Fortunately, The Numbers Add Up!
By The Eye Magazine published 4 April, 2012 No CommentsLook at any league table after three quarters of a season’s games are completed and the statistics will tell you that the teams in the bottom half of the league are almost certainly the worst. League tables are built purely on results. They don’t lie; they don’t allow for degrees of misfortune and don’t take into account the number of injuries that need to be dealt with. Instead, league tables rightly show that over a season-long number of games these things even themselves out. And that’s why, when you look at the current Championship table the following teams deserve to be in their current position because they are not good enough to be any higher:- Portsmouth (24th); Coventry (22nd); Bristol City (21st); Millwall (19th); Peterborough (18th); Ipswich (15th) and Crystal Palace (14th).
Sadly, the common denominator amongst the seven teams listed above is that each of them came to the Riverside this season and returned home with a point. Add to that the draws against Blackpool (7th); and Leicester (11th) plus a series of 0-2 defeats against Reading (2nd), West Ham (3rd), Leeds (10th) & Burnley (16th) and the total number of lost home points is a massive 30. Had we managed to win just half of those lost points we would now be sitting comfortably in the second automatic promotion spot.
By now I’m sure you’re thinking that this is just another excuse to use statistics to knock ‘Boro’s performances, but it’s quite the opposite. The undeniable fact confirmed by the above statistics is that our away form has been absolute class and most certainly solid reason for complete optimism that we can make the play-offs. At the time of writing (prior to Ipswich away on March 27th) we are left with just three home games and five away games. Analysis of the season’s results to date show that on a pro-rata basis the number of points we can expect from our remaining games is therefore 6 at home and 11 away. That would give us a total of 78 points. If that could be achieved – and let’s be honest, it’s only our average for the season – our two nearest rivals (Cardiff and Blackpool) would need to score 18 points from 7 games to match us. They’re just not going to do it!
If I’m now beginning to sound like one of those sad ‘Boro fans who cling to any statistic that might point to imminent success I apologize. In my defence, however, I think the reason that I sound like that is because I am actually one of those sad ‘Boro fans who cling to any statistic that might point to imminent success. And if further proof were needed might I also point out that while I have had two wives in my life I have only ever had one football team. Looking ahead it’s highly improbable that I’ll ever have another wife but I’m absolutely bloody certain I’ll never have another football team!
Come on ‘Boro. You can do it!!!
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