It's suddenly getting very tight down the bottom again.
What says you now, those posters who are saying that we're already safe?
Derby were due a win eventually, as even poor teams win games. However, it’s worth remembering that this is the first time they’ve won back to back games since September.
If they keep picking up points at this rate, they’ll end up with about 45 points. Unless they turn these results into a proper pattern, there’s no need to panic.
Luton have taken seven points from five games. That’s their best run of form all season. If they manage to keep that up, they’ll end up with around 46 points. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that this is only their second win in 15 games.
If we win tomorrow the gap is fully restored, but with one fewer game and the added bonus that the Luton result pulled Cardiff right into it just before they have a really tough run of games against teams hoping to stay in the race for the top six.
You also have to consider our general level of results since Sellés took over, which has seen us consistently achieve 1.2 points a game (currently 1.29). I’m confident this will continue, and if not we probably deserve to go down, quite frankly.
As a result of our points per game under Sellés, we’re on track to finish with 49 points. Based on this, all of the teams below us will probably need 50 points to jump above us by the time the season ends.
To reach 50 points, Derby (who have the most points of the teams in the bottom three) must achieve at least one of the following in their 9 remaining games:
- 5 or more wins
- 4 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses
- 3 wins, 6 draws, 0 losses
If Derby lose just a single game before the end of the season, they’ll need at least 4 wins from 9 to have a chance of bettering our projected points tally. They’ve only won 9 all season.
To reach our projected points total, and make the survival threshold for other teams effectively 50 points, all we need is 12 points from the last 10 games. This would require one of the following:
- 4 or more wins
- 3 wins, 4 draws, 4 losses
- 2 wins, 7 draws, 1 loss
As long as we don’t royally mess it up, we have a fair bit of room for error before we have to panic.