The run-in

[TonyDomingos]

We're f ucked. The sooner we accept it the easier the run in will be.

Think anyone with sanity has realised that a fair while ago.

But, anyone who is Insane hasn't yet realised it?

[ChrisC]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

[twilight]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

Yep you're daft, but I'm with you there. Next 5 games here we go. Let Battle commence!! ...(Hopefully)

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

If we get nine points out of those I will personally put your name forward for sainthood to the Vatican, nominate you for EU President, agitate for you to receive the Noble peace prize, and have a word with the Queen to get you a knighthood... Sir Saint Chris.

[jonnycooper]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

We will need to take at least 9 from these! And possibly more,as other teams around us are also fighting to stay up! And we don't seem to have the fight.

[twilight]

Yeah, I am kind of living in hope than expectation. My heart so wants us to stay up, my head is saying something completely different...but I don't want to listen to my head yet

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

At about half past four we were only four points from safety.

This race will have its swings yet, but as I've said on the last two match threads, it don't matter what goes on elsewhere if we can't help ourselves.

[BWFC_Insane]

At about half past four we were only four points from safety.

This race will have its swings yet, but as I've said on the last two match threads, it don't matter what goes on elsewhere if we can't help ourselves.

Race? Race? Christ I wouldn't define our predicament as being in a race. More like a tame surrender.

[jonnycooper]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

If we get nine points out of those I will personally put your name forward for sainthood to the Vatican, nominate you for EU President, agitate for you to receive the Noble peace prize, and have a word with the Queen to get you a knighthood... Sir Saint Chris.

Nobel spotty! Nobel!

[Rjs37]

IF we are to survive then we HAVE to win some away games. Starting at Leeds.

Looking at the remaining games, our easiest opponents are away. Unfortunately for us and our wonderful away record.
To stand half a chance, we probably need to win at least 2 or 3 of our away games. Leeds, Bristol, Fulham and maybe Brentford look to be the most likely candidates.

Assuming a win at home against Charlton, we'd still probably need to find another 3 or 4 home wins.

Other than Charlton and Reading, all of our remaining home games are against the top 10.
Ipswich look like a good target, today was their first away win since December. Their form has been erratic at best.
Reading are probably the next best target.

But that still leaves us probably needing another couple of wins.

What I've said would involve us having to win 4 of the next 5 games. As the run-in after that gets even tougher.
We need a miracle pretty much.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

At about half past four we were only four points from safety.

This race will have its swings yet, but as I've said on the last two match threads, it don't matter what goes on elsewhere if we can't help ourselves.

Race? Race? Christ I wouldn't define our predicament as being in a race. More like a tame surrender.

One, I didn't necessarily say we were in the race.

Two, if that was a tame surrender today, it was an odd way to go about it, what with having majority possession against title contenders and going in front and having more shots and all.

Three, you appear not to have read the final clause of my post in your haste to hysteria.

Four, you've made your opinion clear on several occasions as to our spinelessness, and I would venture to suggest you haven't always been fair.

Five, you've also predicted doom (financial) on several occasions, and I would venture to suggest you haven't always been right.

So, in all, I disagree with you and I would say that the relegation race - yes, race - is still alive and well, but I will repeat that whether or not we fully participate in it is far more up to us than to anybody else.

[BWFC_Insane]

At about half past four we were only four points from safety.

This race will have its swings yet, but as I've said on the last two match threads, it don't matter what goes on elsewhere if we can't help ourselves.

Race? Race? Christ I wouldn't define our predicament as being in a race. More like a tame surrender.

One, I didn't necessarily say we were in the race.

Two, if that was a tame surrender today, it was an odd way to go about it, what with having majority possession against title contenders and going in front and having more shots and all.

Three, you appear not to have read the final clause of my post in your haste to hysteria.

Four, you've made your opinion clear on several occasions as to our spinelessness, and I would venture to suggest you haven't always been fair.

Five, you've also predicted doom (financial) on several occasions, and I would venture to suggest you haven't always been right.

So, in all, I disagree with you and I would say that the relegation race - yes, race - is still alive and well, but I will repeat that whether or not we fully participate in it is far more up to us than to anybody else.

Yesterday was a good example of our spinlessness. Game was there to be won. Bit more bottle and we would have done. Sadly this team folds all too quickly all too often under only the slightest pressure.

Not sure what the financial stuff has to do with this and we are hardly out of the woods as yet with the football league apparently questioning the deal with sports shield.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Couldn't possibly be anything to do with a team that is better than us, more confident than us and with players that are able to score goals on a regular basis.

[Hoboh]

This thread should be renamed, "how fast can we drop"?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I still think we have time. Most probably think I am daft but our next 5 are.. Leeds/Ipswich/Preston/Bristol/Reading.

Points to be had. If we don't get 9 points from them, I will give up hope.

If we get nine points out of those I will personally put your name forward for sainthood to the Vatican, nominate you for EU President, agitate for you to receive the Noble peace prize, and have a word with the Queen to get you a knighthood... Sir Saint Chris.

Nobel spotty! Nobel!

Awwww, shit. I can only blame it on bobophone syndrome.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I have no doubt we can avoid relegation - mathematics doesn't lie.
I just don't believe we will... (unless a major transformation is enacted player/management wise in the next day or so).

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I have no doubt we can avoid relegation - mathematics doesn't lie.
I just don't believe we will... (unless a major transformation is enacted player/management wise in the next day or so).

