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Relegation Royal Rumble


Golden Bucket and Spade Winner 2018-2019  

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Are Queens in trouble of going down? I reckon they’ll finish 4th and that would be a tremendous job Naysmith has done given what I’d imagine would be thin resources.

I also don’t think Falkirk will climb as high as 5th. They’ve done ok recently and looked massively improved at Somerset but we really should’ve beaten them quite comfortably.

Alloa are doing well also and even finishing 9th would be good considering they’re the only part time team this season.

Morton and Dunfermline aren’t quite in free fall yet but they’re not far off it. I’m not sure on Partick as I’ve not seen them with the new recruits although they also seem to be doing ok recently.

My prediction is:

6. Falkirk
7. Morton
8. Partick
9. Dunfermline
10. Alloa

I think the run in will prove too much for Alloa unfortunately. Although I’d much rather Dunfermline or Morton went down instead of them.

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Pretty certain we should be in this poll given we're currently bottom of the league.

Haven't seen enough with my own eyes to make a judgement on other teams, but the narrative 3 or 4 weeks ago was "Alloa will be fine". If (and it is an if) we beat them on Saturday then they're bottom having just lost at home to the two teams who were previously below them.

Queens will be in no trouble at all as long as Dobbie doesn't get injured for > 80% of the remaining season.

In the last few years in the premiership I've done simulations during the run in showing rough % estimates of where teams will finish (similar, but not as in depth as the 538 ones) but also the number of points likely for survival / top 6 (in premiership, would be top 4 here).

To be 100% safe based on the league table as was before Saturday's Falkirk- Alloa (the spreadsheet is on my work computer) 43 points was the total needed to be 100% safe. And as I said in our own thread a couple of weeks ago

Quote

 

I've had in my head since we went into freefall this season that we'd need the traditional benchmark of 40 points to stay up. Had a look at this league since it went to 3 points for a win, which gives us 24 seasons to work with- albeit 9th was automatically down for about half of those seasons. Only adjustment I made was reversing Dunfermline's points deduction in 2012-13. Dundee's deduction didn't affect either the winning or bottom totals.

Only 3 times out of 24 has 40 points not been enough to get 8th or better, but they've all come in seasons where the winning total was low. As it stands Ross County are on course for 69 points on a PPG basis but with them, Ayr, and Dundee United taking turns to fall over it could well be a very low total that wins the league this year.

 

 

 

Edited by Fuctifano
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Who will be the last man standing in the race for 10th and who will Arbroath replace?

Tears, snotters and breakdowns guaranteed, as we head into the final third of the season

8 points separating 6 sides should mean  some fun and games over the next two and a half months...Fun that thankfully I can watch from afar with a smug grin on my face.

Of the candidates Falkirk and Partick who were looking like certs for the bottom have picked up since the window, Morton and Dunfermline are in freefall, Alloa after a bright start have stalled and Queen of the South probably have too much over the rest, but still can't relax just yet.

 

The runners and riders:

 

Alloa Athletic

Don't suffer too many heavy defeats and usually seem to be competitive in games.

Everybody's certs for the drop at the start of the season have surpassed all expectations thus far. Jim Goodwin is working miracles and I've always been impressed by his teams.  Every team needs a regular goal scorer and Alloa have Trouten who is enjoying a purple patch in the twilight of his career. But they are starting to stall a bit, and as I type have slipped into the play off position, albeit in a run of tricky fixtures.

Alloa trolled the rest of the league at the start of the season with the pitch and should they stay up it will be hailed as a masterstroke, with every other club using it as an excuse for their diddiness. 

Everybody loves an underdog and I am sure everybody wants Alloa to stay up.

 

My prediction : 8th

 

Dunfermline Athletic

First of the huge, big, big clubs finding themselves in the mix

No strangers to the seaside leagues in recent years and there's a very real prospect of them heading back with their bucket and spade. Promotion play offs last season. This season they would bite your hand off for a play off spot at the other end. Changed manager early in January which was probably a month too late, giving the new man no real time to change things in the window.

Don't score many goals, with 'Dunfermline nil' being a phrase that is commonly heard. and thus a deep depression has set in at EEP. New signing Bruce Anderson may end up being the messiah, after a debut goal, but one man makes a team, does not. Sphincters are twitching in West Fife, but if they do go down, they will at least have the comfort playing their cousins from Kirkcaldy four times next season.

My prediction : 10th

 

Falkirk

The next of the huge, big, big clubs in the brown stuff.

If crowds won leagues, Falkirk would win hands down every time. They are that big. Can't recall the last time the Bairns were actually in the seaside league. They are just too big a club to go down. 

