The Relegationometer™ (2023/24)

[Geordie Ahmed]

1 hour ago, Raconteur said:

They've just spent years (and 350m) acquiring the club. They might well have planned to spend modestly in January, but the future of the club is on the line - they're going to spend in order to protect their investment.

 

As for attracting players, if you listen to rumourmongers, Trippier and Lindgard are as good as signed. The new executive mentioned three players they certainly want, with another two or three if necessary. It becomes more apparent every week that those extra two or three are pretty fucking necessary.

They will have known relegation is a possibility especially considering the situation we were in when they took over

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they took a conservative approach and planned it around the very strong possibility that we go down but get signings in now that we can sell the idea of maybe a year in The Championship (so maybe Tarkowski, Nketiah etc)

[Lush Vlad]

Weirdly, after just losing 3-1 and 4-0.  I am more positive than I was after Leicester.  

 

Howe showed he can change the set up and tactics the last two games.  We were in the game against Liverpool from sitting in and playing on the counter.  We had some bad luck, shit decisions and individual fuck ups that led to goals.  Then the game was ended by a thunderbastard of a strike, that you can't really do a lot about. 

 

Then yesterday, we have gone for a high press against one of the best sides in the world and in the first half, actually caused them a few problems with it, should have had a penalty and again, their goals came from our mistakes and yet another belter of a finish (helped by yet more mistakes).  Second half was a bit of a non-event and they had already won at 2-0.  But I'm still trying to look for the positives! 

 

If we can get 3-4 starting quality players in.  Then I have seen enough from Howe and certain players to be hopeful of going on a mini run of wins and draws.  I mean, why not?  Pardew and Bruce have pulled off some win streaks and they are atrocious managers. 

 

We are also massively helped by the fact that I still think the league is pretty crap.  Got 3 teams at the top that look a lot better than anyone else.  Then kind of 4-5 teams below that are much of a muchness.  Then the rest look mediocre/shite.  Ourselves included.  All this talk about never being done before from our position.  Just ignores the fact that we are not yet cut adrift, despite only picking up 10 points in 18 games.  Just got to hope the games in hand go our way, I suppose.....  

[Happinesstan]

22 hours ago, Jaqen said:

Same position as before really. We are 3 points from safety and have the January transfer window coming up. 

 

To say we are 'definitely' down before we've seen who we can bring in and have a very favourable run in for the next few months is a bit daft. 

Not really. Watford didn't have two games in hand, before. Nor did Burnley have 3 games in hand. Obviously they still need to play those games and get points, so I suppose you could say we are in the same osition but our closest rivals are in an improved situation.

[GWN]

5 hours ago, Lush Vlad said:

Weirdly, after just losing 3-1 and 4-0.  I am more positive than I was after Leicester.  

 

Howe showed he can change the set up and tactics the last two games.  We were in the game against Liverpool from sitting in and playing on the counter.  We had some bad luck, shit decisions and individual fuck ups that led to goals.  Then the game was ended by a thunderbastard of a strike, that you can't really do a lot about. 

 

Then yesterday, we have gone for a high press against one of the best sides in the world and in the first half, actually caused them a few problems with it, should have had a penalty and again, their goals came from our mistakes and yet another belter of a finish (helped by yet more mistakes).  Second half was a bit of a non-event and they had already won at 2-0.  But I'm still trying to look for the positives! 

 

If we can get 3-4 starting quality players in.  Then I have seen enough from Howe and certain players to be hopeful of going on a mini run of wins and draws.  I mean, why not?  Pardew and Bruce have pulled off some win streaks and they are atrocious managers. 

 

We are also massively helped by the fact that I still think the league is pretty crap.  Got 3 teams at the top that look a lot better than anyone else.  Then kind of 4-5 teams below that are much of a muchness.  Then the rest look mediocre/shite.  Ourselves included.  All this talk about never being done before from our position.  Just ignores the fact that we are not yet cut adrift, despite only picking up 10 points in 18 games.  Just got to hope the games in hand go our way, I suppose.....  

 

 

im down a notch at 8 weirdly , I fancy a draw v Man Utd and the results have been very helpful recently. Still within range the only plus out of this period preJan but remember we still have to get players in who are fit and up to playing from game 1 , something not guaranteed folks .I don’t think it’s a gimme at all this window solves our predicament.

[Lush Vlad]

I don’t think we will go wild at all this transfer window. Not expecting massive spending at all. But if we can get a couple of starters signed, plus the same again on loan in the right positions. Then I think that will make a world of difference. 

[Hanshithispantz]

It's a gamble either way but if we don't spend big we're down like. Obviously a couple of loans could help 

 

A month or two ago I thought we could have afforded to only purchase what what right for the club going forwards also keeping in mind FFP but we really need to get some proven quality in.

 

Like we need a midfielder or winger capable of bagging 10+ goals a season. 2 top fullbacks and an absolute beast of a CDM as a minimum I'd say. Probably a CB and a keeper to make sure of it.

 

Edit: Oh and another striker wouldn't hurt.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[Hanshithispantz]

We essentially need to turn ourselves into a 'consistent mid table side pushing for a European place' within a month.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[NWMag]

3 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

We essentially need to turn ourselves into a 'consistent mid table side pushing for a European place' within a month.

