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ruthers1

Season's First Six Pointer

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Newcastle without a win host City - the perennial sequence busters!

Despite the fact we always break another team''s run (good or bad) this is still a massive chance for us to win a six-pointer, so early in the season.

If we win we''ll be fine this season, draw and we''ll be none the wiser still, but lose it and we''ll be 4 games without a win and smack bang in a relegation fight. Newcastle meanwhile will be cock-a-hoop and rejuvenated.

If Carlsberg did 6-pointers...

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no.

One individual game will not make the difference this early on in the season, if you go with your thinking anyway. Odds are someone that shouldn''t beat Newcastle will, and someone we shouldn''t beat will lose to us. thus the 6 pointer is nullified.

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Applying this logic then Sunderland and Bournemouth, teams likely to be around us, were also six pointers. The whole season won''t go up in smoke if we lose this game. If we lose on Sunday we still have 29 matches to get the 31 points to guarantee survival.

The last time we successfully negotiated a Premier League season we got 44 points. We picked up 17 of those points against the top 6, 12 from the bottom 6 and 15 points from the rest. It goes to show that you can get your points from anywhere, particularly this year as no team in the league is infallible especially away from home.

Ultimately, the formula never really changes. If you can find around 10 wins and 10 draws from somewhere you''ll be alright in this league. One off games do not sink you.

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Far too early to be talking about six pointers. Come back after Christmas with this thread and it may make sense.

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Cambridge Yellow wrote: "The last time we successfully negotiated a Premier League season we got 44 points. We picked up 17 of those points against the top 6, 12 from the bottom 6 and 15 points from the rest. It goes to show that you can get your points from anywhere ............"Yes, you CAN "get your points from anywhere" but relying on defying the odds by accumulating a substantial proportion of your points in games against the top 6 is not a realistic strategy for survival. You may pull it off once but, as what happened to us in the next season shows, you are unlikely to be able to keep doing it year after year. Looking at our final points difference between Hughton''s two seasons, 9 points of the 11 point difference were lost in games against the top teams (listed below in their 2013-14 final positions):Team           2012-13      2013-14      DiffMan City          3            1          -2Liverpool         0            0           -Chelsea           0            1          +1Arsenal           3            0          -3Everton           4            1          -3Tottenham         2            3          +1Man Utd           3            0          -3Total pt         15            6          -9So while it is utterly ridiculous to call Sunday''s game "a six pointer", it will be disappointing if we don''t come home with at least one point.

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[quote user="ruthers1"]Newcastle without a win host City - the perennial sequence busters!

Despite the fact we always break another team''s run (good or bad) this is still a massive chance for us to win a six-pointer, so early in the season.

If we win we''ll be fine this season, draw and we''ll be none the wiser still, but lose it and we''ll be 4 games without a win and smack bang in a relegation fight. Newcastle meanwhile will be cock-a-hoop and rejuvenated.

If Carlsberg did 6-pointers...[/quote]

    How can we be in the middle of a relegation fight in the middle of October?  How can we be in the middle of a relegation fight when we''re going to be at least three points clear whatever the results after this weekend, with so many games left?  How does winning one match away, mean we''ll be "fine this season", when it is plainly going to be a tight season for the majority of teams - including us?  And while we''re at it, how does a draw away not represent a good sign for the rest of the season?  The bottom line is that it''s a battle for most clubs to stay in this division - putting extra labels on of  "six pointers" and "relegation battles" at this stage is making a drama out of nothing, because getting too wound up about things in October is just unnecessary.   It''s an important match - but they all are.  A win would be very satisfying, but in the course of the season, it just means we are slightly more likely to stay up, just as it would if we beat Arsenal or Man Utd.   Losing would be diappointing, nothing more.   The fact that we are playing the bottom club in October is irrelevant, because Newcastle will almost certainly improve and be nowhere near the bottom come May.  As it happens, a draw would be an excellent result, a win would be a real confidence booster. If  Carling did amateur dramatics......

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Problem is, Newcastle could go on a run and finish 10th this season and then it was never a 6 pointer as they were never in danger of going down anyway.
It''s a difficult, but possible chance of 3 points. Nothing more, nothing less at this point in the season.

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West Coast, evidently I''m not saying we can rely on beating Man Utd or Arsenal every season. Clearly that''s a ridiculous expectation. I think it''s unfair that you appear to be implying that''s my point.

What I am driving at is that you can''t get despondent if you lose a match you think you should win. There are 29 opportunities after this one to get points this season and no game is a write off, as my admittedly extreme example shows. Obviously, we want to win this game but we don''t suddenly become relegation certainties if we don''t win.

Branding games as must win also creates unnecessary pressure which inhibits a team when paradoxically you want them to go out and express themselves against a Newcastle team who are really starting to feel the pressure.