At one point it was looking inevitable they would go down, but appointing a new manager and completely overhauling their squad has seen Falkirk slithering their way towards safety. Unbeaten in 2019 they are only heading in one direction and I doubt anyone will fancy playing against Falkirk at the minute.  But of course a good run can quickly turn into a bad one and a word of caution for Bairns is that they have a potential bombscare in their team in the Edge. But they have recruited well and have got their hands on one of the best managers around so all appears to be rosy...

 

My Prediction : 5th

 

Greenock Morton

Let's face it. We all want to see Morton go down. Even some Morton fans probably want to see Morton go down. Not because we hate Morton, just because the entertainment value would be priceless and Ainsley Harriot needs more exposure.

Another of the clubs who are no strangers to the seaside league in recent years. The Inverclyde Riviera's finest are currently living up to their reputation of being perma-diddies. Turmoil in the boardroom, turmoil in the dugout, turmoil on the pitch and turmoil on the terraces, this season has seen it all. If ever you think your own club is in a bad way just look at Morton and you will soon realise it could be worse.

The 1922 cup winners started the season well but losing a great manager to a rival club, seems to have rattled them. There is hope however and Morton are the only team to have beaten Ross County twice, and they also have a few points of a cushion over 10th, so that is at least some cause for a great feeling at Cappielow. Have benched their best player last couple of games which makes absolutely no sense to me.

 

My prediction : 9th

 

Partick Thistle

The third of the Huge, big, big clubs in the mire.

Like their fellow giants Falkirk, the luvvies are unbeaten in 2019 and not so long ago were heading for oblivion. The knives were out for Caldwell after a few short weeks in the hotseat, but he has turned it round recently. Currently bottom but can move off that spot with a win in their next game.  Are staring back to back relegations but they probably will have comfortably enough to avoid that feat. Seem to have recruited well in January and regardless of your thoughts on Harkins, he has the ability to do special things in a game.

The only one of the six still in the cup which could be a hinderance, but it could help them if they carry on their good form.

 

My Prediction : 7th

 

Queen of the South

The least likely of the six to go down, but stranger things have happened and they certainly can't relax...just yet.

It's difficult to mention Queen of the South, without mentioning the D word and supporters of the Dumfries club never shut up about it... 'He's our Precious'

But to be fair we'd all be the same if he played for our club.

Queens will be comfortably nowhere near the bottom spot, unless Dobbie's hamstring goes again. But even with his goals they have not exactly set the heather alight. They'll probably see themselves as being able to sneak into a promotion play off spot but personally I think they'll come up short.

 

My Prediction : 6th

 

Over to everyone else...

How funny it would be if this materialises....

As things are just now I’m fairly confident in my own team climbing and it really feels like Thistle will do the same. That puts the Pars and Morton under real pressure and the fact that Morton have only scored 7 in the last 10 league games makes me think they are more vulnerable than most of their legal eagle fans believe....

However things change so fast in this league you can never get too confident.

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19 minutes ago, Fuctifano said:

Pretty certain we should be in this poll given we're currently bottom of the league.

Haven't seen enough with my own eyes to make a judgement on other teams, but the narrative 3 or 4 weeks ago was "Alloa will be fine". If (and it is an if) we beat them on Saturday then they're bottom having just lost at home to the two teams who were previously below them.

Queens will be in no trouble at all as long as Dobbie doesn't get injured for > 80% of the remaining season.

In the last few years in the premiership I've done simulations during the run in showing rough % estimates of where teams will finish (similar, but not as in depth as the 538 ones) but also the number of points likely for survival / top 6 (in premiership, would be top 4 here).

To be 100% safe based on the league table as was before Saturday's Falkirk- Alloa (the spreadsheet is on my work computer) 43 points was the total needed to be 100% safe. And as I said in our own thread a couple of weeks ago

 

 

Oops...Don't know what happened there :lol:

 

Interested about analysis like that. Obviously nothing can be 100% guaranteed, but does this kind of thing lead to being able to predict with any confidence?

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Would love to see Utd and County swap with St Mirren and Hamilton.

At the bottom lose Alloa and Morton. Swap with Arbroath and Raith.

Championship 19/20

Arbroath

Ayr

Dunfermline

Falkirk

Hamilton

Inverness

Partick

QOS

Raith

St Mirren

Should give us a very interesting season with no cash rich investment teams or obvious runaway winners

Edited by Gaz FFC
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12 minutes ago, I'm Brian said:

Oops...Don't know what happened there :lol:

 

Interested about analysis like that. Obviously nothing can be 100% guaranteed, but does this kind of thing lead to being able to predict with any confidence?

