Today's T&A article Thursday 21/2/2019

Agree. Whilst I declare it as a must win game, I'm off no illusion that Walsall will see this as a winnable game too. Possibly they see it as a must win game too.

This game is likely to yield more of a disappointment from our perspective as we simply must win IMO.

 

Are four other teams really going to get that many points though?

 

Which means somethings have / need to change.
Be that the mentality of the Players, Hopkin - or both.

Our defensive play has resulted in just ONE goal conceded in the last 3 games ............... BRAVO !!
Yet our play beyond the back four has yielded just ZERO ......... Yes Nil, Nada, Zilch goals, offensively.
The fault is OUR mindset, not the opposition ........... They have called that right.

Let's just wait and see ......... Is Hopkin a Leopard, or a (losing) Chess player ?

 

Fair question @JonButterfield. I'd originally posted we would need 53 points, I'm now of the mind/guessing around 50/51 points.

Good question mind!

 

I've no agenda. I want Hopkin to keep us up but I don't believe he should manager next season the way he is talking and handling situations.

How anyone can be pro Hopkin is beyond me but hey.

 

I also think it's going to be a bit lower now. 50-51 sounds about right to me too.

 

Is 46 enough to stay up?

 

Every season is different but no team has stayed up on 46 since 2011/12.

 

I know, that's why I was querying @Bigrod 's assumption.
I also know from bitter experience 42 points doesn't keep you in the PL either

 

I honestly feel we will win on Saturday.

 

Steady on mate

 

I do mate.

We played awful against Fleetwood and 1st half against Plymouth.

What we can't afford is to start poorly against Plymouth.

We need to play for 90 mins plus minutes.

It s Hopkin's last chance because if we don't WIN then 15k fans will turn on him no matter what!

If we can't beat either Fleetwood, Plymouth or Walsall then we deserve to go down and Hopkin should walk.

 

Seems I have a reputation to maintain... Here we go, then.

In 99/00 Oxford survived on 45 points, and in 90/91 Fulham survived with 46, but only 3 sides were relegated that season. (Swansea, in 20th, had 48.) Those two seem to be the lowest amounts of points gained by surviving third-tier sides in the 3-points-for-a-win era.

One thing to remember is that minimum points needed to survive may well be lower than the actual points gained by the 20th place side -- e.g. in 2011/2 44 points would have meant survival, as Wycombe on 43 were in 21st, but 19th and 20th Walsall and Orient each had 50. Similarly, in 2001/2 45 points meant survival, but 20th-place Northants had 49.

In any case, it would really help if we could up our current pace a bit. Fortunately there are other sides currently on far worse runs than us -- see my post in the "Relegation" thread. But I'd be much happier not having to rely on those bad runs continuing.

RCB

 

Reputation maintained. Though your cricketing team, had my eyes rolling!!