There are 24 or so fixtures in February amongst the top half teams.. CITY NEED a minimum of 13 points that's 4 wins a draw and a lost from our 4 home and 2 away games. City's games........ MKDons v City City v Port Vale City v Sheff utd City v Peterbro Colchstr v City City V Rochdale
February is a huge month for us. I we can win the 5 home games and get all 3 points at Colchester that will do me. MK Dons away and Sheff Utd home look to be the hardest games. I'd settle for 3 or more points from those 2 encounters
Beware, there are no easy matches. For example, look at Rochdale's away record of seven wins, one draw and four defeats. And they have scored 28 goals on the road. There care potential banana skins all through the month.
I take nothing for granted after following City for some 45 years..... Rochdale and Fleetwood have decent away records and Sheffield United are never a push over and they'll be wanting revenge for the opening day defeat at theirs. Hopefully their mind will still be on the cups when we play them on Feb 14th
Home games should generate the vast majority of points if we are to maintain our challenge for promotion but in previous years lost points at Ashton Gate have been our downfall. Nothing should ever be taken for granted and City must go out and take the points by the throat or we could be looking at unpredictability of the playoffs. Trust in SC to get us over the line.
By my reckoning we will need around 90 points to get an automatic promotion spot based on last year's final table. We have 11 home games and 10 away fixtures in which we need an average of 1.7 points per game to achieve our goal of 36 points. Home 11 games. possible points 33 - Target 21 points @ 64% win rate. Away 10 games. possible points 30. Target 15 points @ 50% win rate. Currently our points %age is 72 %, so if we can keep our win average at that level then we probably will earn an automatic spot. Every time we exceed the averages I have laid out then we will be OK so we can't afford to rest on our laurels. Steve will get the job done.
Our home form thus far has been good. 9 wins 2 draws and just the single defeat to date The way it's going with Swindon, Preston and MK Dons all very close to us, will 90 points be enough I wonder ?
I set out the points "needed" in another spot / thread, and allowing for teams playing each other in the top 8 / 10 as is at the moment 93-96 pts could be the ball park figure. it is hard to describe how I work OUT a figure, but..but loosely............... City = 117 undeafeated / win all games Swindlers and MKD = 114 PNE = 100 pts with their remaining games, using "recent form" ( last 2/3rds of games ) then home and away against each other, with home games and away game % points ( each team ) applied to it ( similar to invers comment ) = points between 93 -96 for the champions, so City could maybe give up 22 points from 63 and still get 1st or second! SO 41points from 21 games = 1.95 pts a game ( current 2.16 ) Inver your % are a bit low, but assume they are based on your "hopes" as to how many points you would like to see. . further note just had a look at our first 23 games and we dropped 21 points GD +20, started second 23 with 2 wins and a plus +6 GD
It will be an exciting run in no matter what. Hopefully after this week is over the schedule will relax a bit before Easter now the FA Cup is gone and hopefully just one more game in the JPT after this Thursday
Other than the top 4 there is not really a serious challenge, although perhaps shouldn't rule Sheff U out. Getting points, yes, that's necessary, but if we can beat Sheff u, MK, PNE and Swindon, then they don't get the points. Obvious, but that is what will set the top 2 teams apart
we play all 4 2 home 2 away ... the mini lge ... city v sheff city v swindlers mkd v city pne v city Swindon v mkd sheff v swindlers PNE v swindlers MKD v PNE THATS 8 GAMES THAT COULD MAKE OR BREAK ANY ONE OF THEM