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I don''t think its a 6 pointer, but I understand what the OP means.

We have played pretty well generally, the major exception being Soton away, but we haven''t pulled away because we have conceded too many and not closed out some games we should have won (eg Stoke and West Ham).

Our start has been pretty straightforward, you could argue that it was bad luck to bump into some teams like Palace, West Ham and Leicester who are all in great form, but which may not necessarily continue. But they are games on paper we''d probably have looked for more than 1 point in total.

But ideally we''d sit there with more than 9 points. Sunday is another game where they are on a bad run and we really must look to win that sort of game if we want to stay in the league without a scramble at the end.

We are not a poor side but we are in a poorer position than we should be and if we do get dragged into a dog fight then two of the big things which AN has instilled ie that of team ethic and organisation will be severely tested. Historically we have been total rubbish at climbing out of difficult relegation situations so I hope we are well clear before the final run in. 3 points on Sunday will therefore be massive for us.

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We''ve already had six 6 pointers this season, the results were good and bad, if we''d run around a lot more then they would have been much better.

 

 

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A result is far more important to Newcastle than it is to us.

We seem to one of those sides whereby a bad result for our opponents acts as a catalyst for the fate of struggling managers.

Norwich are a team most expect to beat, or at least not lose to, with home advantage.

That''s been our lot for the most of our recent spells in this league and will continue to be that way until we hopefully achieve the status of a Swansea or a Southampton.

There was an element of that about our recent result at Anfield for Brendan Rodgers, and probably even with the Sunderland result.

The fact that it is live on the television only serves to heap more pressure on McClaren, IMO. The pressure is clearly on the Toon.

Will three points for the Canaries see the end of Shteve, or is that contract handed to him by Ashley too weighty?

A win would be great, a draw satisfactory.

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Cambridge Yellow wrote: "West Coast, evidently I''m not saying we can rely on beating Man Utd or

Arsenal every season. Clearly that''s a ridiculous expectation. I think

it''s unfair that you appear to be implying that''s my point."[Y] Yes, I didn''t mean to imply that that was your point. All I meant to say was that, while calling Sunday''s game a six pointer is utterly ridiculous, it is important for us to keep picking up points against teams outside the "usual" top 6 or 7. The other point I was making -- surreptitiously -- was to debunk the idea that Chris Hughton seriously underperformed in his second season. What those stats tell us is that there was little difference in our performance against teams outside the top 7 in those two seasons. What undid us was not being able to defy the odds against the top teams two seasons in a row.

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In my book every game is a six pointer, doubt any amount if spin can make it any different, simple really 3 points if you win and the others by definition have just lost 3 points.

If Carling did Amateur Dramatics (courtesy of LDC)

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Oh, I completely agree with you regarding Hughton. Basically virtually everything positive about his reign was confined to that wonderful 10 match unbeaten run where we picked up 22 points from a possible 30 on offer.

We then managed 52 points from his next 55 matches after that run was broken. And let''s face it if the axe hadn''t fallen before the Fulham game and he''d been given the rest of the season to face Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool then those statistics would have looked a hell of a lot worse.

I just feel that with Alex Neil, particularly the way he sets up away from home, that we do genuinely have the potential to pick up points from any fixture (although obviously some of the odds in some of those games will be long). So It definitely isn''t the end of the world if we don''t beat Newcastle. However, for the record I am confident that we will.

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Smudger in glass half empty shocker.So many if and buts with 30 games to go yes 30 games it is silly to view this game as a six pointer with relegation looming on the horizon if we lose.

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[quote user="TIL 1010"]Smudger in glass half empty shocker.So many if and buts with 30 games to go yes 30 games it is silly to view this game as a six pointer with relegation looming on the horizon if we lose.[/quote]

I blame Star Wars - some of those of the original star wars generation are stuck in Darth Vader syndrome and only see the dark side..... 

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The phrase six pointer takes it''s origin from the fact that If Norwich win they will have 12 points and Newcastle will have 3 points. If Newcastle win, then Norwich will have 9 points and Newcastle 6.

Therefore the gap between the sides could potentially either be 9 points or 3 points. Hence the term 6 pointer. However, for reasons already discussed I refuse to accept we''re looking at a decisive relegation deciding match in mid October!

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If both clubs were on say 12 points, after the game the permutation are 13 points each or one club on 12 points and one on 15 points, a difference of 3 points.

