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Round One: Albatross 10:36 - Aug 18 with 2492 viewsKropotkin123

Searching for perspective
Three games down and like most people I'm trying to make sense of things. The lack of perspective is somewhat painful.

I've found myself trawling through the past five seasons to establish what needs to be done. I heard a few mockingly put out 100 points and 100 goals. Sheffield Utd managed 100 points and two seasons later they are in the premiership. So here's to hoping

The least points accumulated to secure automatic promotion was Burton's 85. That same season the title winners Wigan recorded 87 points, which would have placed 5th last season.

The average title winner has accumulated 96 points. The average runner up has accumulated 90 points and the average third placed team has amassed 86 point.

Aside from the trolling Norwich accounts, we all hope to win automatic promotion. Not team in the last 5 years has achieved 90 points in third place. So the average second place points total should by our aim.

Last year's runner-up - Barnsley - got 91 points. Barnsley started off well enough. They were 3rd after 7 games and undefeated. Five loses and three draws from their next 14 games saw them drop out of the top 6. However they rallied over their next 25 games, only losing twice.

In total they lost 7 games over the course of the season and this should be our target. Only lose a maximum of 7 games and don't do a Sunderland.

Bizarrely Barnsley didnt lose at home in the league all season, making a fortress out of Oakwell (autocorrect nearly made me look like a right idiot). Whilst I will use seven loses as a bench mark to plot our progress, I will split it up into 2 losses at home and 5 away.

I've roughly plotted out their home and away form for wins and losses, reaching the conclusion that to achieve automatic promotion you need to win 15 home games and 12 away games throughout the season. This should be supplemented by 12 draws, six at home and six away.


Establishing Par
Betting is rife in football. Almost every club has better sponsorship etched into their club tops. The general cycle is... You place money on football. You lose more than you win. Betting companies make lots of money. They pay clubs a fraction of the money they make from you, so you see their betting brand. You then repeat this cycle.

The way they make money through advantageous odds. And here are those odds for League one at the start of the season.

Sunderland (11/8)
Ipswich (2/1)
Portsmouth (2/1)
Peterborough (10/3)
Rotherham (10/3)
Lincoln (9/2)
Doncaster (5/1)
Burton (11/2)
Fleetwood (11/2)
Oxford (7/1)
MK Dons (15/2)
Coventry (8/1)
Blackpool (9/1)
Bristol Rovers (10/1)
Gillingham (10/1)
AFC Wimbledon (14/1)
Accrington Stanley (14/1)
Rochdale (14/1)
Shrewsbury (14/1)
Southend (16/1)
Tranmere (16/1)
Wycombe (16/1)
Bolton (40/1)
Bury (250/1)

I have used this to plot out what golfers would call "par". I've probably played 5 pitch and puts in my life, so why is is call par is beyond me, but par it is.

In this system it would be par to beat the lower ranked clubs and lose to the higher rank clubs. For example a club like Oxford is par win at home and par draw away.


Round One: Albatross
Through this lens we've actually done really well. Our par was just 1 point. We were expected to lose to Sunderland at home, lose to Peterborough away amd draw to Burton away.

With random teams playing each other and no idea if they are any good, this is a good measurement to put our start in progress. We bettered the each game expectation and were three under par (aka an Albatross).
Result: Albatross (1W, 2D)
Season progress: 4 point surplus


Round Two: Three Wins
No chance of an Albatross here, we are out for three wins to hit par. Three back to back wins is something we haven't achieved sinse we won 4 in a row at the start of the 2017—18 season. I can't help but feel nervous, time to get that winning mentality!

AFC Wimbledon come to Portman Road first. They are predicted to finish 16th and if we want to go up we don't want to be spending our hard earned surplus just yet.

An away trip to debt ridden Bolton follows with another win expected. Bolton are not even the poor side we beat towards the end of last season's disaster, so failure to get the three points would be disappointing. They are only ranked ahead of Burton, who might not even get to the end of September

Shrewsbury complete the next round, with another win set as par. Shrewsbury are ranked 19th and were angry that we took their manager and 2 players. In reality we should be angry at them. Lesson learnt, keep the receipt.


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I've moved house and don't have internet installed at the moment. Please excuse me if the layout is a bit naff. I'll try and do it better next time when I have access to my computer.

I'm thinking of doing something like this roughly every 3 games. It's way more manageable than every game.

Subsequent posts will not be about Barnsley. I'll add in more stats from form, etc.
[Post edited 18 Aug 2019 10:45]

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Round One: Albatross on 10:43 - Aug 18 with 2451 viewsGuthrum

Good way of getting something of a handle on progress in a division with which we are mostly unfamiliar.

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Round One: Albatross on 12:19 - Aug 18 with 2369 viewsfactual_blue


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Round One: Albatross on 17:01 - Aug 18 with 2287 viewsgainsboroughblue


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Round One: Albatross on 19:51 - Aug 18 with 2214 viewsBluefish

Nice work. Look forward to tracking the progress

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