Play offs?

I'm not getting carried away because I've thought we have looked a mid table outfit all season and we are currently just above that, but.................1 point off the top seven after 27 games despite being a bit hit and miss has to be a good position from which to start thinking they are a possibility.

With that in mind, i had a look at how many points are needed to get that 7th spot and went back 5 years. It ranges from 69 to 75 points, which was last years total. So if you take 72 as an average, we need 33 points from 19 games. On the face of it, that is a tall order; something like 11 wins or 10 wins, 3 draws. Form over the last 6 games would see us do that comfortably if we maintained it and in theory, we should be a better side with the new signings, but of course, theory and statistics/probabilities never won anything.

Looked at in a different way, we just need to match and slightly better by a couple of points, the teams directly above us and i don't think that is impossible looking at those teams around us. Some teams will maintain current form, some will better it and some will fall away. I think from what i have seen, that we have as good a chance as anybody around us. We have gone from the hardest league to get out of, to the easiest, not that i'm saying it's easy at all.

Anyway, Sunday morning musings. What do others think?

I think we will finishes closer to 1st than last. Back of my mind I'm keeping an eye on how close we are to the play offs. I've already told the Mrs I might take her to London for a weekend if we go to Wembley  
IF we don't get in the play offs and finish mid table I'll be satisfied, but yes the play offs are possible.

Hendo - whose presence may almost certainly play a pivotal role in how the season shapes up, here on in - was particularly bullish in his interview; suggesting we should not even just be aiming for the playoffs!

I frickin' love that attitude  

Next six games

Stevenage (A) - in free fall won one is six - 3 points

Luton (H) doing ok - 1 point

Crewe  (A) - easy money 3 points
Newport (A) - easy money 3 points
Mansfield (H) - tough game game 0 points - though it would be nice to turn a corner with a fine home win
Colchester (H) - Tough game again 0 points

Interesting to see that run of games, if we do well agaisnt Crewe and Newport and then get good results against Mansfield and/Colchester at home then yep we are gonna make a great charge for the play offs. Confidence will be up, fans will be singing their hearts out !!

I think we will be established back in the playoffs by the end of Feb. Before the end of Feb we're playing 7 teams- 5 of which are below us, and 4 of those are away games where our form is vastly better. I reckon we have the beating of all 5 beneath us leaving two tricky home fixtures to play off contenders Luton and Col U.  Stevenage are in a dreadful run of form and Newport are rock bottom so hopefully these are bankers.

Stevenage 15th a
Luton 6th h
Crewe 19th a
Newport 24th a
Mansfield 12th h
Morecambe 17th a
Colchester 7th h

Somerset we were writing practically the same post simultaneously. We're on the same page.

Quoted from somersetmariner

Next six games

Stevenage (A) - in free fall won one is six - 3 points

Luton (H) doing ok - 1 point

Crewe  (A) - easy money 3 points
Newport (A) - easy money 3 points
Mansfield (H) - tough game game 0 points - though it would be nice to turn a corner with a fine home win
Colchester (H) - Tough game again 0 points

Interesting to see that run of games, if we do well agaisnt Crewe and Newport and then get good results against Mansfield and/Colchester at home then yep we are gonna make a great charge for the play offs. Confidence will be up, fans will be singing their hearts out !!

Still think it is most likely we will be up and down for the rest of the season.

Still very much work in progress and a long way from the finished article. We were outplayed by Exeter last week and for 45 mins yesterday laboured against the worst side I have seen this season. On our day we are capable of a Plymouth type performance but equally capable of a Crawley or Exeter showing.

The additions will help, but doubt they will gel immediately and as we continue to look for our best line up inconsistency is more likely than a great run

Can we make the play offs? Yes, of course. Will we make the play offs? I think we will lack the consistency to do so.

