Bobby The Brain
Weasel
Love it.
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The Relegation Dogfight 23/24
- Thread starter UnfinishedBusiness99
- Start date
Red Ray's Redlist
Viv Anderson
Luton have a small squad and are relying on the likes of Ross Barkley and Andros Townsend for quality. The intensity of the league and the way they play must surely effect them soon. We had a virtual team out injured by now. As soon as players do start to miss games for them their results will fall off a cliff.
If they get through the season without serious disruption from injury then we should be signing their medical team.
If they get through the season without serious disruption from injury then we should be signing their medical team.
Red Dog in a Dinghy
Viv Anderson
Onyeka (DM) has featured regularly for Brentford. He’s is the Nigeria squad as well.
Hopefully Toney has either been sold or is rusty as hell.
Based on form and whose missing it’s a great chance of 3 points.
donny
Jack Armstrong
In the last 10 seasons, the lowest amount of points required to finish 17th, has been 35 (the 2019/20 season), and even then, that was last day survival, with one team (Norwich) being well adrift at the bottom.
If we can get to 38-40 points in the second half of the season, then we should be OK.
If we can get to 38-40 points in the second half of the season, then we should be OK.
Mr. Blonde
John Robertson
30 points is the most we'll need for survival
Guaranteed
Guaranteed
RianBrice
Viv Anderson
Not now Luton have picked up.
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
He's joking.
Seems to have taken it to heart that my opinion of 30 points being enough needs dragging up at every possible opportunity.
It's more than tedious.
SlabSquareHero
A. Trialist
I don’t think 30 will be anywhere near enough. Luton’s siege mentality and sheer determination to never give up until the final whistle will mean they will get wins at home.
RianBrice
Viv Anderson
No worries… I’ve obviously missed something, somewhere… again!
ColwickReds
A. Trialist
38 should be enough, I see us finishing on around 40-45 points.
Beat Man Utd tomorrow and we’re definitely staying up. That would have us back on a point a game and belief in the squad would be huge.
Beat Man Utd tomorrow and we’re definitely staying up. That would have us back on a point a game and belief in the squad would be huge.
Trents
John Robertson
6 more wins and we'll be safe. Perhaps 5.
Brentford away in a few weeks is a biggie. Hopefully Burnley dead and buried if it does come down to the last day.
Brentford away in a few weeks is a biggie. Hopefully Burnley dead and buried if it does come down to the last day.
I don't like that we have to play in the last 3 games Burnley and Sheffield United if they're already relegated as it can generate some freak performances when playing with no pressure.
Monkman
Jack Burkitt
35 points would have kept us up last season too, Leicester finished on 34.
Hungry Horace
First Team Squad
Got a couple of massive away games if we’re still in the mix come the final weeks.
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A dogfight? Only one man for the job:
Captain Sinister
Senior doom Monger
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
I still think it'll be a low points total.
Quality of the bottom three is lower than it has been in previous seasons and extrapolating the first half points total towards end of season results in Luton getting to around 30 points, and that's after scraping by a faultering Newcastle and getting two fluky own goals against Sheff Utd.
Think we'll know better by end of next month. I reckon Sheff Utd and Burnley will be practically down by then. Luton have a run of easier fixtures in January so depending how they do in those then you can start to pencil in lower 30s (or less) or mid 30s (or more).
Luton quite reliant on a small core group of players too, as the season goes on and they pick up injuries and fatigue they don't have the same options in reserve as other teams to.
I just can't see beyond bottom three as it is going down, mostly without much of a whimper. Fingers crossed that's a sound judgement anyway.
Quality of the bottom three is lower than it has been in previous seasons and extrapolating the first half points total towards end of season results in Luton getting to around 30 points, and that's after scraping by a faultering Newcastle and getting two fluky own goals against Sheff Utd.
Think we'll know better by end of next month. I reckon Sheff Utd and Burnley will be practically down by then. Luton have a run of easier fixtures in January so depending how they do in those then you can start to pencil in lower 30s (or less) or mid 30s (or more).
Luton quite reliant on a small core group of players too, as the season goes on and they pick up injuries and fatigue they don't have the same options in reserve as other teams to.
I just can't see beyond bottom three as it is going down, mostly without much of a whimper. Fingers crossed that's a sound judgement anyway.
Statto
Free Kick Specialist
It depends on a lot.
Sheff Utd are showing that a relatively weak team going up and not improved is a weak PL team. But they are also skint so can't really do a lot of improvement on the squad knowing they will probably go down again and need to pay for that.
Burnley are also weak and also pretty inexperienced and they aren't helped by Kompany sticking to his principles where a more pragmatic approach would probably help get them some more points on the board. Like Sheff Utd I'd assume they are happy going back down with the money in the bank and experience to go back up and make more of it.
Neither of them will probably stay up so it's Luton or someone else for the third spot.
