Thetownend.com

Sky Bet League Two

Christmas Day leaders to win the title: 40%
Christmas Day leaders to win promotion: 75%
Christmas Day leaders to claim at least a Play-Off spot: 100%

Bar a 9 goal swing in goal difference on Saturday its looking good.  :D

Have we reached the 53 points we need to avoid relegation yet?

In relegation zone at Christmas but avoiding the drop: Sky Bet League Two: 55%

Is 53 a league 2 or league 1 average? it seems very high for league 2! with 1 relegation spot this year i may even say that our current total is already enough!

If we're playing percentages here, FiveThirtyEight have some clever algorithmic stuff going which I choose to think must be accurate as I like the numbers...

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/soccer-predictions/league-two/

I think once we got the final and most important piece in the jigsaw, the experienced right back, we were guaranteed safety.

It's a Reg FACT from some time in 1963 or something when a team went down with 53 points despite being in the play off spots at Christmas. A warning to us all never to allow optimism or indeed any kind of enjoyment of football run away with us for the grim reaper of relegation is always just around the corner. Never dare to dream

If you go back to the start of the playoffs (32 years) in a league such as league 1 (normal year) - with 2 automatic, 4 playoffs and 4 relegated, then  in most years 86 or 87 points would be enough for top 2 - there will be the odd year when 3 teams are well adrift of the rest but those are few in number. Similarly, 76 points for a play off spot and 51 to be safe from relegation.
In League 2, with the extra promotion place, 84 should be enough for top 3, and 73 probably sufficient for playoffs. With 2 relegated (normal year) 44 points would be safe, this year with only 1 going down 41 will be enough.
So the doubters can celebrate - we are already safe from relegation!

There was no relegation from Div 4 in 63. You may get moist about promotion from Div 4, but although welcome I'm not sure here would be much triumphalism..... I doubt the privatised local bus companies have the open top bus in mothballs in the depot any longer.  We'll need to hire one form Oxford who love that sort of thing, wheeling it out for finishing 3rd in the Conference.

I expect something more like this:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-17973826

Hopefully Wellens will not turning up looking like he has just done a burglary..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeGA7sA8HDw

But it would be nice to have something to celebrate.

Wierdly I was driving home today and was wondering to myself I wonder what the stats are concerning teams that are top at Christmas vs final position.

This has saved me the research!

Another interesting fact is that by league goals scored already by Doyle, he would have finished as 4th top scorer in league 2 even if he didn't score again with only Norwood on 29, Walker on 22 and Agard and Maynard both finishing on 20 goals last season.

Only Ajose in the last 10 years has scored more league goals in a single season than he has.

That shows how much we have missed a decent striker recently.

^^andy Williams got 21 in 14/15

I missread it as 18 league goals. Yes correct, so Doyle is 1 behind him now.

Assume this is a few years out of date? Not sure of it's changed much mind

https://www.efl.com/news/2016/december/revealed---statistics-efl-christmas-day-league-positions/

I think you should go on their forum to bring them down to earth. They've been getting a bit carried away recently.

I did have a character on their forum some years back... it was fun, but I got bored.  Although I say it myself, when they had the Argentine i/c  the reference to the Shelley poem Ozymandias, too good to miss......

And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Oxymandiaz, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

They were on their way to the Conference.

Alright Boris, calm down