March 27 2014

The Barclays Premier League trophy

Jamie Seekings has gone through all the relevant numbers and analysed Crystal Palace's chances of staying up.

So two more games down since I last wrote – and things are no clearer and maybe even tighter! What I’ve done this time is go back through the points I made last time to what’s changed.

The 40 point mark is now irrelevant – As I mentioned before 40 points is rarely a requirement to stay up and this year is certainly shaping up that way.

The table below shows the bottom group of clubs as per the league table. What I’ve then done is add on the point per game that equates to (PPG), the historical last 10 game PPG for that position in the league (as talked about in my last article), what each teams PPG is over this seasons last 10 games played, and the PPG to get to 40 points.

As you can see to get to 40 points from Swansea downwards would take a PPG game that is significantly higher than (a) current run rate (b) what history says (c) what their recent form has been - especially true for Cardiff and Fulham.

Normally what would inspire an upturn in form would be a managerial change, a player signing or a returning injured player - currently only Swansea fit that bill with the return of Michu (22 in 43 for the Swans last year).

I’ve then used those PPG’s to extrapolate a finishing position using the current PPG, historical PPG and the last 10 games played PPG. As I mentioned previously I wondered whether 36 would be our “magic number”, and the numbers are still suggesting that’s around where we’ll finish.

The final column is average points to play. What I’ve simply done here is add up the points of all the teams left to play and divided them by the games. It is a slight “dampener” on the other numbers, which add confidence, with a significantly harder run in than Cardiff and Fulham (and even West Brom.).

36 points our likely finish – From the above we’re still looking on course for around 36 points, with that feeling only increasing when you look at our 8 fixtures which divide, in my opinion, into winnable to doubtful. From the four a draw against Cardiff, a Villa win, a draw at West Ham and then a final day win away at Fulham would get us to 36 – which isn’t an impossible task but leaves us no room for error in those games.

Personally my mind instantly drifts back to Jerome Thomas staying on his feet and slotting the ball home away to Swansea and holding on for another 30 seconds on Saturday (another 3 points I think would have us feeling very confident at this stage).

28 points is on track….but it’s dangerous territory – I also mentioned last time that 27 points, within the framework of this season, meant we were still on track and 28 points arguably still is.

After 30 games four teams in the last 10 years have had 28 points – Reading 2007/08, Wolves 2009/10, Wigan 2009/10 and Blackburn 2011/12. Two of those teams, Reading and Blackburn, went down with Wolves actually climbing all the way up to 15th, helped by 10 points from the last 8 games.

Going the other way, after suggesting 36 might be our number, six teams have finished on 36 points – Fulham & Reading 2007/08, Sunderland 2008/09, Wigan 2009/10, Bolton 2011/12 and Wigan 2012/13. Three of those stayed up, Fulham, Sunderland and Wigan 2009/10.

So having 28 points after 30 games, or finishing on 36 points, gives you a 50% chance of staying up based on the last 10 years.

Bottom 6 teams don't suddenly improve – I mentioned before that teams in the bottom 6 don’t magically start improving. Logically there’s individual reasons why we’re all down there, and strong reasons why we don’t win 3 games in a row.

To show the point in another way I’ve again taken the bottom chunk of clubs, their current PPG, their PPG since a turning point and used that to work out a potential finishing points total.

Each clubs turning point is – Hull PPG since signing Long and Jelavic, West Ham since Carroll came back, Swansea since elimination from Europe, West Brom since Mel came in, us since Pulis, Sunderland from Poyet’s arrival and Fulham since Magath’s arrival.

Villa and Norwich haven’t really have a turning point as such, so for Villa and Norwich I took the turn of the year after their poor Christmas periods.

Obviously these “turning points” are a little arbitrary, and you could look at other points in the season, but what I’ve tried to do is look beyond a sides top line performance to see what’s happening. We would, I’m sure, point heavily to Holloway and the summer transfer activity whereas Hull would point to their lack of goals.

Therefore what I’ve attempted to do is look at how clubs have done since they rectified the issue, i.e. since the appointment of Pulis we’ve been running at 1.17 PPG – carry that on for the rest of the season and we’ll land on 37.33 points (give or take!).

The again really interesting one, for me, is Swansea as I’ve never really thought of them as a relegation candidate. However it’s three games since they got rid of the distraction of Europe and it’s 0 wins, 2 draws and a defeat – although the performance against Arsenal does suggest an upturn in performance.

They really need to follow that result up against Norwich at home on Saturday, otherwise I’m sure minds will drift to the prospect of Sunderland away on the last day (for interest under Monk it’s 6 points from 7 games, 0.86, which still only translates to 35.88)

Fulham are down…Cardiff may have two games left – As mentioned above good performance for a bottom ranking side is a point a game. Fulham have 7 games left and 7 points takes them to 31.

That could get them above Cardiff and maybe Sunderland if they collapse from here on in – but it’s unlikely to get them above 3 sides. Therefore they need to achieve something like 12 points from 7 games, or 1.71 PPG, which compares with their 0.77 PPG currently.

Cardiff simply have to win one, or both, of their next two games. Below is a speculative league table in two games time concentrating on the real “in danger” clubs.

What I’ve said below is that WBA beat Cardiff, Sunderland pick up a home win against West Ham, Fulham pick up one win in either of their two games (possibly generously as it’s in form Everton and Villa away) and we lose to Chelsea and draw at Cardiff.

Yes the gap would only be three points to ourselves (with Cardiff having a vastly inferior goal difference) but there’ll be 5 for them to play and still realistically needing to get to 36 points to get them above 3 other sides.

This will leave them needing 2 PPG. Three of those would be away and a last home game of the season to Chelsea potentially needing to win to secure the league (so let’s call it 10 points from 4 games or 2.5 PPG). Yes they may catch us if we collapse…but get above 3 other sides?

Therefore there’s more than plenty to play for. It’s still in our own hands. We’ve a competent manager. A decent and motivated squad. I think we would have taken that at the start of the season.

Up the Palace.