 

 

 

We don’t though. We need 4 more points than Watford, Norwich and Burnley. They may only get 10 more points each, who knows

[Hanshithispantz]

7 minutes ago, NWMag said:

We don’t though. We need 4 more points than Watford, Norwich and Burnley. They may only get 10 more points each, who knows

That isn't how it works though. For all we know Nowrich, Watford and Burnley might finish mid table. Obsessing over other team results at this stage is fruitless tbh.

 

Statistically we know how much points we need and there's no chance we'll get them without massively strengthening the side.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[GWN]

15 minutes ago, Hanshithispantz said:

That isn't how it works though. For all we know Nowrich, Watford and Burnley might finish mid table. Obsessing over other team results at this stage is fruitless tbh.

 

Statistically we know how much points we need and there's no chance we'll get them without massively strengthening the side.

 

 

 

you have no idea how many points we need , 1 more than 3rd bottom is the only target .To say it’s fruitless watching other results is a daft thing to say because without results going our way against them we have no chance .

 

I agree we need strengthening , I suspect it won’t be massively though . 

[Hanshithispantz]

6 minutes ago, GWN said:

you have no idea how many points we need , 1 more than 3rd bottom is the only target .To say it’s fruitless watching other results is a daft thing to say because without results going our way against them we have no chance .

 

I agree we need strengthening , I suspect it won’t be massively though . 

Eh, we can use statistics from previous seasions to indicate the odds of the points we will need. 

 

It's fruitless to obsess over the results of teams around you in december because the teams around us can also strenghen and kick on. I mean it's nice not to be bottom of the table but ultimately it doesn't change the fact that we will be required to reach a certain point threshold by the end of the season (of which we can get an indicator of looking at statistics).

 

If we don't strenghen massively I cannot see how we stay up outside of pure luck tbh.

 

 

 

 

[Hanshithispantz]

Basically we shouldn't be looking at Watford or Burnley and thinking "are we better than them?" 

 

We need to be looking at the predicted points tally for relegation and thinking "what do we need to do to guarantee we hit that as an absolute minimum."

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[midds]

Last game of the season could be tasty. 

[Dokko]

Come another defeat from Manu we will have played half the season and accumulated 10 points. Christ.

[Awaymag]

4 minutes ago, Dokko said:

Come another defeat from Manu we will have played half the season and accumulated 10 points. Christ.

only way is up!!

 

Seriously though, if NUFC do get their shit together in this transfer window, other teams down there have to be really worried.   We won't be this bad in the second half of the season and we only need to gain  3-4 points more than others!

[McCormick]

Excuse the Bruceism but It really is about point accumulation at this point. We need to win just under half of our games from now on. I just don’t see it.

 

I also don’t see us spending that much in January to fix enough of our glaring issues, so maybe I’m just a pessimist. 

[healthyaddiction]

13 minutes ago, McCormick said:

Excuse the Bruceism but It really is about point accumulation at this point. We need to win just under half of our games from now on. I just don’t see it.

 

I also don’t see us spending that much in January to fix enough of our glaring issues, so maybe I’m just a pessimist. 

Not sure we have to win half our games. We're 3 points from safety.

[Hanshithispantz]

I haven't looked at it properly but I think it's somewhere around 35 points will usually see you stay up. So like 7 wins and 4 draws from 20 games. Realistically we want to be aiming for like 38-42 (somewhere around the mark where you're pretty much guaranteed survival).

 

If we pick nothing up from Man Utd or Everton, which is entirely possible, that means we're going into January looking to build a squad capable of picking up at least 25 points from 18 games. Whichever way you look at it that's the kind of form that sees you comfortably mid-table and potentially challenging for a Europa place over the course of a season. We have 3 games in Jan too so we need to be quick with our signings.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[Hanshithispantz]

 

Even with something like that our back-up is very poor. We cannot bring in shit either, we need proven quality players in all of those positions.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Hanshithispantz

[Guest]

We really need to go on a ‘4 wins in 6 games’ sort of run after Man Utd like. 

[SUPERTOON]

AFCON goes ahead, think that leaves Watford without 6 players.

[Cf]

I might be being overly optimistic but I don't feel like there's any chance we go down. We're nowhere near as cut adrift as we might have been in other seasons and we'll make a few signings in January to plug the obvious gaps we have.

[Interpolic]

I'm still pretty positive, mainly due to the gap being fairly small still. 

 

My main concern atm is whether we have signings lined up for early January or if that's going to drag on through the month. Also the quality we're able to attract, obviously.

 

Say we bring in 5 players then you can probably assume 1 or 2 aren't going to be huge hits, therefore we really need to maximise the marginal gains we'll get from the others. And that includes the extra few weeks we'd get by signing them early. 

[Dr Venkman]

On 19/12/2021 at 15:58, toon25 said:

I just don't see where the surprise/unexpected results are going to come from to keep us up

[Guest HTT II]

I’m staggered people still think we can/will stay up, the stats suggest otherwise, everything does. Me, it will be tough to take, but I’m confident either way we will see success in the coming years and next season whatever division we are in, with his own players, I’m sure Howe will have us excelling.