Remaining Fixtures

[Rich T The Biscuit 676]

Just had a look at the remaining fixtures for ourselves, Newcastle and Sunderland.

Really does highlight the importance of our 2 home games against them both.

We have: Man City, West Brom, Newcastle, Palace, Sunderland, Watford, Arsenal, Man Utd and Everton.

Newcastle have: Leicester, Sunderland, Us, Southampton, Swansea, Liverpool, Palace, Villa, Tottenham and Man City

Sunderland have: Everton, Newcastle, West Brom, Leicester, Us, Arsenal, Stoke, Chelsea and Watford.

Looking at those fixtures I can''t see us getting anything from the Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd and Everton games; so we have 15 points to go after, maybe 18 depending on Everton mindset!?

I can''t see Newcastle getting anything from the Leicester, Liverpool, Tottenham or Man City results, therefore they have 18 to go after.

And with Sunderland I can''t see them getting from Everton, Leicester, Arsenal, Stoke and Chelsea and maybe Watford on last game of season, therefore they have 9-12 points to go after.

Can anyone see any other games where we might nick a point?

Will make for an interesting end of season.....

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

Defo, our home games against them have got to be crucial for all 3 teams.

 

For the rest, all 3 of us have a very average set of Prem fixtures, no-one has easier games than the others.  But I disagree with you "I can''t see xxxx getting anything from....".  Look back at the results and Newcastle have beaten Liverpool before this season, we''ve beaten Man U away, basically anyone can beat anyone this season.  All 3 teams are in a poor state - we''re in the worst run of form.  We can fully expect more results like Swansea beating Arsenal and then Villa pulling out some more wins, hopefully against Newcastle.

[morty 0]

Its destined to go down to the final day.

[norfolkbroadslim 225]

I disagree, us Newcastle and Sunderland have all the points to go after. As has already been shown not just in previous seasons, but also in this season, teams pick up points when least expected.

It will however take a huge, huge turnaround for us to get many more points and pull us out of the doldrums of 1 point from 27. Under the current setup I am struggling to see how or where this will happen.

[morty 0]

[quote user="norfolkbroadslim"]I disagree, us Newcastle and Sunderland have all the points to go after. As has already been shown not just in previous seasons, but also in this season, teams pick up points when least expected.

It will however take a huge, huge turnaround for us to get many more points and pull us out of the doldrums of 1 point from 27. Under the current setup I am struggling to see how or where this will happen.[/quote]Genuine question but Sunderland and Newcastle are in similar form to us, why can you see one of them turning it around, but not us?

[FenwayFrank 2,716]

Have a look at swansea''s fixtures, makes Saturday even worse when you see their last six games

[sonyc 6,144]

I think Newcastle and Sunderland have equally difficult games to us and agree that 36/37 may be enough. Can we get 3 wins and 3 draws? I believe absolutely we can.

Just hope AN sets us up better to score and then reverts to safer formations. He tends to do things the other way. Must stop this terrible run.

[norfolkbroadslim 225]

I didn''t say that I could see one of Newcastle or Sunderland turning it around.

From the last 10 games we have 4 points, Newcastle 7 points, Sunderland 13 points (I was very surprised to see myself that Sunderland have an even goal difference over this period F16 A16).

It is looking that barring something extraordinary it will be 2 from these teams who go down. That might be beause 1 team turns it around and yes that could be us, or 1 may limp over the line just ahead of the other 2 without really improving too much, or Sunderland maintain their current form and us and or Newcastle don''t improve or not enough to overtake them or whatever.

There aren''t really any good times during a season to have a bad run never mind a terrible one, unless you''re safe in mid-table, but in our situation and at this stage of the season with games fast running out, the pressure builds with each game that passes and yes that is true for the other teams and especially Newcastle.

What I said was that I struggle to see us getting many more points and this is because of the terrible run we are on, the compounded effect and increased pressure of the stage of the season we are at as each week passes without a win and games are running out and yes also my lack of faith in Alex. This doesn''t mean that I don''t care, that even though I have massive doubts about Neil that I don''t hope and pray that we do go on a run or that even if we don''t that somehow by some miracle, if we only pick up a handful more points it is enough to keep us up.

[sonyc 6,144]

Good point made about pressure. For me that definitely means you have to stick with the manager. It''s not as if we are being humiliated each week. Just naivety and a bit of poor luck

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

This is the odd thing.  Under Hughton we were getting thumped 7 -1by Man City and 5-0 by Liverpool, Man U 4 goals in all 3 times they played us.  Yet in our current winless run, we''ve only had the 3-0 defeats to Spurs and Bournemouth that stand out - all the rest have been close games.

 

The research on changing managers shows that teams tend to change managers when they are on a poor run (who knew?) and on average, the results pick up whether or not the manager is changed, because they go back towards the average for the team i.e. "reversion to the mean". 

 

So "on average" our results should pick up.  Wish it would get a move on, though...

[westcoastcanary 0]

How do you calculate "the mean" to which results will/should revert? If the mean = average points per game over the 29 games played, that is 0.83 points per game which is certainly an improvement on 0 points per game. But 0.83 ppg over the remaining 9 would yield a maximum of only 8 points and a final total of 32. So reversion to the mean is almost certainly not enough, we need greater improvement than that.

[shaunieboy77 84]

The Newcastle fans are clearly anti Mclaren and the Board.

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

[quote user="westcoastcanary"]How do you calculate "the mean" to which results will/should revert? If the mean = average points per game over the 29 games played, that is 0.83 points per game which is certainly an improvement on 0 points per game. But 0.83 ppg over the remaining 9 would yield a maximum of only 8 points and a final total of 32. So reversion to the mean is almost certainly not enough, we need greater improvement than that.
[/quote]

 

Good question - I didn''t do the research !  And as often the case with football, how did they decide what period was long enough to measure the average ?  How many games would be statistically significant ?

 

The main thing though is that it''s just an average calculation.  You can easily have another 9 games that are below average - or they could improve to above average.  Whatever the average is.

 

So I guess the answer is that we can expect results will probably get a fair bit better under AN, but whether it will be enough is quite another story.  Which is what you''d expect.

[Mr Sausage 0]

We have a far easier second half of the season than the first we will comfortably finish in 17th place mark my words we will be having a party at Everton away

[Mooney 0]

What''s going to be different about the games against Sunderland and Newcastle? Alex Neil and the team have made the same mistakes all season. We lost 2-0 away to Aston Villa and have thrown away pretty much every advantage we''ve had recently so its highly unlikely we will be top of that mini league. Sunderland look much better placed and have the best manager of the 4.