SaintBobby

Has Stephens touched the ball yet?

This is getting better....

This si more like it...strong 30 yd effort from a free kick, saved.... and finally a bit of pressure

Just keep it tight for 15 mins and ease ourselves into the game....

Brighton 1-0 down

gees....nervy start

Saintsplayer commentator: "We're very close to ground level, so we have a bird's eye's view of the technical area" Yeah, the view of a bird on the f*cking ground, you ***t....

...

Jaidi seems to have found a new lease of life. Playing very, very well and in game after game.

Above average, certainly. Over the last 2 games, we're averaging 3 points a match. Even better.

Arse. We probably get promoted at bl00dy Griffin Park then....

This has been my hope for some time, but just looking again at the fixture lists for us, Hudds and Posh, it does seem quite likely. On Sat 30th April, we're at home to Hartlepool, Posh are away at Rochdale and Huddersfield travel to Brighton. Even if all three of us (Saints, Hudd, Posh) start the day on an equal number of points, if we win and they both lose, we're promoted at 5pm.

I think the problem is that you've basically decided to start your calculations with a "win". Dec 25th seems an arbitrary cut-off point to me. You could just as well start measuring from the last eight games, when the team has properly "gelled" and note that we're averaging 2.75 points per game since then.

In our first 6 games, we drop a total of 16 points - at a shocking rate of 2.33 a game. In our next 33 games, we drop just 27 points - at a decent rate of a mere 0.82 a game. Our improvement would look even more impressive, I think, if the vertical axis was "average points per game".

No. HTH.

My hope is that we nail 2nd as a mathematical certainty at home to Hartlepool on Easter Monday. I think this is just about plausible too. I want to be there when we cross the line and (a) I can't make Plymouth away and (b) don't have the nerves to withstand a "must win/must draw" last day match v Walsall.

Very true. Great universal celebrations for our recent goals. I guess dressing room issues are only noticed when they go wrong - so credit to Adkins.

This is great. Really great. Email it to the club. Much better than the yellow/blue. One query though....could it actually work as a 2nd kit? I mean if red and white stripes are unusable away from home because they clash with our opponents' first strip, wouldn't this red sash also clash? (e.g. could we wear this kit at Brammal Lane v Sheff Utd?)

It's as good as half a point really. If we end up on 83 points and Huddersfield end up on 84 points, our superior GD won't bridge the gap.

Why's that a more relaistic measurement? Why start on Dec 28th?

Well, can't speak for Fitz-whoever, but I think I stand by my point. Yes, I'd prefer at this stage to be grinding out results rather than playing flowery football and drawing. But if I have a criticism - and it's a mildish one - it's that we're not rollig over our opponents. I wasn't at the Charlton game at SMS, so this may be an exception - but each win is looking and feeling like a bit of a struggle. That's okay. I don't believe we have a "right" to just roll up and win 6-0 every week. But my score for Adkins would be higher if we were bulldozing our way to wins rather than grinding our way to them.

There's an element of that. For example, it's impossible for Hudd or Posh to get exactly 14 points. But mainly it's about a range of possible outcomes, I agree you shouldn't treat football like roulette or coin flipping, but here goes anyway.... There's only one way our opponents can get 15 points. A sequence of WWWWW. There's loads of ways they can get 9 points...WWWLL or WWLWL or WLWLW or WLLWW etc etc. This is a simplification, but not an unfair one. It's a bit like tossing a coin 100 times. You're likely to get somewhere around about 50 heads and fifty tails. Not say a 95-5 split or a 100-0 split. You would almost certain to be in the range from 35-65 to 65-35 in fact. Same logic applies here really. So both our opponents are pretty likely to get somewhere around 8 to 11 points. 0 is possible. 15 is possible. But 8, 9, 10 or 11 are each much more likely. Once you factor in skill, not just luck (Hudds and Posh are good teams, so in usual circumstances are a better bet to win than lose), they are likely to be at the higher end of this spectrum. But against that, they have tough looking run ins.

I don't think anyone would count me amongst the wrist-slitting masochists on here. I wanted Adkins appointed, was pleased when he was appointed and have always believed we'd be promoted this season. But..... I'm not bowled over by a ratio of 2 points per game. If you'd asked me at the start of the season how many points it was reasonable to expect us to get, I would have put it in the 90s. And I think 100 should probably have been the aspirational target. In other words, perhaps a little bit more than 2 points per game was a reasonable expectation. For Adkins to have averaged 2 PPG is fine. It's reasonable. It's okay. It's satisfactory and acceptable. It's around about what you'd expect. And, of course, it's not his fault that we got off to such a miserable start to the season (it's that ghastly start, not Adkins' record, that accounts for us still scrapping for promotion and the league title being virtually out of reach). So, I'm not throwing my toys around. But neither am I punching the air about how bloody marvellous everything is under Adkins. I'd probably give him a 7/10 so far, maybe a 6.5/10 if I was feeling especially mean. A slight - very slight - worry I have is that even on our current fantastic run of results (it's 7 wins, 1 draw from the last 8 games, right?), I don't think we've looked totally convincing in any recent match. To some degree, at the "business end" of the season, who cares? It's just about grinding out points now. I'll take dull, hard-worked 1-0 wins on a dodgy penalty decision rather than spectacular 4-4 draws, thanks very much. But, there seems to me to be quite a lot of room for improvement still. And if (when, surely?) we are in the NPC next season, we will have to step up a gear or more to really compete. I'm hopeful we could strengthen the squad and achieve that under Adkins, but I'm not sure we're on a Norwich or Leeds style trajectory just yet.

I gave up on it after about 3 matches, for just these reasons, so assume I'm proudly bottom of the table.

You might be right about the drop off of 25%, but not by much. Basically the big fluctuations happen between 7 and 11 points. Less than seven and it's almost impossible. More than 11 and it's almost certain. The difference in our chances, for example, between us picking up 2 points for the rest of the season and picking up 3 points is about 0.001%. We're almost certainly stuffed in both cases, although there is the tiniest of chances that 3 points would be enough but 2 wouldn't be. I think the biggest drop off in our chances is between 8 and 9 points (although I accept that it might not be quite as high as a 25% drop) If we retain the assumption that our GD is going to hold up (and I've made this very fair assumption through out), then: 9 points is enough unless (a) Huddersfield finish their season with W 3 D 1 L 1 or better or (b) Peterborough end their season with a record of W 4 D 0 L 1 or better. I'd say the chance of (a) or (b) happening is around 60%, but maybe nearer 50% on reflection. 8 points is enough unless (a) Huddersfield finish their season with W 2 D 3 L 0 or better or (b) Peterborough end their season with a record of W 3 D 2 L 0 or better. This seems to me a lot, lot less promising. Odds against, about a 1 in 3 shot. By 7 points or lower, you're clutching at straws, obviously. Both Huddersfield and Posh wld have to perform really poorly for us to keep 2nd. At 10 points, we look likely to get promoted - although not certain. That would be fine unless (a) Huddersfield manage a run-in of W 3 D2 L 0 or better or (b) Posh manage a run of W 4 D 1 L 0 or better.This is close to ruling out Posh altogether. By 11 points, we only need to worry about (a) Huddersfield managing W 4 D 0 L 1 or better or (b) Posh getting W 5 D 0 L 0. By 12 points, we only need to worry about (a) Huddersfield managing W 4 D 1 L 0 or better or (b) again, Posh winning all 5 of games. By 13 points, we only need to worry about Huddersfield winning all their matches and can ignore Posh. 14 points is almost identical (it just insulates us further against a weird GD swing against us)