Hope Ginny optimism is well founded and we can find a stunning run

Just booked my flights
Arrive Heathrow early Friday 28th April, shake off jet lag then Barnet away
Visit Grimsby for the Plymouth game then sticking around for the rest of May and the play offs wherever they take us
Looking forward to Wembley but if Hendo is right will just enjoy the celebrations

Quoted from AussieMariner

Just booked my flights
Arrive Heathrow early Friday 28th April, shake off jet lag then Barnet away
Visit Grimsby for the Plymouth game then sticking around for the rest of May and the play offs wherever they take us
Looking forward to Wembley but if Hendo is right will just enjoy the celebrations

Good work. Absolutely love this.

Quoted from Trawler

Somerset we were writing practically the same post simultaneously. We're on the same page.

I Think so Trawler - for me the season rests with Colchester and Mansfiled at home - win one or both of them we will have momentum - btw shall we try and pick next weeks lotttery numbers??

Last season we were down and out after a stuttering end of season and being behind in the semi after the home leg, but come the crunch we performed to our potential. Our potential this season would see us in the playoffs, will be difficult to achieve the consistency we need from here on in, but in terms of results our form is pretty good. With attitudes like Hendo's we have a chance. UTM

Anything is possible but I think we will finish 10th / 11th and I'll take that for our first season back.

It's possible but despite 3 points against a poor team yesterday the home form will need to improve we have proved we can pick up points away all season.

I would love to see it happen but some factors need to fall into place, keeping Hendo, The defence which overall has been good since December stays solid and the injuries are kind to us. Most of all though we still need to be creating more chances in games, if we  do that the goals should come as will the momentum.

There are other teams in this league that will be thinking the same and have shown form at the right time e.g. Exeter, Cambridge, Colchester and Wycombe have all been on decent runs and got themselves up there before the window closes. Keep an eye on Mansfield too as despite him being "Marmite" Evans knows how to win promotion via the play off's.

My opinion is heart says 6th or 7th head says 9th or 10th.

I'm pretty much in line with Herts on this one. Play offs are certainly doable. But there are some tough teams we're likely to come up against. Pick two from Pompey, Luton, Carlisle, Plymouth plus whoever else makes it.

Quoted from Cloudy

Still think it is most likely we will be up and down for the rest of the season.

Still very much work in progress and a long way from the finished article. We were outplayed by Exeter last week and for 45 mins yesterday laboured against the worst side I have seen this season. On our day we are capable of a Plymouth type performance but equally capable of a Crawley or Exeter showing.

The additions will help, but doubt they will gel immediately and as we continue to look for our best line up inconsistency is more likely than a great run

Can we make the play offs? Yes, of course. Will we make the play offs? I think we will lack the consistency to do so.

Hope Ginny optimism is well founded and we can find a stunning run

Good post Cloudy, exactly my thoughts too.

We are comfortably mid table without really getting going all season, there are lots of poor teams in this league. If the team can start to click and we really hit some form it's easily possible. We will really need to improve though.

We are 11th just one point offtje pkay offs.  Just think about this, there are a few teams with the same ambitions.  We won yesterday but didn't move up the table.  Its not going to be as easy as everyone thinks.
If it was we'd all be lottery millionaires.

Have to say County, Mansfield, Stevenage, Morecambe, Newport and Accrington looked poor sides. Yet Carlisle, Crewe, Portsmouth and Exeter looked good sides and Plymouth, Hartlepool, Orient and Wycombe looked, meh.

Quoted from Cloudy

Still think it is most likely we will be up and down for the rest of the season.

Still very much work in progress and a long way from the finished article. We were outplayed by Exeter last week and for 45 mins yesterday laboured against the worst side I have seen this season. On our day we are capable of a Plymouth type performance but equally capable of a Crawley or Exeter showing.

The additions will help, but doubt they will gel immediately and as we continue to look for our best line up inconsistency is more likely than a great run

Can we make the play offs? Yes, of course. Will we make the play offs? I think we will lack the consistency to do so.

