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What position will we finish in 2020/21? (VOTE)


ender4

What position will we finish in 2020/21?  

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  1. 1. What position will we finish in 2020/21?

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  • Poll closed on 18/08/20 at 12:33

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I think we will stay up, while it seems the majority of pundits think we'll go down. 

However there is a certain amount of variance at play here. Last year, I though we might get between 25 and 40 points. This year, I think we will be stronger, so I'd probably say between 30 and 45 points. But one long term injury to Jack or Tyrone and we could be at the bottom end of that target. 

Lets not forget how unbelievably bad we were at times last year, no pace, couldn't defend, didn't look fit, hilariously bad in attack, naive, no game management etc.  

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On 15/09/2020 at 15:26, Enda said:

I downloaded the data for the past ten years and did a quick analysis on how teams who survived like us have performed the next year. (Please tell me if you catch any errors in my code.)

Last year we finished 17th, with 35 points. The fact of the matter is teams that finished 17th in the prior season have had a hard time staying up. In the last ten years, there's obviously ten cases where a team finished 17th. The reality is the situation is that from this sample, there was a 50% chance the team that finished 17th got relegated. The worst possible scenario of going from 17th to 20th was a very common occurrence -- it even happened Villa :(. It also happened to West Ham (2011), Wolves (2012), QPR (2013), and Sunderland (2017). That's all just in the past decade.

Even if a team managed to avoid relegation, moving up the table was hard. No team, not one, managed a top-half finish. The best effort was West Brom (2015), who finished 13th. Put starkly, if you finished 17th you were five times more likely to finish 20th than 13th. So, statistically, 13th would be a very good achievement for us this year - such a bounce has only happened once in the past decade. Talk of 10th-12th would be doing far better than any 17th-placed team has done in recent years. With the right transfers it's not out of the realm of possibility, but it would be a Manager of the Year-level of performance.

That's for teams that finished 17th, what about teams that finished on 35 points? I have bad news. First, and everyone knew this, we were lucky to stay up with 35 points. It's rare you stay up with that few, as teams have gone down with as many as 39 points. Staying up on 35 points has only happened once in the past decade (West Ham, 2010). They were relegated the next season, coming last, and finishing seven points short of safety. A similar thing happened with Hull the previous year, relegated after surviving on 35 points. In fact I can't find anyone who stayed up after only getting 35 points the previous season. There was a bigger gap between midtable (Burnley in 10th, 54 points, 17 points ahead of us) than midtable and Champions League (Chelsea, 66 points, 14 points ahead of Burnley). We are were way adrift. So while we have our big transfer budget working for us, we also have the reality that last year we really were quite poor.

There are lots of reasons to be optimistic this season, but do try to keep a bit of perspective.

Out of interest, how many of those clubs were newly promoted? I feel like there's a difference in prospects between clubs on a downward spiral and those surviving the jump up from a lower division, and I'd be interested if the stats bore that out?

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On 14/09/2020 at 22:37, thunderball said:

On balance 13th.

I think we are a better team than: 
Fulham, West Brom, Palace, West Ham, Burnley, Newcastle

I think Brighton, Leeds, Southampton and Sheffield are on a level with us but lots of factors will determine how we all fare.

I think if everything and everyone clicks for us, including us closing out the signings we are linked to and no major injuries, I think we could finish as high as 9th.

If new boys don’t click, but stay injury free, I still feel we are safe, but will be around 16th.

 

I would add Leeds and Sheffield Utd into the teams we are better than based on the opinion that sheff Utd will find it hard to keep up the levels from last year with an ok but slightly limited squad. 
 

Leeds I just don’t get why people think they won’t struggle. No real transfer window or time to prepare is going to hamper all the promoted sides as the transition is huge from championship to premier league. They haven’t signed anyone of note and lost there best defender from last year so in many ways they are weaker this year than they were last year and although they won the league it was a poor quality division compared to the last 3-4 years. The striker they have signed hasn’t got 70 career goals yet and he is 29 years old which suggests he doesn’t score many. The defence is pathetic so I think they will concede lots of goals although I thought there keeper was decent against Leeds. 
 

I also think Newcastle will he comfortably be ok this year too. 

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3 hours ago, punkiller1981 said:

I would add Leeds and Sheffield Utd into the teams we are better than based on the opinion that sheff Utd will find it hard to keep up the levels from last year with an ok but slightly limited squad. 
 

Leeds I just don’t get why people think they won’t struggle. No real transfer window or time to prepare is going to hamper all the promoted sides as the transition is huge from championship to premier league. They haven’t signed anyone of note and lost there best defender from last year so in many ways they are weaker this year than they were last year and although they won the league it was a poor quality division compared to the last 3-4 years. The striker they have signed hasn’t got 70 career goals yet and he is 29 years old which suggests he doesn’t score many. The defence is pathetic so I think they will concede lots of goals although I thought there keeper was decent against Leeds. 
 

I also think Newcastle will he comfortably be ok this year too. 

