Are Cardiff more of a threat to us than Brum?

[Snowball]

If we talk about games versus Wolves, Reading, Birmingham
and Cardiff, Swansea, Preston, Sheff Utd, Burnley

Reading have the easiest run-in by far, only playing 3 of the top 8, all matches at home

Birmingham have six toughies left (Wolves at home, Coventry away)

Cardiff have a local derby plus have to go to Wolves

Wolves really have 5 toughies, 4 against the top teams (including Birmingham) plus a tricky derby at Coventry.

Looking at these fixtures (excluding shock results) I'd make Reading 2-1 favourites for the title, Wolves 3-1

I wouldn't there'd be much between Birmingham, Swansea, Cardiff, and if Swansea were to win in Cardiff...

These are the six-pointers left for the top 7-8

06 Sheff Utd (2 home, 4 away plus Wolves/Swansea at home)
06 QPR (2 home, 4 away incl Wolves)
05 Birmingham (3H incl Wolves, 2 away) also Coventry away
04 Wolves (2 H, 2A) also Coventry away
04 Cardiff (3H incl Swansea 2A incl Wolves)
04 Burnley (3H 1A)
04 Preston (2H 2A)
03 Swansea (1 Home 2 away (incl local derby with Cardiff)
03 READING (all at home)



Fixtures

03 Feb QPR v Swansea

07 Feb Birmingham v Burnley
07 Feb READING v Preston

14 Feb Burnley v Wolves
15 Feb Cardiff v QPR

22 Feb Wolves v Cardiff

01 Mar Sheff Utd v Birmingham

07 Mar QPR v Sheff Utd

22 Mar Cardiff v Sheff Utd

04 April Birmingham v Wolves
04 Apr Cardiff v Swansea

11 Apr Burnley v QPR
11 Apr Reading v Sheff Utd

18 Apr Burnley v Sheff Utd
18 Apr Preston v Cardiff
18 Apr Wolves v QPR

25 Apr Sheff Utd v Swansea
25 Apr Birmingham v Preston

03 May Preston v QPR
03 May Reading v Birmingham

[RoyalChicagoFC]

ARCHO:
It's an obvious point but worth making anyway --in reaLOLity, we're not trading in "fractions of a point" here. It's one thing to say that with 319 career home runs over 8 seasons, Albert Pujols "averages 39.875 jacks per year"; of course, he's never posted a season with exactly that number, and he never will.

What it also doesn't account for are games missed to injury in a given season, seasons when he "played hurt" and other variables. Of course, I know that you know all of these things.

One thing that I did during the promotion countdown three years ago --and this speaks to Snowball's remarks above-- was to break down RFC's remaining fixtures and those of pursuers and weight them for a presumed degree of difficulty on the basis of home/away and according to a classification system that sorted opposition into to the categories of "title contenders"/"contenders for automatic promotion"/"contenders for a top six finish"/"smug mid-table oblivion"/"relegation-threatened"/"utterly hopeless."

That was useful in that it provided some clues as to the degree to which a given opponent would be up for giving it a real go, situations where a manager might rest key men who otherwise would be playing if something were on the line and so on.

It's of course too early for that now --everybody's still playing for something, nobody's safe from relegation yet (arithmetically speaking, at any rate), and it's going to stay that way for a while yet. I'm guessing that I'll work something up with about a dozen games to go.

So for now, the larger point is that things such as home/away and quality/motivation level of opposition have to be factored in. It's too early to get a fix on the latter, but the form book only goes so far, and as games come off the schedule, the pool of remaining opposition gets smaller and easier to classify (the run that began with Brum away on 20th December and continued thru to the end January was expected to be a rough month for RFC and kinda was [12 points from 21] --but then we won't be encountering any of the same opposition again before 3rd May).

I'd wager <---he could come up with a useful model going forward if asked nicely.

[Silver Fox]

I've calculated the final table based on the form over the last 1 games and sadly for us it doesn't look good

Wolves 110
Cardiff 102
Reading 74
Brum 72

Woe is us

BTW how did this thread move to the team?

[Archie's penalty]

I've calculated the final table based on the form over the last 1 games and sadly for us it doesn't look good

Wolves 110
Cardiff 102
Reading 74
Brum 72

Woe is us

BTW how did this thread move to the team?

And it wasn't me guv.

