Just looking at our squad and we've got experience in abundance.

We've got the players from the great escape/great catchup campaigns but also Ellison, Maynard, Ledley, Taylor and Telford.

These players have great game management and have been in some real pressure situations in their careers.

Add to this the younger quality we have and we've got a great chance.

If you're going to find form and go on a run then no better time to do it than with 8 games to go especially when I think a lot of people had written us off.

Win our game in hand we're a point behind 3rd.

supporter wrote:Just looking at our squad and we've got experience in abundance.

We've got the players from the great escape/great catchup campaigns but also Ellison, Maynard, Ledley, Taylor and Telford.

These players have great game management and have been in some real pressure situations in their careers.

Add to this the younger quality we have and we've got a great chance.

If you're going to find form and go on a run then no better time to do it than with 8 games to go especially when I think a lot of people had written us off.

Win our game in hand we're a point behind 3rd.

Absolutely. Get Mansfield out the way this Friday with a win or draw. Then have 5 home games. 2 away, and that includes Southend last game of season who will most probably be relegated by then. So travel to games shouldn’t be a cause for fatigue. Cambridge, Cheltnum at home and Exeter away. Great opportunity this season. All to play for.

supporter wrote:Just looking at our squad and we've got experience in abundance.

We've got the players from the great escape/great catchup campaigns but also Ellison, Maynard, Ledley, Taylor and Telford.

These players have great game management and have been in some real pressure situations in their careers.

Add to this the younger quality we have and we've got a great chance.

If you're going to find form and go on a run then no better time to do it than with 8 games to go especially when I think a lot of people had written us off.

Win our game in hand we're a point behind 3rd.

Completely agree with everything you say, however..........

As others have said, we were the best team in the league in the first half of the season, the table doesn’t lie. Since then, with players leaving, we have lacked some consistency whilst MF rebuilds. Win a few, lose a few, it is so frustrating. Won 4, lost 3 in the last 7. A few draws in there wouldn’t go amiss as long as they had come from the losses.

I have learned not to be an optimist with the County. Realism rules. We can be on a great run and then suddenly, crash bang wallop. County do this to you, bas****s It always seems to be a rollercoaster, never seasonal consistency, I think the last time that happened was when we won the Conference years ago.

Always want us to do well of course but I am not building my hopes up just yet. What’s the song? Que sera sera. Cmon the County.

pembsexile wrote:

supporter wrote:Just looking at our squad and we've got experience in abundance.

We've got the players from the great escape/great catchup campaigns but also Ellison, Maynard, Ledley, Taylor and Telford.

These players have great game management and have been in some real pressure situations in their careers.

Add to this the younger quality we have and we've got a great chance.

If you're going to find form and go on a run then no better time to do it than with 8 games to go especially when I think a lot of people had written us off.

Win our game in hand we're a point behind 3rd.

Completely agree with everything you say, however..........

As others have said, we were the best team in the league in the first half of the season, the table doesn’t lie. Since then, with players leaving, we have lacked some consistency whilst MF rebuilds. Win a few, lose a few, it is so frustrating. Won 4, lost 3 in the last 7. A few draws in there wouldn’t go amiss as long as they had come from the losses.

I have learned not to be an optimist with the County. Realism rules. We can be on a great run and then suddenly, crash bang wallop. County do this to you, bas****s It always seems to be a rollercoaster, never seasonal consistency, I think the last time that happened was when we won the Conference years ago.

Always want us to do well of course but I am not building my hopes up just yet. What’s the song? Que sera sera. Cmon the County.

If we win 4 and lose 3 of our next 7 and every other team in the top 12 picks up their average points per game so far this season over their remaining games up to the last game of the season, we will go into the last game of the season in 6th place 4 points (4.5 points if that were possible) ahead of Exeter in 8th. We would be half a point ahead of FGR in 7th and 2 points (1.8 ) behind Tranmere and Bolton in 3rd and 4th.

12 points from 7 games is better than our season average.

Keep the faith everyone we can do this

Interesting stats Amberexile.

For me the season has been in phases and to achieve automatic we'll have to replicate our early season form, no reason why we can't do this because we've already done it.

Not sure why but I think we're better after being written off, previous campaigns have proved that.

Amberexile wrote:

pembsexile wrote:

supporter wrote:Just looking at our squad and we've got experience in abundance.

We've got the players from the great escape/great catchup campaigns but also Ellison, Maynard, Ledley, Taylor and Telford.

These players have great game management and have been in some real pressure situations in their careers.

