The route to survival

[Blofield Canary 12]

Assuming 40 points is needed (I really hope for our sake it isn''t) we have little room for error now and will need a distinct improvment in our current level of performance. Here is my analysis of what we need to do. It does look possible but it will require more consistency at home and a couple of away wins.

Crystal Palace	A	1
Everton	A	0
Cardiff City	A	3
West Ham (7.45pm)	A	1
Aston Villa	A	3
Southampton	A	0
Swansea City	A	0
Fulham	A	0
Manchester United	A	0
Chelsea	A	0
Hull City	H	3
Newcastle United	H	1
Manchester City	H	0
Tottenham Hotspur	H	0
Stoke City	H	3
Sunderland	H	3
West Brom	H	3
Liverpool	H	0
Arsenal	H	0
Total Points		21

[morty 0]

That all looks very achievable.What could possibly go wrong lol?

[ricardo 8,033]

We won''t need anywhere near that number of points.

[JF 694]

Just ran through that and I had us getting 21 points as well via different results though. Happy days!

[morty 0]

[quote user="ricardo"]We won''t need anywhere near that number of points.[/quote]Lets get a few extra, just to be on the safe side.[;)]

[city4eva 242]

[quote user="ricardo"]We won''t need anywhere near that number of points.[/quote]With all the teams at the bottom having more points at this stage than last year, does that suggest that more than 40 points will be needed this year

[Salopian 1]

Given the mini-revivals of the bottom clubs, and the fact that there are so many teams in the bottom half covered by a small range of points gained, the issue is complicated.

Sunderland and Palace seemed doomed, but now they are only a few points behind us. There are now no obvious relegation candidates.

Relegation teams will appear, largely through results between them (- the non-appearance against Fulham could prove to be a disaster for us.)

Unless one or two teams lose important players for extended periods (-Tettey for us, perhaps RvW), it becomes very difficult to predict what a safe number of points will be. It seems likely that the bottom half teams will fight a series of tight matches and produce draws. In this case, even 37 points could be safe.

[ricardo 8,033]

[quote user="city4eva"][quote user="ricardo"]We won''t need anywhere near that number of points.[/quote]With all the teams at the bottom having more points at this stage than last year, does that suggest that more than 40 points will be needed this year[/quote]No it doesn''t. The bottom half of the league is far more condensed this year and the points difference between the top and bottom half is bigger. There will be 6 or even 7 clubs who fail to reach 40 points and the cut off could be as low as 34 points.

[Citizen Journalist Foghorn 0]

[quote user="ricardo"]We won''t need anywhere near that number of points.[/quote]You can pretty much add 21 points to the 3rd bottom club''s points at the half way stage to get a good indication of a points tally which will be out of the drop zone.This would indicate 37 points will more than likely stay up this season.

[peateabee 0]

One thing I notice from your predictions is the lack of draws. It seems that we don''t want to be seeing too many for the rest of the season if we are to reach 40 points or surpass it. I hope that is not something that scuppers us in the end. We need to keep go into games prepared to risk enough to try and win the game without obviously going to far. Getting that balance right could be crucial as we probably can''t afford to settle for a point too often. Having said that, I think there are a few extra games in there where we can get a result, particularly some of those away ones. If we can play somewhere near our full potential with some consistency we will survive, but that is easier said than done.