With about a quarter of the season left relegation is now impossible. If we can play with a sense of freedom then there is no reason why we shouldn't make the playoffs.

That of course applies to just about every team in the top half of the table. My gut feeling is that we will make the playoffs.

I was planning a week away after the last game, but we are tantalisingly close to seventh place. After the MK game, my mate said "go ahead and book your holiday". I almost did....... then we got another three points.... I can see it going on like this for a few more weeks.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:With about a quarter of the season left relegation is now impossible. If we can play with a sense of freedom then there is no reason why we shouldn't make the playoffs.

That of course applies to just about every team in the top half of the table. My gut feeling is that we will make the playoffs.

Unlikely but not impossible Brendan. Until both of the bottom two clubs cannot match our current point we are not theoretically safe.

We are currently on 49. Notts County could get to 62. Macclesfield could get to 63. A few weeks yet until the impossible I suspect. Sooner rather than later.

pembsexile wrote:

Stan A. Einstein wrote:With about a quarter of the season left relegation is now impossible. If we can play with a sense of freedom then there is no reason why we shouldn't make the playoffs.

That of course applies to just about every team in the top half of the table. My gut feeling is that we will make the playoffs.

Unlikely but not impossible Brendan. Until both of the bottom two clubs cannot match our current point we are not theoretically safe.

We are currently on 49. Notts County could get to 62. Macclesfield could get to 63. A few weeks yet until the impossible I suspect. Sooner rather than later.

Sorry to bore you, but we are currently the 11th best team in the division in terms of points collected per game. In order to occupy 7th place, we need an improvement of just 8% over the number of points we'd normally expect to collect, based on our performance up to now. At one point we needed to improve by 14%, then 11%....now 8%.
I still think we'll narrowly miss out, unless we put a run of 3 wins together.

We are currently 12th on 49 points fgr are 7th on 54 pts and Exeter are 5 th on 56 pts, 7 points between us and 6th, I can't see any reason why we cant make that up in the remaining games, but then again i'm a glass half full man not half empty and you have to take into account we have a game in hand which is against Swindon at home who are only 1 point in front of us win that and we are only 2 pts off the play off's, then it would be game on.

newgroundrodney wrote:

pembsexile wrote:

Stan A. Einstein wrote:With about a quarter of the season left relegation is now impossible. If we can play with a sense of freedom then there is no reason why we shouldn't make the playoffs.

That of course applies to just about every team in the top half of the table. My gut feeling is that we will make the playoffs.

Unlikely but not impossible Brendan. Until both of the bottom two clubs cannot match our current point we are not theoretically safe.

We are currently on 49. Notts County could get to 62. Macclesfield could get to 63. A few weeks yet until the impossible I suspect. Sooner rather than later.

Sorry to bore you, but we are currently the 11th best team in the division in terms of points collected per game. In order to occupy 7th place, we need an improvement of just 8% over the number of points we'd normally expect to collect, based on our performance up to now. At one point we needed to improve by 14%, then 11%....now 8%.
I still think we'll narrowly miss out, unless we put a run of 3 wins together.

You aren't boring me NGR, I love stats. I was merely commenting on the fact that we are not safe mathematically from relegation just yet.

I agree with your comment about the play offs. I suspect that we will finish about 9th or 10th some 4/5 points outside the playoffs. There is a mathematical possibility that we can do it of course, but I just don't think we will.

Barnet went down with 51 points some years ago,they were extremely unlucky with that total.Don't think the likes of Macclesfield will get near that so we are safe even if we lost every game.My feeling is,we are too inconsistent and will probably finish tenth.The one thing I know is that you never know what to expect from us,so who knows,we could make the playoffs.I certainly hope we can stay in with a shout as long as possible,to keep the attendance from dropping off.

Percy plunkett wrote:Barnet went down with 51 points some years ago,they were extremely unlucky with that total.Don't think the likes of Macclesfield will get near that so we are safe even if we lost every game.My feeling is,we are too inconsistent and will probably finish tenth.The one thing I know is that you never know what to expect from us,so who knows,we could make the playoffs.I certainly hope we can stay in with a shout as long as possible,to keep the attendance from dropping off.

I agree. It is not impossible that one of the struggling clubs will overhaul 49 points. But I can't see at least two of the strugglers
not making it to 49.

Percy plunkett wrote:Barnet went down with 51 points some years ago,they were extremely unlucky with that total.Don't think the likes of Macclesfield will get near that so we are safe even if we lost every game.My feeling is,we are too inconsistent and will probably finish tenth.The one thing I know is that you never know what to expect from us,so who knows,we could make the playoffs.I certainly hope we can stay in with a shout as long as possible,to keep the attendance from dropping off.

We were too inconsistent prior to the "Great Escape" and then look what happened.

With a settled squad and the diversion of Cup out of the way, anything could happen.

Regarding the dream to make the play-offs and indeed make it to League 1:

Did a little research and as far as I can see that the following players' contract or loan arrangements will come to an end when this season finishes: Joe Day; David Pipe; Dan Butler; Josh Labadie; Matty Dolan; Tyreek Bakinson; Josh Sheehan; Tyler Hornby-Forbes; Andrew Crofts, Mark O'Brien, Mickey Demitrou; Vashon Neufville; Regan Poole; Ben Kennedy and Harry McKirdy.