[RoyalChicagoFC]

Indeed Silv (and you're right --we're sunk).

Hope at any rate that with no registration required, the onlooking Cardiff, Brum and Wolves faithful enjoy a good laff @ the Hoob Noob massive looking over the collective shouLOLder.

[Arch]

RC:

The reason I left fractions in is that if your formula gives team A 85.51 and team B 85.49, it's a bit misleading to say that A are on target for 86 and B for 85. As it is, I think CMRoyal's calculations were all correct when rounded (based on his rough formula) except for Wolves whom he threw an extra couple of points at.

Anyway, sonce I spilled tons of ink ballsing up the stats, here's an interesting table to chew on. The top six against each other:

1. Reading 7 14
2. Wolves 8 11
3. PNE 7 10
4. Brum 6 8
5. Cardiff 7 7
6. Blades 7 6

Further to Snowball's point above, we've now played all the top 11 away.

[Snowball]

I've calculated the final table based on the form over the last 1 games and sadly for us it doesn't look good

Wolves 110
Cardiff 102
Reading 74
Brum 72

Woe is us

BTW how did this thread move to the team?

Yeah and based on the last TWO games it's

102 Cardiff
090 Reading
088 Birmingham
086 Wolves

[Horsham Royal]

Would be interesting to know how many points [Brum]'ve grabbed in the last few minutes due to late winners/equalisers...

Well, they sure don't make it as easy as they used to, but it's out there if one is willing to endure the exercise of picking the locks.

Looks like they've picked up 8 points with 90+ min goals (7 pts from Phillips, 1 from Bowyer).
W'eve picked up 2 with 85+ min goals.

[PEARCEY]

Would be interesting to know how many points [Brum]'ve grabbed in the last few minutes due to late winners/equalisers...

Well, they sure don't make it as easy as they used to, but it's out there if one is willing to endure the exercise of picking the locks.

Looks like they've picked up 8 points with 90+ min goals (7 pts from Phillips, 1 from Bowyer).

More than I thought....its usually a good sign to keep getting late goals. Lets hope not this season. Shef Wed should have had the game done and dusted before Phillips scored.

[Franchise FC]

RC:

The reason I left fractions in is that if your formula gives team A 85.51 and team B 85.49, it's a bit misleading to say that A are on target for 86 and B for 85. As it is, I think CMRoyal's calculations were all correct when rounded (based on his rough formula) except for Wolves whom he threw an extra couple of points at.

Anyway, sonce I spilled tons of ink ballsing up the stats, here's an interesting table to chew on. The top six against each other:

1. Reading 7 14
2. Wolves 8 11
3. PNE 7 10
4. Brum 6 8
5. Cardiff 7 7
6. Blades 7 6

Further to Snowball's point above, we've now played all the top 11 away.

Sorry, but that's actually BAD news, since we get more points against the top teams than the others (averaging 2 per game against the top six, but less than two overall). We could do with having MORE games against the top six.

[SteveRoyal]

Lets be honest - every team within 10 points of us is still a threat with so many games to go.
Maybe when it comes to the last 5 games of the season I'll post the answer to the question.

[Silver Fox]

I've calculated the final table based on the form over the last 1 games and sadly for us it doesn't look good

Wolves 110
Cardiff 102
Reading 74
Brum 72

Woe is us

BTW how did this thread move to the team?

Yeah and based on the last TWO games it's

102 Cardiff
090 Reading
088 Birmingham
086 Wolves

Phew, thank feck for that!

[Snowball]

Further to Snowball's point above, we've now played all the top 11 away.


and also two of the relegation favourites twice, just Charlton (bottom) to play at home

We have to go away to 3 of the 4 of the club's just above the relegation places, Derby, Donny, Norwich

HOME versus 6th (fighting for a play-off place)
AWAY versus 18th (fighting, just had first win)
HOME versus 11th mid-table
HOME versus 17th (still in danger of relegation)
AWAY versus 13th mid-table, (but out for revenge?)
AWAY versus 15th (still in some danger of relegation)
HOME versus 20th (already strong favourites to be bottom)
HOME versus 10th mid-table
AWAY versus 21st (fighting hard, improving, good footballing side)
AWAY versus 12th mid-table
AWAY versus 14th mid-table
HOME versus 5th (fighting for a play-off place)
AWAY versus 15th mid-table
HOME versus 19th (still in real danger of relegation)
AWAY versus 20th (still in real danger of relegation)
HOME versus BIRMINGHAM (nuff said)

Obviously these will change slightly, but for most they won't change much

This is a nasty little period, 4 away games from
five and the home game is Sheffield Utd.

