You certain know your stuff, scruffy. Only handful of teams have been relegated since the creation of the premier league with one possibly two on the last 10 years with more than 38 points.

I think the mythical 40 point yardstick that keeps on being used is about precaution than anything.

It certainly ain't nothing to do with the squeaky bum ride my 37 points prediction entails.

My bum feels sore just thinking about it!

3 wins and 1 draw
2 wins and 4 draws
1 win and 7 draws
10 draws

Things look different when put like that.

Well, I would take a guess that when you haven't won since the 26th December and then picked up 4 draws and 4 losses (3 losses of which have been on the spin), you look at how you can accumulate the points required and whichever one of those ways you chose, all look rather daunting.

This time of the season wins become priceless as at the risk of stating the bleedin obvious you need 3 draws to compensate for just one win.

That's it more or less. My taking on it is that Hodgson's natural proclivity towards a defensive set-up has had the points ticking over to the extent that a win here and a few draws there has made us an unexciting but fairly steady mid-table team. This isn't a criticism, the results justify the means.
However, 2 points from the last 15, against teams more or less around us, with 3 straight defeats, alarm bells must surely be ringing.
My state of the art, master of the bleedin' obvious chart indicates what is needed, particularly relevant given the dip in form at this moment in the season.
I note Burnley won today, a fine result for them, finding good form just at the right time.

Edited by southnorwoodhill (15 Feb 2020 5.08pm)

And in the early Premier League years there were more teams, 22 I think, hence the minimum points total required to stay up being a little higher. At that time, people talked about 42 points being the magic number - again a point a game.

Hopefully we'll all feel a bit more comfortable after the next few games!