If they all depart we are left with Nick Townsend; Scott Bennett; Fraser Franks; Robbie Willmott; Podge; Keanu Marsh-Brown; Jamille Matt and Adebeyo Azeez. Others might include Owen Taylor; Thomas Hillman and Lewis Collins, but admit I don't know much about these and can't recall seeing them play. However, is this a team to set league 1 alight. If we get there, can we survive?

papajohn wrote:Regarding the dream to make the play-offs and indeed make it to League 1:

Did a little research and as far as I can see that the following players' contract or loan arrangements will come to an end when this season finishes: Joe Day; David Pipe; Dan Butler; Josh Labadie; Matty Dolan; Tyreek Bakinson; Josh Sheehan; Tyler Hornby-Forbes; Andrew Crofts, Mark O'Brien, Mickey Demitrou; Vashon Neufville; Regan Poole; Ben Kennedy and Harry McKirdy.

If they all depart we are left with Nick Townsend; Scott Bennett; Fraser Franks; Robbie Willmott; Podge; Keanu Marsh-Brown; Jamille Matt and Adebeyo Azeez. Others might include Owen Taylor; Thomas Hillman and Lewis Collins, but admit I don't know much about these and can't recall seeing them play. However, is this a team to set league 1 alight. If we get there, can we survive?

I see this from the opposite point of view. If in the very unlikely event we make league 1, the question would be, who of those players, other than the loanees, we would want to keep. Of those out of contract, I'm guessing they would all want to extend their stay at the club. We will also have Fulston for next season, plus the ability to sign additional players, curstesy of the FA cup money.

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

papajohn wrote:Regarding the dream to make the play-offs and indeed make it to League 1:

Did a little research and as far as I can see that the following players' contract or loan arrangements will come to an end when this season finishes: Joe Day; David Pipe; Dan Butler; Josh Labadie; Matty Dolan; Tyreek Bakinson; Josh Sheehan; Tyler Hornby-Forbes; Andrew Crofts, Mark O'Brien, Mickey Demitrou; Vashon Neufville; Regan Poole; Ben Kennedy and Harry McKirdy.

If they all depart we are left with Nick Townsend; Scott Bennett; Fraser Franks; Robbie Willmott; Podge; Keanu Marsh-Brown; Jamille Matt and Adebeyo Azeez. Others might include Owen Taylor; Thomas Hillman and Lewis Collins, but admit I don't know much about these and can't recall seeing them play. However, is this a team to set league 1 alight. If we get there, can we survive?

I see this from the opposite point of view. If in the very unlikely event we make league 1, the question would be, who of those players, other than the loanees, we would want to keep. Of those out of contract, I'm guessing they would all want to extend their stay at the club. We will also have Fulston for next season, plus the ability to sign additional players, curstesy of the FA cup money.

Good point. But could we afford them?

papajohn wrote:

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:

papajohn wrote:Regarding the dream to make the play-offs and indeed make it to League 1:

Did a little research and as far as I can see that the following players' contract or loan arrangements will come to an end when this season finishes: Joe Day; David Pipe; Dan Butler; Josh Labadie; Matty Dolan; Tyreek Bakinson; Josh Sheehan; Tyler Hornby-Forbes; Andrew Crofts, Mark O'Brien, Mickey Demitrou; Vashon Neufville; Regan Poole; Ben Kennedy and Harry McKirdy.

If they all depart we are left with Nick Townsend; Scott Bennett; Fraser Franks; Robbie Willmott; Podge; Keanu Marsh-Brown; Jamille Matt and Adebeyo Azeez. Others might include Owen Taylor; Thomas Hillman and Lewis Collins, but admit I don't know much about these and can't recall seeing them play. However, is this a team to set league 1 alight. If we get there, can we survive?

I see this from the opposite point of view. If in the very unlikely event we make league 1, the question would be, who of those players, other than the loanees, we would want to keep. Of those out of contract, I'm guessing they would all want to extend their stay at the club. We will also have Fulston for next season, plus the ability to sign additional players, curstesy of the FA cup money.

Good point. But could we afford them?

Yes. Surely our income would increase considerably with an enhanced E.F.L. payment and improved gate receipts.

.[/quote]

Good point. But could we afford them?[/quote]

Yes. Surely our income would increase considerably with an enhanced E.F.L. payment and improved gate receipts.[/quote]

Apparently, there is a hefty cash injection from the EFL for promoted clubs but can't find a definitive figure of what that would be. Average players' salary in League One appears to be between £1,700 and £2,500 a week, and if we have a squad of 26 players, their annual salaries alone equates to somewhere between 2.5 and 3.7 Million £ per year (assuming they are paid 52 weeks) and that's without other business/managerial/back room staffing costs.

Our average home gate of is 3200-or so, how could we afford this? Hopefully that would improve. But to what extent? Is it financially sustainable?

The EFL basic award and solidarity payment for the 2017/18 season was £900k L2 and £1.3m L1. Not sure of figures for this current season.

PL teams payments range from £100-150m, depending on final league position and TV appearances.
Championship clubs get £6.5m.
Parachute payments for those clubs dropping out of the PL is £90m over 3 seasons.