Add to this the younger quality we have and we've got a great chance.

If you're going to find form and go on a run then no better time to do it than with 8 games to go especially when I think a lot of people had written us off.

Win our game in hand we're a point behind 3rd.

Completely agree with everything you say, however..........

As others have said, we were the best team in the league in the first half of the season, the table doesn’t lie. Since then, with players leaving, we have lacked some consistency whilst MF rebuilds. Win a few, lose a few, it is so frustrating. Won 4, lost 3 in the last 7. A few draws in there wouldn’t go amiss as long as they had come from the losses.

I have learned not to be an optimist with the County. Realism rules. We can be on a great run and then suddenly, crash bang wallop. County do this to you, bas****s It always seems to be a rollercoaster, never seasonal consistency, I think the last time that happened was when we won the Conference years ago.

Always want us to do well of course but I am not building my hopes up just yet. What’s the song? Que sera sera. Cmon the County.

If we win 4 and lose 3 of our next 7 and every other team in the top 12 picks up their average points per game so far this season over their remaining games up to the last game of the season, we will go into the last game of the season in 6th place 4 points (4.5 points if that were possible) ahead of Exeter in 8th. We would be half a point ahead of FGR in 7th and 2 points (1.8 ) behind Tranmere and Bolton in 3rd and 4th.

12 points from 7 games is better than our season average.

At the end of the season it is the average points per game that will decide where we finish. It is the square wave mentality of the last 7 games that shows the inconsistency. Win 3, lose 3, then win 1. We need consistency over a spectrum of games. No doubt other teams close by will put on a spurt, we will need to match them.

We have 8 games to play. Our record over our last 8 games is won 4, lost 4. I think we need to improve on that. 12 points from 8 games. 1.5 points per game. Will that be enough? How does that equate to our season average? It actually makes it slightly worse by 0.08 points per game. I just don’t think that is enough. We need to improve that over these games to improve our seasons average.

The good thing is that there have been some very strange results this season. We were the only team in the top 9 to win on Monday. Salford below us did win and we need to watch a few of those teams. Going on an unbeaten run like Bolton before Monday would be superb at this stage of the season.

If (big if) we make the play offs my view is that we need to avoid Tranmere at all costs. That’s just an opinion.

Pembs if we do what we've done in 2 previous catch up campaigns then we'll go automatic.

Big ask yes but we've done it twice before, also if we aim for top 3 we'll definitely make the playoffs, if we make the playoffs it would mean current form is good and I'd fancy us to at least make the final.

Imagine only being able to watch 1 game and its Wembley away now that's something to dream of though I'd prefer automatic, not even thinking about missing the playoffs.

supporter wrote:Pembs if we do what we've done in 2 previous catch up campaigns then we'll go automatic.

Big ask yes but we've done it twice before, also if we aim for top 3 we'll definitely make the playoffs, if we make the playoffs it would mean current form is good and I'd fancy us to at least make the final.

Imagine only being able to watch 1 game and its Wembley away now that's something to dream of though I'd prefer automatic, not even thinking about missing the playoffs.

I hope you are right mate. At the start of the year I thought we would be serious contenders for automatic promotion although with the County there is always a but....

The annoying thing is that we have gone from the standout team in the league at the years end to an average team that we are now. Consistency is the key, none of this win 3, lose 3 nonsense. I just feel that we will need to up our average points per game and get more than 12 points from the remaining 8 games. We can do better than that. We have done.

I have had thoughts about the one game we may be able to watch. Dreamland indeed. If it’s Wembley I just hope it is not Tranmere. Don’t want to go through that again.

Nice problem to have though Pembs.

supporter wrote:Nice problem to have though Pembs.

Too true mate

I like your use of "square wave mentality" and "spectrum of games" Pembs.

At the end of the season it is the average points per game that will decide where we finish. It is the square wave mentality of the last 7 games that shows the inconsistency. Win 3, lose 3, then win 1. We need consistency over a spectrum of games. No doubt other teams close by will put on a spurt, we will need to match them.

We have 8 games to play. Our record over our last 8 games is won 4, lost 4. I think we need to improve on that. 12 points from 8 games. 1.5 points per game. Will that be enough? How does that equate to our season average? It actually makes it slightly worse by 0.08 points per game. I just don’t think that is enough. We need to improve that over these games to improve our seasons average.

The good thing is that there have been some very strange results this season. We were the only team in the top 9 to win on Monday. Salford below us did win and we need to watch a few of those teams. Going on an unbeaten run like Bolton before Monday would be superb at this stage of the season.

