Time to reassess: 71 points won't get us CL

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Dymak said:
That's wonderful, but I'm talking about qualifying for the champions league, and it just isn't going to happen if we continue to spend the least out of all 20 clubs each transfer window.
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It might happen this season.

People have been outspending us for 20 years.
 
chris ashton17 said:
It is easy to look at games we have not got points in though. To be honest i only see a couple of games that we can genuinely call out. Cardiff with the penalty decision not going our way and Sunderland at home should (and would) have been a victory for us otherwise.
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Obviously you didn't go to Norwich then.......
 
BoysInBlue said:
I've said all along that what will decide the CL places is the top 7's form against EACH OTHER.

Currently, having played all the top 7 once, Everton are SECOND in this mini league, behind Man City.
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Does it somewhat hurt your theory that we're second in the mini league but fifth in the real league?

I tend to think it's the form in the 78 available points v. lower table sides which are more important than the 36 available v. the top sides. 78 is a good total by itself even if you lose every single game to the top teams (which we haven't).

If I'm wrong ... my second guess would be that all points are equal and we just need wins wherever they come.

BoysInBlue said:
What will really give us a boost is the 3 aways vs Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea over the next month. 5+ points from those games and we will be well on our way.
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I don't disagree really but it's all for naught if we drop points v. Stoke or something. Only wins count in that league because a tie changes nothing and coming out of matches v. that lot with more wins than draws and losses is a colossal ask.

We've started well though but as you can see from the real table our ties (and one loss) v. lower table sides has us at the wrong end of the top 7 league despite good form v. the rest of the top 7.
 

The league is becoming more and more stretched in terms of the difference between the top 7 and everyone else. Top 7 again all won this weekend, very few mistakes from anyone currently above us. All we can do is keep focussing on our own form and keep picking up points. The pressure isn't on us as much as other teams as people still don't generally expect us to finish top 4, but equally we have a great chance to do so and will be disappointed if we're not at least right in the mix up until the last few games.
 
We are in a great position, other teams will have to contend with very difficult Champions league fixtures so dropping points in the league is inevitable.

Arsenals are paying for the easier start and currently only have Podolski to start upfront their fixtures in March/April could push us into 4th:

Bayern Munich (A)
Spurs (A)
Chelsea (A)
Man City (H)
Champs league quarters
EVERTON (A)
Champs league quarters

Here's hoping they do well in Europe!
 
njligernj said:
Does it somewhat hurt your theory that we're second in the mini league but fifth in the real league?

I tend to think it's the form in the 78 available points v. lower table sides which are more important than the 36 available v. the top sides. 78 is a good total by itself even if you lose every single game to the top teams (which we haven't).

If I'm wrong ... my second guess would be that all points are equal and we just need wins wherever they come.

I don't disagree really but it's all for naught if we drop points v. Stoke or something. Only wins count in that league because a tie changes nothing and coming out of matches v. that lot with more wins than draws and losses is a colossal ask.

We've started well though but as you can see from the real table our ties (and one loss) v. lower table sides has us at the wrong end of the top 7 league despite good form v. the rest of the top 7.
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We're 5th in the real table because we've drawn too many games against bottom half of the table teams.

Even doing that though, we're still handily placed.

Not sure where a lot of the negativity from some people is coming from. We're right in the mix, more so than at any time since the 1980s.
 

The high point totals to me says that the top teams just haven't played each other a lot yet.

It's a zero sum game in the end. All teams only have 114 points available.
 
Need to get players back from injury asap, our problem has been drawn games, lost a lot of points there notably against Liverpool.
One or two new faces would help as well. Everyhing to play for though.
 
After we beat Fulham last month, i looked at our remaining number of games and did a few calculations myself and it basically came down to needing at least 20 wins. Now after beating Fulham i think that put us on 8 wins and meant that we would need to win around 60% of our remaining fixtures. Of course this is just my opinion and everytime will drop unexpected points between now and May. But it did get me nervous and wondering whether we could keep the pace. At the time i made my calculations i thought that 72 points would be more than enough but im honestly not so sure now........

Years ago we had the ' big 4 ' and the league was split into little mini leagues. You could see the gulf in points total outside that ' big 4 ' mini league and its not like that anymore. That top 4 has now grown to at least 8 teams now....... mental.
 
I think the Liverpool game kick-started our season. Including that match, our record since then has been DWWDWWLWDW. 21 points from 10 games= 2.1 points per match.

If our target was 71 points that would be 1.87 ppm. So we're 0.23 ppm ahead of schedule.

We've got 17 matches left to play. 17 x 2.1= 35.7 + 41 (our current total)= 76.7 points.

I'm not going to do the maths for all the other clubs but the current form table looks like this:

City 18 pts
Chelsea 16 pts
United 15 pts
Spurs 13 pts
Everton 13 pts
Liverpool 12 pts
Arsenal 11 pts

City are the only team who are getting away from us. It's all so tight though and the top teams will take points off each other that nothing can be predicted.
 

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