| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… 08:01 - Sep 21 with 5055 views | SitfcB |
…or anyone else in winning form at the time of playing them.
D v Bristol City (A)
W v Sunderland (H) - probably the best result/hardest game.
W v Sheff Wed (A)
W v Swansea (H)
W v Stoke (A)
W v Plymouth (H)
W v Birmingham (H)
Saying that 6 wins in a row in the Championship is impressive.
They’ve got Rotherham next, which in their form should be an easy win for PNE.
After that West Brom (H)
Leicester (A)
Us (A)
Do they have the squad to maintain this good start, probably not, but that was said about Plymouth last season. PNE another team that has good togetherness and a good manager, although he tends to jump ship quickly if a better offer comes along.
I think they will be one those teams that start well but fade. |  |
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| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 18:12 - Sep 21 with 695 views | Vegtablue |
I think I had Preston down for about 20th!
The alternative league table, which showed us to be brilliant and Plymouth to be less so last season, is showing Preston to have gained 9 points more than expected from their first 6 games (will next update on Friday). Last season the two teams that were majorly bucking expectation in League One were Oxford, who have started much better this year, and Plymouth, who have not yet shown enough to be confident of avoiding the relegation scrap.
https://footballxg.com/xg-league-tables/ |  | | |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 22:09 - Sep 21 with 616 views | Stewart27 |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 10:02 - Sep 21 by HighgateBlue |
If you consider the table as at today's date, we've played 3 teams in the top half. We've played half of the bottom six.
There's an interesting stat at this site:
https://www.soccerstats.com/formtable.asp?league=england2
"Opponent's PPG" - I'm not 100% certain what this captures - whether it's the PPG figure for opponent as at the time the sides met, or whether it's the PPG figure for the opponents faced, as at the date of the table. Either way, there's a very small sample size at present, and later in the season things will have evened out, so I see the limitations in it. But at present it seems to show that we've had the easiest set of fixtures of anyone, followed by Preston. Saints and Plymouth have had a tough start. I'd expect both of those to climb the league in any event.
I'm not necessarily drawing any conclusions from the above, or doom-mongering, it's just quite interesting to find clues as to what everyone's form is worth.
Taking a less data-driven approach, I guess you'd say that we've played high-flying Sunderland, and Leeds and Saints sides which are clearly better than their league positions at this early stage suggest. This is a notoriously difficult league in terms of "anyone can beat anyone", and I think six wins out of seven is remarkable regardless of opposition. |
The narrative of us not beating teams in the top six is one that Norwich are using against us. It’s crazy.
Part of the reason teams the teams we’ve played aren’t in the top six is because we’ve beaten them! Apart from Sunderland obviously which makes our win against them the more impressive. | | | |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 22:21 - Sep 21 with 608 views | Vegtablue |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 22:09 - Sep 21 by Stewart27 |
The narrative of us not beating teams in the top six is one that Norwich are using against us. It’s crazy.
Part of the reason teams the teams we’ve played aren’t in the top six is because we’ve beaten them! Apart from Sunderland obviously which makes our win against them the more impressive. |
Yeah at this stage it makes more sense to go by favourites. Excluding ourselves obviously, we've played the 2nd, 4th and 5th favourites for the title already. For balance we've also played two of the bottom three.
It's the middle where we've tested ourselves least but that changes starting on Saturday. | | | |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 22:24 - Sep 21 with 600 views | bazza |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 08:23 - Sep 21 by BlueRaider |
Or are we destined to be frustrated by another unfancied team beginning with P ? |
More than Happy to be frustrated and finish second tho .. |  | | |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 09:23 - Sep 22 with 496 views | GeoffSentence |
| Preston haven’t really played anyone of note… on 22:09 - Sep 21 by Stewart27 |
The narrative of us not beating teams in the top six is one that Norwich are using against us. It’s crazy.
Part of the reason teams the teams we’ve played aren’t in the top six is because we’ve beaten them! Apart from Sunderland obviously which makes our win against them the more impressive. |
Is there really anyone using not beating teams in the top six as an argument?
Makes no sense if they are because:
At this stage of the season, get beaten by anyone and being in the top six is a stretch.
We have.
They have beaten anyone in the top 4, and we have. |  |
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