If (big if) we make the play offs my view is that we need to avoid Tranmere at all costs. That’s just an opinion.[/quote]

pembsexile wrote:
At the end of the season it is the average points per game that will decide where we finish. It is the square wave mentality of the last 7 games that shows the inconsistency. Win 3, lose 3, then win 1. We need consistency over a spectrum of games. No doubt other teams close by will put on a spurt, we will need to match them.

We have 8 games to play. Our record over our last 8 games is won 4, lost 4. I think we need to improve on that. 12 points from 8 games. 1.5 points per game. Will that be enough? How does that equate to our season average? It actually makes it slightly worse by 0.08 points per game. I just don’t think that is enough. We need to improve that over these games to improve our seasons average.

The good thing is that there have been some very strange results this season. We were the only team in the top 9 to win on Monday. Salford below us did win and we need to watch a few of those teams. Going on an unbeaten run like Bolton before Monday would be superb at this stage of the season.

If (big if) we make the play offs my view is that we need to avoid Tranmere at all costs. That’s just an opinion.

If we take 12 points from our next 8 games we will finish with 1 more than we did when we made the playoffs 2 seasons ago and is generally right on the cusp of scraping in or just missing out.

If every team repeats their form of the last 8 games over their remaining matches, we would finish 6th. Tranmere would be 5th.

I agree with the above views but am of the ‘glass half empty’ view myself (a deliberate ploy by forum users like myself & Corky because we want County to feel wounded and underdogs as we play better when we’ve got something to prove!).

Of the 8 remaining games, I realistically can see us achieving the following -

Away v Mansfield - a win but probably a draw.
Home v Carlisle - I predict an away win here.
Home v Cambridge - they’re top, another away win.
Hone v Crawley - despite their improving form I can’t see beyond a home win.
Away v Exeter - 2 sides chasing play-off places, home win.
Home v Scunthorpe - home win.
Home v Cheltenham - they’re currently second and have been consistently good all season - away win.
Away v Southend - they’ll be battling to avoid relegation so a draw at best methinks.

So I reckon we’ll get 8 points from our final 8 games which would give us 68 points / 1.478 PPG. This would leave us below FGR & Exeter based on their current PPG and finish 9th or 10th.

Amberexile wrote:

pembsexile wrote:
At the end of the season it is the average points per game that will decide where we finish. It is the square wave mentality of the last 7 games that shows the inconsistency. Win 3, lose 3, then win 1. We need consistency over a spectrum of games. No doubt other teams close by will put on a spurt, we will need to match them.

We have 8 games to play. Our record over our last 8 games is won 4, lost 4. I think we need to improve on that. 12 points from 8 games. 1.5 points per game. Will that be enough? How does that equate to our season average? It actually makes it slightly worse by 0.08 points per game. I just don’t think that is enough. We need to improve that over these games to improve our seasons average.

The good thing is that there have been some very strange results this season. We were the only team in the top 9 to win on Monday. Salford below us did win and we need to watch a few of those teams. Going on an unbeaten run like Bolton before Monday would be superb at this stage of the season.

If (big if) we make the play offs my view is that we need to avoid Tranmere at all costs. That’s just an opinion.

If we take 12 points from our next 8 games we will finish with 1 more than we did when we made the playoffs 2 seasons ago and is generally right on the cusp of scraping in or just missing out.

If every team repeats their form of the last 8 games over their remaining matches, we would finish 6th. Tranmere would be 5th.

Recent previous seasons are a pretty reliable indicator (not guaranteed though) of what is required for the playoffs. If we take 7th place;

In 2019 County got 7th with 71 points
In 2018 Lincoln got 7th with 75 points
In 2017 Blackpool got 7th with 70 points
In 2016 Wimbledon got 7th with 75 points
In 2015 Plymouth got 7th with 71 points

If we repeat our last 8 game average of points per game (1.5), we will end up on 72 points. This average is slightly below our season average. I suggest we need to improve our points per game average and get a final points tally of at least 74 points. 14 out of 24 available. We are probably not going to go undefeated as we have some tough games coming up. Four wins and two draws, that should suffice. We can certainly do it if we manage to repeat our form of the first part of the season.

Late season consistency, that is the key. Carlisle are on a run, we need to watch the teams below us as they will push on. The teams above us in the playoffs seem to be faltering slightly. This probably won’t last and they may turn it around. We need to take advantage now.

74 points this season is my prediction of what is required for 7th place.