In terms of who will finish where or win certain games, not really, or I wouldn't be going to work tomorrow. It is quite good at showing what level of points is likely to get a certain position.

It's based on this site, each team is assigned a rating which then works out a rough % of win/draw/loss for each match based on the difference in ratings between the two teams. I then generate a result and the ratings update after each match so a team currently lowly rated can still go on a winning run or vice versa. I then run 1000 simulations.

In the premiership example it's easier as that website gives you the ratings and you can just do it from that point onwards but for the championship I had to assign a rating to each team at the start of the season (based it on season 17/18 finishing position) and then plug in all the results to date. Was a quiet week at work last week, thankfully :lol:

Edited by Fuctifano
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Just now, Grant228 said:

Alloa to finish tenth, 9th could be anyone. We had a great performance in the first half against Ross County but crumbled in the second, a victory against ICT would be a massive result and is quite plausible. 

Hoping they are knackered after Monday.

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Pretty certain we should be in this poll given we're currently bottom of the league.

Haven't seen enough with my own eyes to make a judgement on other teams, but the narrative 3 or 4 weeks ago was "Alloa will be fine". If (and it is an if) we beat them on Saturday then they're bottom having just lost at home to the two teams who were previously below them.

Queens will be in no trouble at all as long as Dobbie doesn't get injured for > 80% of the remaining season.

In the last few years in the premiership I've done simulations during the run in showing rough % estimates of where teams will finish (similar, but not as in depth as the 538 ones) but also the number of points likely for survival / top 6 (in premiership, would be top 4 here).

To be 100% safe based on the league table as was before Saturday's Falkirk- Alloa (the spreadsheet is on my work computer) 43 points was the total needed to be 100% safe. And as I said in our own thread a couple of weeks ago

 

I've had in my head since we went into freefall this season that we'd need the traditional benchmark of 40 points to stay up. Had a look at this league since it went to 3 points for a win, which gives us 24 seasons to work with- albeit 9th was automatically down for about half of those seasons. Only adjustment I made was reversing Dunfermline's points deduction in 2012-13. Dundee's deduction didn't affect either the winning or bottom totals.

Only 3 times out of 24 has 40 points not been enough to get 8th or better, but they've all come in seasons where the winning total was low. As it stands Ross County are on course for 69 points on a PPG basis but with them, Ayr, and Dundee United taking turns to fall over it could well be a very low total that wins the league this year.

 

 

 

Based on your 43 point scenario I thought I would try this for my own club for fun, who have 24 points from 24 games:

 

Dundee U (Home) Draw

Morton (Away). Win [emoji16]

Ayr (Home). Draw

Partick T (Home). Draw

QoS (Away). Draw

ICT (Away). Draw

Alloa (Home). Win

Dunfermline (Away). Lose

Morton (Home). Win

Dundee U (Away). Lose

Ross C (Home). Draw

Ross C (Away). Lose

 

That puts us on 39 points.

I sure hope you are wrong about 43 points....

 

 

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2 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

 
 
Based on your 43 point scenario I thought I would try this for my own club for fun, who have 24 points from 24 games:

Dundee U (Home) Draw
Morton (Away). Win emoji16.png
Ayr (Home). Draw
Partick T (Home). Draw
QoS (Away). Draw
ICT (Away). Draw
Alloa (Home). Win
Dunfermline (Away). Lose
Morton (Home). Win
Dundee U (Away). Lose
Ross C (Home). Draw

That puts us on 39 points.
I sure hope you are wrong about 43 points....
 

39 would give a good chance of staying up. 43 is the "in 1000 goes, not one team finished 9th or 10th with 43 or more points" figure for absolute safety. 

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9 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

 
 
Based on your 43 point scenario I thought I would try this for my own club for fun, who have 24 points from 24 games:

Dundee U (Home) Draw
Morton (Away). Win emoji16.png
Ayr (Home). Draw
Partick T (Home). Draw
QoS (Away). Draw
ICT (Away). Draw
Alloa (Home). Win
Dunfermline (Away). Lose
Morton (Home). Win
Dundee U (Away). Lose
Ross C (Home). Draw

That puts us on 39 points.
I sure hope you are wrong about 43 points....
 

A lot of they draws will be wins and loses; which may work in our favour for 43 points. 

I agree with Grant that I feel Alloa will end the season bottom with 9th place being up for grabs for anyone other than QotS. With DU then Morton as our next two games we could quite as easily see either 6 or 0 points from both. Exciting end to the season but by f**k it’ll take its toll on my health.

ETA. FWIW, I’d probably accept 9th given the start to the season we had. We had the weakest squad by a country mile.

Edited by wee_bairn
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