Yeah, sounds about right.

Been looking at the numbers again, with increasingly morbid fascination. I’m still working on the metric of the number of points gained by the third-bottom team, ie the one to beat, if only on goals scored. And despite Rotherham’s weekend win, it’s still the slowest pace for a decade. And only three times in the past decade has the 22nd-place points total gone up more than 12 points in the last 12 games.

22nd position after 34 games, going backwards from this season: 29, 31, 29, 35, 28, 34, 37, 34, 36, 35
22nd position after 46 games, going backwards from this season: ??, 41, 44, 54, 40, 42, 47, 46, 52, 42
Pts difference 34-46 games, going backwards from this season: ??, 10, 15, 19, 12, 08, 10, 12, 16, 07

Given all that, I still think 42 points would do it. That’s 17 from our last 12, which is still less than winning half of them – not exactly snookers, to use (I think) Kangana Sr’s phrase. And with the greatest respect to Kangana Sr, who raised a fine intelligent son, the difference with snooker is that only one protagonist plays at once.

We have six home games left, and winning all of them might well be enough. But that’s a tall order, and assuming we don’t beat Boro or Hull, we’d need two away wins: Bristol City and Fulham seem the best, although Leeds, Brentford and Cardiff are hardly unbreachable citadels.

And yes, I know, I know. We’re not very good. But nor is it impossible, over or beyond imagination, unless you have no imagination. All that said, I point our beloved Bolton in the direction of these quotes from an old friend of ours, currently engaged in his own battle to avoid relegation from the division above:

“If the season finishes now, we are relegated, so you have got to get to 38 points or better, it’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter what anybody else does, you have got to go and do it yourself. You can’t rely on others, you have got to do it yourself. If you rely on others, you’ll get relegated.”

So, in the spirit of adventure and idle speculation while we wait for the hammer to fall, how would we do it? How could we do it? Feel free to paste your own predictions in hereafter.

Sat 5 Mar Leeds
Tue 8 Mar IPSWICH
Sat 12 Mar PRESTON
Sat 19 Mar Bristol City
Sat 2 Apr READING
Tue 5 Apr Brentford
Sat 9 Apr Derby
Sat 16 Apr MIDDLESBROUGH
Tue 19 Apr CHARLTON
Sat 23 Apr Cardiff
Sat 30 Apr HULL
Sat 7 May Fulham

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I have no doubt we can avoid relegation - mathematics doesn't lie.
I just don't believe we will... (unless a major transformation is enacted player/management wise in the next day or so).

Yeah, sounds about right.


So, in the spirit of adventure and idle speculation while we wait for the hammer to fall, how would we do it? How could we do it?

OK I'll play, but the question I'll answer is how will we fail.
Earlier, on page one of this thread I presented another metric, a way of looking at our chances of staying up is to compare our run in matches against a designated rival. I assumed back then, with 17 games to go, that our relegatees would be Charlton and Bristol, with Rotherham as our rival. Charlton are going down (I have no doubt about that whatsoever) but Bristol has accelerated away from danger leaving Rotherham as a potential relegatee, and our rival to stay up I will now designate as MK Dons.
Using the same formula I did before (counting the league places of our run-in match opponents - I shall not bother with the weighting I used back then) MK Dons score 150 to our 142. A high score is better and therefore they have an easier run in.

MK Dons run in:
H QPR 11
A Charlton 24
H Hull 2
H Brighton 4
A Fulham 20
H Wolves 13
H Rotherham 22
A Preston 10
A Sheff Wed 6
H Brentford 14
A Ipswich 9
H Forest 15

vs our (Bolton Wanderers) run in:
A Leeds 17
H Ipswich 9
H Preston 10
A Bristol 19
H Reading 12
A Brentford 14
A Derby 5
H Middlesboro 3
H Charlton 24
A Cardiff 7
H Hull 2
A Fulham 20

This is how I see it progressing (and we really are getting to the idle speculation stage here)
wk1 we both lose, us away to Leeds, MKDs to QPR [points diff still -7]
wk2 MKD beat Charlton away, and we draw to Ipswich at home [-9]
wk3 MKD lose to Hull and we beat Preston at home [-6]
wk4 we both lose MKD at home to Brighton and us away to Bristol - reality really begins to set in [but point diff still only -6]
wk5 we both draw, MKD away to Fulham, us at home to Reading [-6]
wk6 MKD beat Wolves and we draw away at Brentford [-8]
wk7 MKD beat Rotherham at home and we lose to Derby away [-11]
wk8 MKD lose to Preston and we magnificently draw against Middlesboro [-10]
wk9 MKD get slaughtered away to Wednesday and we stuff Charlton by seven goals to nil. Survival hysteria sweeps Bolton [-7]
wk10 MKD beat Brentford at home and we lose away at Cardiff. [-10 point diff bye bye Championship on Sat 23rd April St George's Day]
wk11 we both lose them to ipswich us to Hull
wk12 they draw to Forset and we can't even get away win as we lose to Fulham.

we end up 11 points adrift of MK Dons 46 - 35

[LeverEnd]

That seems realistically pessimistic Spotty.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

My future as a futurologist stands or falls, this week, on:
wk1 we both lose, us away to Leeds, MKDs to QPR [points diff still -7]

(In order to reach Soothsayer Advanced Level (Nostradamus) I require 12 merit badges. If I get this week right I progress to Soothsayer Beginner (Mystic Meg).)