They have desire but not a lot of quality, a lot of players have come up the leagues with them as opposed to being PL experienced. Their ground will probably get them more points because of the weird factor of visiting it. Kaminski is a decent keeper but he won't win them matches, just like Navas for us last season keeping the score down a bit which keeps them in the game. Adebayo is a handful with his size but typically otherwise a bit of a lump. Their only real quality players are Townsend and Barkley who are doing well for them at the moment but not clear how long they will be able to keep that up due to injuries, loss of form, suspensions, as they've been hit and miss through their careers. There's also the issues around Lockyer and whether he will be able to play for them again after having 2 heart related collapses. Unfortunate for the lad as he was one of their best players and they might need to find a replacement. But in general they appear to be something at the moment where the stars are mainly aligned for them but they are only a couple of injuries and some bad VAR calls off struggling.
It says a fair amount that the teams above them are clear or should be - Everton obviously have won more points from their results than the table suggests, then there's us, where we've been on the end of some finer margins in the bad run and otherwise would have more, and a bunch of others who should be safe but likewise swap between good and bad runs - Bournemouth were a bit dodgy early on but had a good run and moved away for now, Wolves and Fulham did similar, then there's Brentford and Palace.
Unlike last season when Leeds and Leicester were at one point quite clear and ended up going down, you could see that any of those sides (Southampton, Palace, Leeds, Leicester, Wolves, us, Bournemouth, Everton) were in the battle and that largely speaking the bottom 3 at any point up until the end were capable of stringing a run to get out of it - can we see that with the current 3? I don't
Rzar
Bob McKinlay
We can debate it till the cows come home at the end of the day we don't know what the point total is going to be because there is so many variables, you can only go on what's happened so far which would indicate low 30s tops.
I think all the bottom 3 are all benefiting from this winter period where everyone is knackered or depleted personally.
If Brentford don't get a result from the next two games against us and Palace they will be the ones to catch
I think all the bottom 3 are all benefiting from this winter period where everyone is knackered or depleted personally.
If Brentford don't get a result from the next two games against us and Palace they will be the ones to catch
Rzar
Bob McKinlay
I agree.
Think realistically if we limp to March with a point a game we will stay up comfortable IMO. We have a decent final 10 games compared to most which will always leave it in our hands. We only play Spurs & City in the top 10 over the last 10 games, and City is at home.
We have got most of our super difficult away games out the way already, nobody else in the scrap has.
A good month from here will put us in a strong position as will always be the case in this league! We survived last year based on 2 good months.
MaxiRobriguez
Bob McKinlay
To further quantify:
Leicester finished on 34 last year in 18th and had 17 points at the half way point, West Ham occupied 18th spot at that point.
Burnley finished on 35 the year prior in 18th, had 17 points at the half way point.
Fulham finished on 28 the year prior in 18th, had 13 points at the half way point.
Bournemouth finished on 34 the year prior in 18th, had 20 points at the half way point.
Not going back any further as my toddler is about to wake up but there's two things that stand out here for me:
1) Mid 30's is your reasonable worst case scenario, not a floor that must be hit.
2) indicates that points obtained in the first half of the season is more likely than not to be replicated in the second half of the season, or that teams get weaker in the 2nd half of the season.
Based on that, and assuming Sheff Utd and Burnley are already done, then Luton's spread is somewhere between 26 and 34 points, median on the 30, with the lower half trajectory more likely than the upper half.
(Which gives some data behind my thinking 30 will be enough, even though obviously there's no guarantees about that and if we had to rely on that it would be absolutely sickening going into final few games).
Monkman
Jack Burkitt
Also shows that having 17 points at the halfway point (hello 2023 Forest) isn't necessarily a good sign...
Bob Rosario
Banned
Low 30s should be enough this year.
Sheff Utd (9 points) are gone so I wouldn't worry about them. Burnley (11 points) most likely too. To give a bit of context both of them have less or equal points at this stage than a lot of teams that have meekly gone down in recent years.
21-22: Norwich (10) Watford (14)
20-21: Sheff Utd (5 lol) WBA (11)
19-20: Norwich (12) Watford (13)
18-19: Huddersfield (10) Fulham (11)
17-18: Swansea (13) WBA (14)
Sheff Utd (9 points) are gone so I wouldn't worry about them. Burnley (11 points) most likely too. To give a bit of context both of them have less or equal points at this stage than a lot of teams that have meekly gone down in recent years.
21-22: Norwich (10) Watford (14)
20-21: Sheff Utd (5 lol) WBA (11)
19-20: Norwich (12) Watford (13)
18-19: Huddersfield (10) Fulham (11)
17-18: Swansea (13) WBA (14)
Hungry Horace
First Team Squad
As much as I hate them, you have to hand it to Luton. They’re not giving up are they?
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