Using the example provided by Cambridge Yellow all that actually happens if Norwich win is we are a further three points ahead of Newcastle (not a further 6)

It is daft to concentrate on matches in isolation, if you want to make the "6 pointer" call, then every game that potential relegation candidates play are "6 pointers" whether the teams are playing each other or not

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Lessingham

is right when he says EVERY game is a six pointer, because 6 points is

the difference that winning or losing makes relative to the points

difference between the two teams before the match. Thus, as Cambridge Yellow says, if we win on

Sunday, our points advantage over Newcastle becomes 9 points and, if we

lose, 3 points, a "swing" of 6 points. If we were playing a team on the

same number of points, a win would mean we jump 3 ahead of them and, if

we lose, they jump 3 ahead of us, which again is a "swing" of 6 points

(the way to think about it is as a "swing" between +3 and -3, i.e.

between being 3 points up on the opposition as opposed to 3 points down on them from a starting point of 0 points difference,

despite the fact that in absolute terms the end difference is only 3

points).

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It looks like it would be much simpler if the Premier League awards 3 points for a win and takes 3 points away for a defeat creating the six point ''swing''. They could also awards points for aesthetic interpretation, an assessor in the stands could decide if a team has been a aesthetically pleasing and at the end of the season a flair play league could determine who plays in a new competition called the Flairs Cup.

 

 

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Putting to one side the absurd suggestion that Sunday''s game is relegation critical, I think Tumbleweed''s assessment is about right, and TIL is being a bit over-sanguine in pointing out that there are 30 games still to be played. What we need to look at is how many games we have left such that we have a realistic chance of garnering points. For that calculation I think you''d be wise to discard all 6 games against Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea, and a further four games from the others in the pack near the top of the table. So, rather than 30 games left to accumulate another 29 points minimum (assuming 38 points would see us safe), we realistically only have 20, and we need to average 1.5 points a game from those 20. Anything we get from the other 10 games is a bonus and will make the task easier. Win at Newcastle and we lift ourselves above the curve, draw and we sink a little below it, lose and we find ourselves further below it still.

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[quote user="westcoastcanary"]Putting to one side the absurd suggestion that Sunday''s game is relegation critical, I think Tumbleweed''s assessment is about right, and TIL is being a bit over-sanguine in pointing out that there are 30 games still to be played. What we need to look at is how many games we have left such that we have a realistic chance of garnering points. For that calculation I think you''d be wise to discard all 6 games against Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea, and a further four games from the others in the pack near the top of the table. So, rather than 30 games left to accumulate another 29 points minimum (assuming 38 points would see us safe), we realistically only have 20, and we need to average 1.5 points a game from those 20. Anything we get from the other 10 games is a bonus and will make the task easier. Win at Newcastle and we lift ourselves above the curve, draw and we sink a little below it, lose and we find ourselves further below it still.
[/quote]

What a load of piffle, football is unpredictable that''s what draws people to it, we have 30 games where we have a realistic chance of getting points.

 

 

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Six pointer or not a defeat against Newcastle at this stage of the season will have far more impact upon general confidence and levels of expectation, and do more damage to the moral of players and supporters alike, than a defeat at say the Emirates or Old Trafford would have.

Our league position will look all the more shaky too with the Toon (one of the season''s fall-guys so far) being just three points adrift and Fat Sam likely scratching something for Sunderland, as is usually the way of these things.

This fact is probably at the root of the OP''s thinking, although to equate it with as a relegation fixture is a bit too alarmist for me, as woeful as my little scenario is.

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Try this, Norwich and Newcastle are not playing each other, Norwich win and Newcastle lose, the end result is exactly the same as if Norwich beat Newcastle, Norwich are three points better off than they were at the start of the day......its a three pointer...........

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-pointer

Good grief. You''re really struggling with this concept aren''t you and why games are sometimes coined as ''6 pointers''.

And for the record I don''t think this game is critical as it''s far too early in the season as I''ve already said numerous times on this thread.

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[quote user="TCCANARY"]

 

It looks like it would be much simpler if the Premier League awards 3 points for a win and takes 3 points away for a defeat creating the six point ''swing''. They could also awards points for aesthetic interpretation, an assessor in the stands could decide if a team has been a aesthetically pleasing and at the end of the season a flair play league could determine who plays in a new competition called the Flairs Cup.

[/quote]
This would only work if they also awarded points based upon the amount of running a team does. [;)]

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[quote user="hogesar"][quote user="TCCANARY"]

 

It looks like it would be much simpler if the Premier League awards 3 points for a win and takes 3 points away for a defeat creating the six point ''swing''. They could also awards points for aesthetic interpretation, an assessor in the stands could decide if a team has been a aesthetically pleasing and at the end of the season a flair play league could determine who plays in a new competition called the Flairs Cup.

[/quote]


This would only work if they also awarded points based upon the amount of running a team does. [;)]

[/quote]

 

Fantastic idea, they could be called Grefstads.

 

 

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