A lot of Leeds fans are slating their keeper it sounds like they don't think he is good enough for the prem. 

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3 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Out of interest, how many of those clubs were newly promoted? I feel like there's a difference in prospects between clubs on a downward spiral and those surviving the jump up from a lower division, and I'd be interested if the stats bore that out?

Good question. Not many clubs were newly promoted, only two in the past decade, so most came from higher in the table. Both of the newly promoted teams that ended up 17th (like Villa were last year) were immediately relegated. The teams that dropped e.g. from 15th to 17th only had a 44 percent chance of being relegated the following year. So while it makes a lot of intuitive sense, the downward spiral hypothesis isn't really supported by the data. Which is bad news for Villa.

- Hull were newly promoted prior to coming 17th in 2009. They were relegated the year after.

- West Ham were 9th prior to coming 17th in 2010. They were relegated the year after.

- Wolves were 15th prior to coming 17th in 2011. They were relegated the year after.

- QPR were newly promoted when they came 17th in 2012. They were relegated the year after.

- Sunderland were 13th prior to coming 17th in 2013. Survived.

- West Brom were 8th prior to coming 17th in 2014. Survived.

- Villa were 15th prior to coming 17th in 2015. They were relegated the year after.

- Sunderland were 16th prior to coming 17th in 2016. They were relegated the year after.

- Watford were 13th prior to coming 17th in 2017. Survived.

- Southampton were 8th prior to coming 17th in 2018. Survived.

- Brighton were 15th prior to coming 17th in 2019. Survived.

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On 15/09/2020 at 15:26, Enda said:

I downloaded the data for the past ten years and did a quick analysis on how teams who survived like us have performed the next year. (Please tell me if you catch any errors in my code.)

Last year we finished 17th, with 35 points. The fact of the matter is teams that finished 17th in the prior season have had a hard time staying up. In the last ten years, there's obviously ten cases where a team finished 17th. The reality is the situation is that from this sample, there was a 50% chance the team that finished 17th got relegated. The worst possible scenario of going from 17th to 20th was a very common occurrence -- it even happened Villa :(. It also happened to West Ham (2011), Wolves (2012), QPR (2013), and Sunderland (2017). That's all just in the past decade.

Even if a team managed to avoid relegation, moving up the table was hard. No team, not one, managed a top-half finish. The best effort was West Brom (2015), who finished 13th. Put starkly, if you finished 17th you were five times more likely to finish 20th than 13th. So, statistically, 13th would be a very good achievement for us this year - such a bounce has only happened once in the past decade. Talk of 10th-12th would be doing far better than any 17th-placed team has done in recent years. With the right transfers it's not out of the realm of possibility, but it would be a Manager of the Year-level of performance.

That's for teams that finished 17th, what about teams that finished on 35 points? I have bad news. First, and everyone knew this, we were lucky to stay up with 35 points. It's rare you stay up with that few, as teams have gone down with as many as 39 points. Staying up on 35 points has only happened once in the past decade (West Ham, 2010). They were relegated the next season, coming last, and finishing seven points short of safety. A similar thing happened with Hull the previous year, relegated after surviving on 35 points. In fact I can't find anyone who stayed up after only getting 35 points the previous season. There was a bigger gap between midtable (Burnley in 10th, 54 points, 17 points ahead of us) than midtable and Champions League (Chelsea, 66 points, 14 points ahead of Burnley). We are were way adrift. So while we have our big transfer budget working for us, we also have the reality that last year we really were quite poor.

There are lots of reasons to be optimistic this season, but do try to keep a bit of perspective.

Time to be an exception...for the right reasons!

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On 15/09/2020 at 15:26, Enda said:

I downloaded the data for the past ten years and did a quick analysis on how teams who survived like us have performed the next year. (Please tell me if you catch any errors in my code.)

Last year we finished 17th, with 35 points. The fact of the matter is teams that finished 17th in the prior season have had a hard time staying up. In the last ten years, there's obviously ten cases where a team finished 17th. The reality is the situation is that from this sample, there was a 50% chance the team that finished 17th got relegated. The worst possible scenario of going from 17th to 20th was a very common occurrence -- it even happened Villa :(. It also happened to West Ham (2011), Wolves (2012), QPR (2013), and Sunderland (2017). That's all just in the past decade.

Even if a team managed to avoid relegation, moving up the table was hard. No team, not one, managed a top-half finish. The best effort was West Brom (2015), who finished 13th. Put starkly, if you finished 17th you were five times more likely to finish 20th than 13th. So, statistically, 13th would be a very good achievement for us this year - such a bounce has only happened once in the past decade. Talk of 10th-12th would be doing far better than any 17th-placed team has done in recent years. With the right transfers it's not out of the realm of possibility, but it would be a Manager of the Year-level of performance.

