July Optimism Gauge

[limpid]

This poll will be open for the first week of the month.

[Lichfield Dean]

Straight in with the excessive pessimism

[BOF]

At least I'm not the only one who thinks survival is next season's goal. In more ways than one, mind you. 

[John]

Just done the Championship Predictor had us 18th with 49 points. 

[tom_avfc]

1 hour ago, John said:

Just done the Championship Predictor had us 18th with 49 points. 

Not sure how a Championship Predictor can be done without any idea of what our squad (or any other squad in the division) will look like. Seems pretty meaningless and horribly pessimistic based on the squad we currently have available.

If you're not basing it on the squad we have available now then it seems like this is a guess at the results of 46 games over the course of the season, having also made a guess at the squads of the 24 clubs in the Championship come the start of the season. 

This seems pretty pointless at this stage - at least wait until the transfer window closes and even then who'd have predicted Cardiff in second place last season.

[John]

It's a predictor so I predicted the results and took a guess on the squads we and others are likely to have. If the actual results and the squad we have to choose from proves my prediction to be horribly pessimistic then I will be over the moon. It may have been a pointless exercise but I'm a bit fan of those.

Edited July 3, 2018 by John

[tom_avfc]

19 minutes ago, John said:

It's a predictor so I predicted the results and took a guess on the squads we and others are likely to have. If the actual results and the squad we have to choose from proves my prediction to be horribly pessimistic then I will be over the moon. It may have been a pointless exercise but I'm a bit fan of those.

But I don't get how you are even capable of taking a guess at the squads other teams would have. I wouldn't even be able to predict who'll be playing for us come the start of the season let alone teams like SHA, Bolton and Ipswich for example who I probably wouldn't even be able to name more than 3 or 4 players in each's current squad. 

Unless you have serious knowledge of Championship football and the situations at each club then I'd have thought there's little difference to this than just picking a number of points out of thin air. To come to the conclusion that we'll finish 34 points worse off than last season based on guesswork is quite extreme in my opinion.

We might sell all our best players over the coming couple of months and other teams may be strengthened and weakened accordingly but until this has actually happened I'm not sure how anybody can even start to predict a finishing position for various teams.

[BOF]

28 minutes ago, John said:

It's a predictor so I predicted the results and took a guess on the squads we and others are likely to have. If the actual results and the squad we have to choose from proves my prediction to be horribly pessimistic then I will be over the moon. It may have been a pointless exercise but I'm a bit fan of those.

So you just inputted 552 predictions?

[John]

Well we will find out at the end of the season how close my predictor is Tom. Doing the predictor is usually a bit of fun. Predictions can be right and they can be wrong. The topic is an optimism gauge after all it just seems I don't quite share your optimism.

[tom_avfc]

3 hours ago, John said:

Well we will find out at the end of the season how close my predictor is Tom. Doing the predictor is usually a bit of fun. Predictions can be right and they can be wrong. The topic is an optimism gauge after all it just seems I don't quite share your optimism.

Oh don't get me wrong - I'm not at all optimistic. I don't think achieving more than 34 points less than last year is being particularly optimistic to be honest. I'm just not prepared to predict that low a points tally at this particular moment (although losing Johnstone to Albion is more worrying than anything before).  

I'll wait and see what happens between now and the start of the season and you can call that being optimistic if you want. Sorry if 3 points more than SHA last year is being optimistic. If all fans consider more than 50 points as optimistic next season then the atmosphere at Villa Park is going to be as great as ever next year.

[John]

5 hours ago, tom_avfc said:

Sorry if 3 points more than SHA last year is being optimistic. 

I still had us finishing well clear of them by the way.