The Big Relegation Thread

[Yorick]

St. Mirren, Livingston and Motherwell could well fall into the battle here. Just takes 2 or 3 defeats, then real pressure hits. Bottom three teams are used to this having faced this all season, rest not.

If St. Mirren go for a poor appointment such as Naismith or Brown I think they could really struggle. Watch them fall basically!!

Just when it looked like St. Mirren could have a great choice of experienced managers to select, some of the names listed earlier definitely would do well, Naismith & Brown float to the top. Unbelievable! Will they? Surely not??

Motherwell I hope fall down the league too, far top physical dirty team they are. Not a good watch. Clever tho.

Think St. Johnstone / Dundee / Ross County will continue to win matches here and there, dragging others into it. Dundee bottom hopefully, think the play off place could be a suprise. I'm going for St. Mirren

[Munoz]

On 20/02/2022 at 05:03, Yorick said:

After all the recent praise, can see St. Mirren get sucked into relegation battle if they hire badly. Livingston too. That play off place will be close. Dundee down, of course. Think Ross Co have enough quality to stay up. Motherwell too physical & dirty a team to get relegated, very poor watch though! Wonder who will end up in play off place...

 

2 minutes ago, Yorick said:

St. Mirren, Livingston and Motherwell could well fall into the battle here. Just takes 2 or 3 defeats, then real pressure hits. Bottom three teams are used to this having faced this all season, rest not.

If St. Mirren go for a poor appointment such as Naismith or Brown I think they could really struggle. Watch them fall basically!!

Just when it looked like St. Mirren could have a great choice of experienced managers to select, some of the names listed earlier definitely would do well, Naismith & Brown float to the top. Unbelievable! Will they? Surely not??

Motherwell I hope fall down the league too, far top physical dirty team they are. Not a good watch. Clever tho.

Think St. Johnstone / Dundee / Ross County will continue to win matches here and there, dragging others into it. Dundee bottom hopefully, think the play off place could be a suprise. I'm going for St. Mirren

Still not over the Play Off penalty shoot out i see.

[Yorick]

10 minutes ago, Munoz said:

 

Still not over the Play Off penalty shoot out i see.

It did take a few weeks, must admit!

[johnnydun]

1 hour ago, Munoz said:

 

Still not over the Play Off penalty shoot out i see.

Alas poor Yorick.

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Yorick said:

St. Mirren, Livingston and Motherwell could well fall into the battle here. Just takes 2 or 3 defeats, then real pressure hits. Bottom three teams are used to this having faced this all season, rest not.

Motherwell I hope fall down the league too, far top physical dirty team they are. Not a good watch. Clever 

Did the Well piss on your chips. First you take our best player then you insult us .  That said I cannot really argue with the not a good watch point .

If anyone outside Motherwell paid attention too the fixture list they would know that for the 2nd and 3rd set of fixtures the games were literally top 6 / 7 followed by bottom 5. After we have Rangers away this weekend we will have played Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd and Aberdeen pretty much in a row.

We then have 3 home games v Ross C, Dundee, St Mirren with St J and Livi away. So you would like to think our ability to pick up points at home will see us safe. Hopefully top 6 into the bargain. 

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, welldaft said:

If anyone outside Motherwell paid attention to the fixture list they would know that for the 2nd and 3rd set of fixtures the games were literally top 6 / 7 followed by bottom 5. After we have Rangers away this weekend we will have played Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd and Aberdeen pretty much in a row.

We then have 3 home games v Ross C, Dundee, St Mirren with St J and Livi away. So you would like to think our ability to pick up points at home will see us safe. Hopefully top 6 into the bargain. 

Aye. We're literally on the same points (34) as Hibs and United so if anyone's arguing that there's a risk of us falling into any relegation battle then the same risk applies to United and Hibs.

The average points total for safety comes in at around 38 points and to finish above 7th it's around 40 points by the split. So that gives us 11 games to gain 4+ points (to be safe) and 6 games to gain 6+ points (for Top 6).

As you say, our fixtures have been skewed in a weird way this season.

We've the 4th best home record in the league (but the 2nd worst away) and 3 of our last 5 games before the split are at home against teams in the bottom half of the league. In fact, we've only lost one of our last 9 at home in all competitions (Celtic).

Edited February 21, 2022 by capt_oats

[Leith Green]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

literally

Like, yeah......................sorry, overuse of that really grinds my gears 

The rest of your post was spot on !!

[LIVIFOREVER]

4 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Aye. We're literally on the same points (34) as Hibs and United so if anyone's arguing that there's a risk of us falling into any relegation battle then the same risk applies to United and Hibs.

The average points total for safety comes in at around 38 points and to finish above 7th it's around 40 points by the split. So that gives us 11 games to gain 4+ points (to be safe) and 6 games to gain 6+ points (for Top 6).

As you say, our fixtures have been skewed in a weird way this season.

We've the 4th best home record in the league (but the 2nd worst away) and 3 of our last 5 games before the split are at home against teams in the bottom half of the league. In fact, we've only lost one of our last 9 at home in all competitions (Celtic).

Maybe the same folk that keep saying County wont be in the relegation battle as they're too good, but Livi could be down there, when we're above County and have been for a wee while now.