That's for teams that finished 17th, what about teams that finished on 35 points? I have bad news. First, and everyone knew this, we were lucky to stay up with 35 points. It's rare you stay up with that few, as teams have gone down with as many as 39 points. Staying up on 35 points has only happened once in the past decade (West Ham, 2010). They were relegated the next season, coming last, and finishing seven points short of safety. A similar thing happened with Hull the previous year, relegated after surviving on 35 points. In fact I can't find anyone who stayed up after only getting 35 points the previous season. There was a bigger gap between midtable (Burnley in 10th, 54 points, 17 points ahead of us) than midtable and Champions League (Chelsea, 66 points, 14 points ahead of Burnley). We are were way adrift. So while we have our big transfer budget working for us, we also have the reality that last year we really were quite poor.

There are lots of reasons to be optimistic this season, but do try to keep a bit of perspective.

Makes you wonder why so many were happy to finish 17th last season then. 

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13 minutes ago, VillaFaninLondon said:

Makes you wonder why so many were happy to finish 17th last season then. 

Gives us at least a fighting chance of surviving and thriving in this league. Much better than the alternative.

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We kept crushing these stats one after the other, I’m glad I’ve been optimistic all the time and the club hasn’t let me down. 
It wasn’t common that a team with only two wins out of 11 or 15 (can’t remember), come and win 10.

It wasn’t common a team 7 points adrift with 4 games to stay up.

It was said that not winning against top teams mean you’re down.

It was said we needed atleast 38 to stay up, had we lost to West Ham Bournemouth would’ve stayed up on 34. 
 

A lot of varieties, a lot movements mean alot of things. Most of these teams mentioned didn’t add the needed players to their squads. 
 

We didn’t have the worst squad, our worst part was midfield and strikers. So we can’t just apply stats generally.

 

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Personally, I think we have to forget about what other teams have done in the past who finished 17th, etc. At the end of the day, we stayed up and have owners who are investing in the club to take us forward. They won't want another struggle like last season, let alone to see us get relegated. Probably completely different scenario to all those teams who perished the year after finishing 17th (including us, who had Lerner destroying the club and who that summer had sold 2 key players in Benteke and Delph and replaced Ron Vlaar with Lescott). 

 

What worries me is we're third favourites to go down with the bookies. They seem to think only Fulham and West Brom will be worse. Is this fair? Clearly we're investing in the team, we've kept Grealish, Mings, Luiz and McGinn are still here, and we've added what looks like a very good GK in Martinez. If we add Rashica that would make a core of very good first team players, but depressingly that signing seems to just not be happening for one reason or another. The other players we've brought in look like risks - Watkins is coming off the back of a good season but isn't proven at this level, likewise with Cash, and Traore has had a poor season at Lyon. I do find myself somewhat underwhelmed by our transfer activity, particularly with the amount of money we're investing. We clearly have significant resources but struggle to attract proven top quality players - whether that's the manager, finishing 17th, wages, I don't know. Maybe a combination of all 3. 

 

Ultimately, where we finish this season comes down to the manager in my view. He appeared to finally learn from his mistakes last season when he tightened us up just in time to stay up, but overall his tactical awareness and in game management were below par for most of the season. I look at our squad now and even though I've said we need more proven quality, I still think a competent manager could get our team finishing in the upper reaches of bottom half. Dyche can get Burnley into the top half (he's actually done it twice with them in 4 years since promotion) and their squad of players isn't exactly star studded let's be honest. I think more will be demanded of Smith this season after being so well backed again and if we are flirting with relegation he'll be gone. I want him to succeed as one of us, and the final few games of last season give me some hope he can, but I'm yet to be convinced. Many of our rivals also think he's the reason we will struggle again and I think they have a point. If he does end up gone I'd like to see us bring a truly noteworthy manager to the club like Leeds and Everton have done in their appointments. 

 

All in all, I hope we do well and finish near to midtable. I think that can be achieved if we can make a couple of really big statement signings (which I've heard the club is trying to pull off) and I hope Dean can steady the ship. Let's see what happens.

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Do you guys think we can be the better team in the other 14?

if we can manage a 40%/30%/30% WDL ratio versus the other 14, that’s 39 expected points. To reach the 50 point mark we need to secure 11 points out of 12 matches vs the top 6. In case you’re wondering, Brighton/Newcastle/West Ham/Bournemouth got 10 points vs top 6 last season.

 

50 points might look impossible at first sight, but it’s possible (although unlikely).

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Listening to Grealish’s comments it sounds as though a relegation battle wasn’t the expectation last season,and the pressure is on this year not to be in the same situation this season. Over to you Dean. 

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40 minutes ago, jim said:

Listening to Grealish’s comments it sounds as though a relegation battle wasn’t the expectation last season,and the pressure is on this year not to be in the same situation this season. Over to you Dean. 

Newcastle and Palace already off to a good start.

We can't lose too many games early on until they are drifting away from us.

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  • 1 year later...
4 minutes ago, Mister_a said:

I'm not sure why everyone is so unhappy with the finishing position. We've pretty much delivered as per the votes on this poll.

image.thumb.png.f1c3f89e71e8080b51b265f1b400be63.png

Granted, this was with no Grealish and DS still in charge.

I think you’re a season out there mate.

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