StantonRam

A point is all we need. Against an already relegated team who finished bottom. At home. How hard can it be? 50% of me is already celebrating, the other half is thinking the words "banana" and "skin"...

Plus ca change, plus ca la meme chose...

Sombreros...I turned up in mine last time to find that only about 6 people in the whole place had also bothered, so stuff that for a game of soldiers.

As someone said above, Posh can't finish with more than 89 points, same as Bolton, and we still have GD advantage over both. So - if we reach 90 points it doesn't matter what either of them do. Bolton's result last night puts them behind what I predicted, and makes it unlikely that they can now overtake us unless bizarre things happen on the final day. Possible scenarios Rams v Trotters: We win the last 2 games and we are 2nd no matter what. We win and draw the last 2 games and we have 90 points and are still 2nd no matter what. We draw both games, and if Bolton win both theirs then they are 2nd (89 points to our 88). Same thing would also be true if Posh won their last 3. However, since Posh play Bolton BOTH of those scenarios happening at once is impossible, it would be either one or the other above us but not both, and we would finish 3rd, with all the playoff advantages that brings. Let's hope however that it doesn't come to that. That seems to me to be a reason to really go for it on Saturday, as a win would really take the pressure off. No point accepting a point on Saturday, as this would only increase the pressure to win on the last day. If we won on Saturday and got to 89 points then GD would kick in, and we would still finish 2nd no matter what happens on the last day. Or at the very least we would go into the last day knowing that only the combination of both a heavy loss for us and a big win for Trotters or Posh (possible but unlikely) would change anything.

We are now 2 points ahead of my original prediction and require a win and a draw to reach 90 points. Bolton are exactly as I predicted and need 2 wins and a draw to reach 89 points. Added to which our GD margin has increased thanks to the 3 goals and clean sheet on Saturday. Once Bolton have played tomorrow things will become much clearer. A win for us on Saturday might just do it, depending on Bolton's results as well. Even a draw for us on Saturday might not be the end of the world, but it probably would mean a very tense and nervous last day. Let's hope we can get it done on Saturday, get the win and pray that Bolton don't win twice.

Sorry, yes, in my original prediction I forgot that Wycombe came before Orient. So my original prediction for us should have read 1, 1, 3, 1, 3, 3. We are still on track with that actually, 5 points from 3 games. However, the slip up v Wycombe leaves us needing 2 wins and a draw to be sure of the 90 points. By no means guaranteed given our apparent lack of scoring prowess of late. Personally I would settle for a point v Orient and then go all out v Cambs and Carlisle, maybe something like a 2 - 3 - 5 formation until we are 3-0 up or something LOL. IMO anything less than 90 points gives Bolton a golden opportunity. As for them, they are also on track with my prediction (7 points from 3 games). However, they now need a point from both Pompey and Posh, plus wins against both Port Vale and Shrews, to get to 89 points. Their run in is on paper trickier than ours IMO. It could still all come down to a final day shoot out, with us and Bolton both needing a win to secure 2nd place.

The conclusion that can be drawn from watching overperforming teams end up in the PL (Burnley, Norwich etc, the so called "yo yo" teams, prime example probably being West Brom) is that the momentum to be gained from having players who all know each other's games very well can take a club a long way. In the last decade we have had quite a few examples of teams that have been promoted from League 1 (or even League 2, Bournemouth as the classic example) and then from the Championship and into the PL within a few years afterwards with pretty much the same players (Ipswich this season for example). That, however, is often when things come unstuck. It's also a proven fact that newly promoted teams have had to dig deep financially to strengthen in the PL or go straight back down. This season, for example, Luton and Forest have spent big (too big in Forest's case) and are in with a chance of staying up, whereas Sheff Utd and Burnley have not and look destined for the drop. In 2007-8 we most definitely fell into this category, and we all saw the results of trying to stay in the PL on the cheap. It simply can't be done. Our more experienced players probably could cut it in the Championship, but by the time we went up again (if we did) they would have retired. The younger bunch (Cashin etc) are a mixed bag, but again I would trust them to compete in the Championship, at least initially. Ergo, the first season in the Championship would be a period of transition. Apart from the administration and the embarrassment of being in League 1 for 2 seasons, perhaps the biggest setback has been having to sell so many good players (Bird and Knight to name but 2), whereas had we stayed in the Championship they might still be here.

Stanton in Peak, beautiful place, actually moved in 2019 but for some reason only just got around to the name change on here. Am surprised that my attempt at humour, satirising the modern trend for people to make earth shattering announcements on social media about totally mundane and unimportant things, has attracted so much interest. In other news, and in keeping with the modern trend for everything to be preceded by a commercial, this message was brought to you by Lavazza espresso and the Roderigo Guitar Concerto (Concerto de Aranjuez).

I originally predicted that we would get 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, and 3 points from the last 6 games - 12 in all, bringing us up to 90 at the end. We are currently ahead of that because we have 4 points from 2 games not 2. I also predicted that Bolton would get 1, 3, 3, 1, 3, 1 and 3 points from their last 7 games - 15 in all, bringing them up to 89 points at the end, plus we should still have a superior GD. They are exactly as predicted so far. It is possible that they might overtake us at some point briefly, but I still think that we will secure 2nd place in the end. If Pompey beat them and we beat Orient then it's difficult to see how they would haul themselves past us with 3 games to go.

