoffs if we were a team that can sustain momentum. But mental brittleness at the point it was there for us put paid to it. That wasn’t down to the bad start.

 

[YES Blade]

Thought it would be interesting to see the outcome of this thread at the end of the season.

Your assumption of 74 needed for 6th spot was absolutely bang on, although we could have done it with 73 and an additional 5 goals. We ended up finishing 13 points short of that.

IMO, as poor as the last few weeks have been, the start we had this season really killed any hopes we had of getting anything positive. We started on the back foot and it’s been a proper slog ever since.

Ultimately, considering the state we were in when Wilder came back, I’d mark this season down as a success. We were in serious danger of getting relegated, but we’ve ended up finishing comfortably mid-table.

Some serious consideration now needs to be given as to whether we stick with Wilder and the state of the playing squad. IMO, we stick with him and the side needs a complete clear out.

I just look at Wrexham, they were around the same league position as us at Christmas and only missed out on the last day.

No one can convince me that they had any advantage in terms of squad, so to me, it’s been a very disappointing end to the season. We should’ve been in the playoff race right up to the final day of the season, if not made it in.

 

[SwitchBLADE Smiles]

We would have made the playoffs if we were a team that can sustain momentum. But mental brittleness at the point it was there for us put paid to it. That wasn’t down to the bad start.

Not sure that’s entirely fair tbh. Agreed that it was definitely possible for us to make 6th back in January, but the fact that we had exactly 0 points after the first 6 games killed us.

We missed out on 6th spot by 5 games worth of points. That run of 6 losses at the beginning of the season included games against Bristol City, Swansea, Birmingham and Charlton - all games any side looking to gain promotion should be winning.

 

[YES Blade]

Not sure that’s entirely fair tbh. Agreed that it was definitely possible for us to make 6th back in January, but the fact that we had exactly 0 points after the first 6 games killed us.

We missed out on 6th spot by 5 games worth of points. That run of 6 losses at the beginning of the season included games against Bristol City, Swansea, Birmingham and Charlton - all games any side looking to gain promotion should be winning.

It didn’t kill us, just look at Southampton, Wrexham and Norwich. They were all below or around us in the league during our good run in November/December and all finished above us. We’d recovered from our terrible start, but didn’t kick on in the new year.

 

[darleyblade]

Not sure that’s entirely fair tbh. Agreed that it was definitely possible for us to make 6th back in January, but the fact that we had exactly 0 points after the first 6 games killed us.

We missed out on 6th spot by 5 games worth of points. That run of 6 losses at the beginning of the season included games against Bristol City, Swansea, Birmingham and Charlton - all games any side looking to gain promotion should be winning.

We lost five league matches under Selles. The loss against Birmingham City was a Carabao Cup match.

 

[Gimli]

Not sure that’s entirely fair tbh. Agreed that it was definitely possible for us to make 6th back in January, but the fact that we had exactly 0 points after the first 6 games killed us.

We missed out on 6th spot by 5 games worth of points. That run of 6 losses at the beginning of the season included games against Bristol City, Swansea, Birmingham and Charlton - all games any side looking to gain promotion should be winning.

Any games during the rest of the season that ‘any side looking to gain promotion should be winning’ that we didn’t win…?

 

[SwitchBLADE Smiles]

It didn’t kill us, just look at Southampton, Wrexham and Norwich. They were all below or around us in the league during our good run in November/December and all finished above us. We’d recovered from our terrible start, but didn’t kick on in the new year.

Fair.