Hope Ginny optimism is well founded and we can find a stunning run

Yeah, i think this is the way i am leaning too but i still can't get out of my mind that without really playing that well, we are only one point off the play off places. Do we even need a stunning run to make it? It's not so much optimism as reality for me. I think we are more likely to get better than we are worse.

If we look at the rest of the games in blocks of 6, we need 11 points per block, with another game to spare. We took 13 points from the last 6 games, so it's do-able. Think the thing to do is see where we are after the next 6 and take it from there.

If I had to put money on it, I would say 9th or 10th as we've not quite got the consistency.

Looks like we'll be competing with Wycombe, Colchester, Exeter, Luton, Cambridge and Barnet for one of three places.  If we can get to the end of March still within three or four points, we'll have a chance to make run at it.  The next six games could be crucial as has been said.  If we can get three wins out of the next four we'll be in a good place with tricky games following.

The concern for me would be home games against some tricky teams near the top.  I wonder if maybe we need to change the mindset around these games and realise that not losing really is vital (since not only is it a point gained, but denies a playoff rival points too).  That would require some patience from the BP crowd, which isn't something it's renowned for.

Just run the Promotion calculator thing and, because it's running on other teams form and the only predictions I made were GTFC, it basically took it to the last day against Plymouth. I put us to win on the basis that Plymouth would be promoted by then and that gave us 7th but if we lost we would be 10th.

We have more players and better players, with the possibility of 2 more coming in. We have more attacking options now.

This should help us when things go wrong.  This might make the difference to just getting in the play-offs or not.

Although I think it is possible we might make the play-offs, in reality it may be a step too far. The important thing is to keep the results coming in and as a consequence the continued interest of the fans coupled with consistently higher than budgeted gates is a definite bonus. I get the impression that although MB has the play-offs in his sights he is really putting together a squad that will make a serious promotion push next season. He has said that he is always planning one transfer window ahead and some of the players he has signed have become available sooner than he anticipated. I always got the impression that PH signed some players as " makeweights " especially in the January window. MB on the other hand has definite players in mind and exactly what role he has in mind for them. I think we can look forward to interesting times ahead and I think MB will prove to be a very astute acquisition along with his coaching staff.

I think a lot of it depends on what happens with Omar, only 10 days to go now and he's ours if we surpass the milestone.

We could very well do a Bristol Rovers and gain back to back promotion, although this all depends on whether we improve our home form. We have lost 43% of our home games, for a play-off push this needs to be better. This town team has a tone of depth, which is great if we get injuries or suspensions for a play-off push.

I'm just delighted we are speaking about the Play-off's this time of year than the slight worry of if we would be in a relegation dogfight. Take each game as it comes and we will see. Believe we are too inconsistent though, we will need much better performances at home to have any chance of it.

The main thing is that we are pretty much safe from relegation now.  Dag & Red and York went down with 34 points last season and we're already above that.  The fact that we are near the play-offs without ever looking like putting a good run together should make everyone optimistic for the second half of the season.  Really looking forward to it.

UTM

Notts were a poor side but to be fair I think Town made them look bad as well. The 3-5-2 overwhelmed them in midfield and for once we kept that momentum going and they didn't sink back into a 9-0-1. Players looked to do something positive with the ball and the only thing that stopped us sometimes was the lack of someone to pass to.

Things will get brighter when the work off the ball making angles for passes improves as the players start to know more about the way MB wants them to play. Osborne made a difference not just because he has some talent but because his positional play is good as well. To me he looks like a Nolan with a tackle. He can make things happen.

In the long run, over the next two months say, I think progress will depend less on who we play than on how we play.

Quoted from The_Laughing_Mariner

  Its not going to be as easy as everyone thinks.
If it was we'd all be lottery millionaires.

i pick the winning numbers out nearly every week........i am just too tight to spend the initial £2 on a ticket  

will see how the additional firepower settles in....i hope Omar can get to grips with the fact that building a succesful strike partnership will benefit him....a sucessful strike partnership (whether with or without Omar) would ignite our season.