Tue 17 19:45 A Doncaster FLC
Sat 21 17:20 A Crystal Palace FLC
Sat 4 15:00 A Coventry City FLC
Sat 11 15:00 H Sheffield Utd FLC
Mon 13 15:00 A Blackpool FLC

[Millsy]

Interesting thread Archie's Penalty, thanks.

Nah I dont' think so though.

If we were going to go buy a couple of random results then we'd say our 3-0 win away to Wolves would make us the biggest threat in the universe.... but the we go and lose 2-0 away to Swansea, which makes us total nobodies....

As I'm sure Coppell would agree, the biggest threat to us is ourselves. We're 100% responsible for the points we get and if we play well enough to get a good number of points we'll be fine no matter what Cardiff, Brum or YLUDA do. Sounds such obvious totally pointless manager speak I'm sorry but it's so true.

[Snowball]

If you ignore such issues as "relegation-threatened sides hav to fight like hell" this makes good reading

Home games in order of theoretical easiness

HOME versus 24th
HOME versus 19th
HOME versus 17th
HOME versus 10th
HOME versus 11th
HOME versus 6th
HOME versus 5th
HOME versus BIRMINGHAM


Home to date we are 12-2-1 37-8

We should manage 5-2-1 18-8 (even if losing to one of Brum, Sheff Utd Preston and dropping 4 more points)

Away games in order of theoretical easiness

AWAY versus 21st
AWAY versus 20th
AWAY versus 18th
AWAY versus 16th
AWAY versus 15th
AWAY versus 14th
AWAY versus 13th
AWAY versus 12th

Away (15 games) we are 5-5-5- 21-18,
and that's mostly against side in the top half of the table

We should, at least be 3-3-2 15-10 (Donny will be difficult, Plymouth?)

That would give us 87 points (I'd say this was pessimistic, losing three more games, drawing 5)

17-04-2 55-16
08-08-7 36-28
25-12-9 91-44 87 Points (pessimistic, well not OPTIMISTIC)

[RoyalChicagoFC]

Would be interesting to know how many points [Brum]'ve grabbed in the last few minutes due to late winners/equalisers...

Linky to Brum's results (with goals and times)

Looks like they've picked up 8 points with 90+ min goals (7 pts from Phillips, 1 from Bowyer).

More than I thought....its usually a good sign to keep getting late goals. Lets hope not this season. Shef Wed should have had the game done and dusted before Phillips scored.

Might as well add two more to that, given that they also beat QPR 1-0 with the game's lone goal scored during time added on for stoppages at the end of the first 45 minutes by ("Goddammit") Kevin Phillips ("Again!")

[Lower West]

Readings destiny is in their own hands. If I was a Brum supporter I would be more worried at the moment........

[Franchise FC]

Readings destiny is in their own hands. If I was a Brum supporter I would be more worried at the moment........

There are four teams whose destiny rmains in their own hands

Wolves - win their remaining games they are promoted (even a loss to Birmingham wouldn't have any effect)
Reading - win their remaining games they are promoted
Birmingham - win their remaining games (including vs RFC) they are promoted
Cardiff - win their remaining games they are promoted

Clearly, not all four can happen, but for each they remain in control of their own future.

[JC]

Readings destiny is in their own hands. If I was a Brum supporter I would be more worried at the moment........

There are four teams whose destiny rmains in their own hands

Wolves - win their remaining games they are promoted (even a loss to Birmingham wouldn't have any effect)
Reading - win their remaining games they are promoted
Birmingham - win their remaining games (including vs RFC) they are promoted
Cardiff - win their remaining games they are promoted

Clearly, not all four can happen, but for each they remain in control of their own future.

I don't think you are right about Cardiff. They only have Wolves to play in the top 3 so even if they won that they would not catch Reading and Wolves if they won all their other games

[Mad Dog's Ghost]

Bearing in mind they're supposedly a bunch of over-paid no-hopers run by a manager who apparently hasn't got a clue, Birmingham aren't doing too badly really.