According to my previously expounded theory that we need 12 points from 6 games (total 90) because Bolton won't get more than 15 points from 7 games (total 89), right now we are ahead of that (4 points from the last 2 games rather than 2 points), whilst Bolton are on track as per my prediction (4 points from the last 2). I've predicted a win for them against the Gas tomorrow, so anything less than that makes us even more likely to be able to hold them off.

An announcement: As of today, the artist formerly known as LondonRam2 wishes to be known as StantonRam because that's where I live now. Message ends. Thanks for reading.

Great day for us today, TBH I don't care what Pompey do, the Posh and Barnsley results put them out of contention for 2nd place now, most important was the Bolton result combined with ours, which stretches the margin to 6 points now (or really 7 if you count our better GD). 2 wins and 3 draws minimum now will do it. It's now possible that on the 13th at home to Orient we might be celebrating a 2nd place finish with 3 games to go. To avoid the "commentators curse", I stress the word MIGHT above. Adams again proving the difference as he often has since coming here, surely he has to be persuaded to sign up for the long term so that a team can be built around him next season to compete in (hopefully) the Championship. I haven't checked how long his contract is, but surely we need to get him tied down for the next few seasons if we haven't already done so. Great to see Collins back and CBT getting a start.

IMO the bottom line is that we must assume for now that Bolton are capable of getting 15 points from 7 games, whilst still hoping that they will slip up somewhere. As I said before, that means that if we get 12 points from 6 games then we are finishing 2nd, especially if we can keep GD superiority over Bolton. Update - good news about today is that NML and Collins might start for us, and Jordan Rhodes is injured and won't feature for Blackpool. That might give us the edge over them going forward and creating chances. Most teams around us are having end of season injury problems as well, which maybe evens things up a bit. 12 points is what we need, doesn't matter how we get them or against which opposition. I really believe that 3 wins and 3 draws will be enough. My strategy would be to go all out for the win every game, rack up the 12 points as soon as possible and by then hopefully it will be done and dusted. Knowing us however, in reality we will probably get a surprise win against one of the teams around us and also a surprise loss in one of the last 3 games against the bottom half teams. Looking forward to what might well turn out to be a season defining weekend!

Good game this, so here's my 2p worth. Just for fun, I will assume that both Bolton and ourselves will draw against top 10 teams and win against the rest. That gives us: Rams - 3 draws (Blackpool, Pompey, Orient - next 3 games) followed by 3 wins - against bottom half teams, as our walking wounded start to return from injury/suspension, with Brown recalled from loan, and with other Academy discoveries stepping up, total 90 points Trotters - 3 draws (Stevenage, Pompey, Posh) and 4 wins, total 89 points On that arithmetic, we finish 2nd - BUT along the way, as we fail initially to get wins and Bolton creep up on us, and possibly even briefly snatch 2nd place (possibly in between the final whistle v Orient and the final whistle at Wycombe), then there shall be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, bums will be squeaky etc, BUT as we rack up those final 3 wins, each with 2-3 goal margins (thus reinforcing our GD advantage) their challenge will melt away and we are UP! Believe, brothers and sisters, beliiiiiieeeeeve! Hallelujah! etc... LR2

I'm neither pro nor anti Warne per se, and I do get the Clough analogies, but the plain fact is that, however bad things were (except for during the mid 1980s), this is the lowest, in league table terms, that we have ever been. This would be acceptable had we still been in extremely dire financial straits, lucky to survive (OK we were), plummeting down the leagues, having to play half of the U21s each week (as we did for a while under NC and others), and with an inexperienced manager. In those circumstances it's blind loyalty that counts, and we have collectively shown plenty of that in recent years, myself included. Fortunately, none of the above are true now. As I understand it, finances are now at least stable at this level, some good players have been brought in, and the home grown talent that we didn't have to sell is still here and still performing well for us at this level. Plus we have a manager who supposedly knows this league like the back of his hand. My point is that, given all those advantages, plus large home and away attendances, the PL standard infrastructure etc etc, I believe that we should be more competitive than we are. I believe this is because, for whatever reason, the whole is still less than the sum of the parts, whereas for many of the frankly ordinary sides we encounter the reverse is true. To return to my central point. If PW, supposedly knowing this league and the teams in it, and with the advantage of a superior squad, can't at least scrape an away point at Shrewsbury and get 3 points at Cheltenham, then what exactly is all that knowledge achieving on the pitch, and where is the evidence of that knowledge being applied on the pitch - where it counts? It does seem that many opposing teams, other than the most naive or unlucky, have sussed out how to contain us and/or beat us. So, a manager with PW's alleged knowledge and nous should have a solution, at least sometimes. I don't expect to win every game, even at this level, and despite the irritating verbally incontinent interviews I do still believe that PW is capable of getting us out of this swamp of mediocrity. However, the signs are that once that has been achieved his days will be numbered. I would love for him to prove me wrong, starting today.