Also kinda blows out the water all those saying our plastic pitch gives us a huge advantage, when we've got a better away record on grass this season. 3rd worst home record, 5th best away.

Edited February 21, 2022 by LIVIFOREVER

[Ric]

4 hours ago, capt_oats said:

f**k me, I knew you didn't have a great away record but I didn't think you were Dundee levels of bad.

[LIVIFOREVER]

23 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:

How about now?

We've taken points off Celtic and Sevco at home, changes nothing. I like Watt, always caused us problems when we played Motherwell, so he may make a bit of a difference to you staying above us, but still fancy us to get top 6, and St Mirren still look pretty good even without Goodwin, and can see both of us getting there. Getting interesting with Dundee and St Johnstone winning games now though, nobody outside the top two can really afford too many games without winning, or they'll soon drop down a few places.

[capt_oats]

8 minutes ago, Ric said:

f**k me, I knew you didn't have a great away record but I didn't think you were Dundee levels of bad.

Aberdeen levels of bad surely?

[Ric]

2 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Aberdeen levels of bad surely?

I hear they brought some bloke in to help that..

Seriously though, you are in 4th, they are 8th. Their away form is respective of where they are in the league.

[capt_oats]

3 minutes ago, Ric said:

I hear they brought some bloke in to help that..

Seriously though, you are in 4th, they are 8th. Their away form is respective of where they are in the league.

Well, the difference between our away form to Dundee's is the same as United to us. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Mark Connolly]

With another 6 (7 for Dundee and St Mirren) games before the split, effectively everyone from Hibs down is still in the conversation. A Dundee win means it's 11 points from 4th to 12th, with the maximum gap being the current 13 points. That's also currently the gap between 12 and 6th. 4th and 9th are separated by 3 points.

Matchday 33 could be absolute carnage with the battle for the top 6. The fixtures are

Quote

Saturday

Aberdeen v Ross County

Celtic v St. Johnstone

Dundee United v Dundee

Heart of Midlothian v Hibernian

Livingston v Motherwell

Sunday

St. Mirren v Rangers

2 derbies potentially with the chance to confirm your rival's place in the relegation battle, St Mirren potentially having a free hit against Rangers already knowing where they will be, or alternatively having to beat them to make top 6.

I know there is a lot to happen before then, and varying fixture lists might end up making this post absolutely pointless, but it's definitely an exciting prospect

[Leith Green]

1 hour ago, Mark Connolly said:

it's definitely an exciting prospect

It may be an exciting prospect, but the chances of Hibs, Arabs, Well, St Mirren (and probably also Aberdeen and Livi) being drawn into the shite are almost nil imv.

[Sonam]

I can see 1 extra team at least being dragged into this, who knows, maybe even 2. Wouldn't be suprised if all Dundee, St. Johnstone and County go on winning runs, that point difference could disappear fast. Don't think there is big gap in quality between County and many teams above us.

Then let's see St. Mirren / Motherwell/ Livingston / Aberdeen etc. under pressure suddenly. From a 'great' season, glancing at top 4 to instead a messy play off battle, could happen. Then nerves will hit, players will fold, fans will panic. Just takes 3 defeats or so, proper pressure then.

County will pick up points, St. Johnstone are already, wouldn't write Dundee off yet either. Funny if all three stayed up!! Wouldn't write anything off this season, it's the over confidence of the teams just a few points above that could be the downfall. Long way to go yet.

[Lex]

I can see 1 extra team at least being dragged into this, who knows, maybe even 2. Wouldn't be suprised if all Dundee, St. Johnstone and County go on winning runs, that point difference could disappear fast. Don't think there is big gap in quality between County and many teams above us.
Then let's see St. Mirren / Motherwell/ Livingston / Aberdeen etc. under pressure suddenly. From a 'great' season, glancing at top 4 to instead a messy play off battle, could happen. Then nerves will hit, players will fold, fans will panic. Just takes 3 defeats or so, proper pressure then.
County will pick up points, St. Johnstone are already, wouldn't write Dundee off yet either. Funny if all three stayed up!! Wouldn't write anything off this season, it's the over confidence of the teams just a few points above that could be the downfall. Long way to go yet.

Why leave out Hibs and Dundee Utd but include Motherwell? They’re all literally on the same points [emoji16]
It will take a worse collapse than Killie 2021 from any team outside the bottom three to be relegated IMO. After the infamous East Ayrshire tanking Kilmarnock finished in 11th on 36 points. After 33 games they had 28 points heading into the split. Livingston, in 9th, have 31 points after 27 games.
I get the bottom three looking upwards for hope, it’s what you need. Back in the real world, I think you’re looking at 99%+ chance that the bottom two in May will be made up of teams currently in the bottom three.

[Sonam]

.

11 minutes ago, Lex said:

 

Why leave out Hibs and Dundee Utd but include Motherwell? They’re all literally on the same points
It will take a worse collapse than Killie 2021 from any team outside the bottom three to be relegated IMO. After the infamous East Ayrshire tanking Kilmarnock finished in 11th on 36 points. After 33 games they had 28 points heading into the split. Livingston, in 9th, have 31 points after 27 games.
I get the bottom three looking upwards for hope, it’s what you need. Back in the real world, I think you’re looking at 99%+ chance that the bottom two in May will be made up of teams currently in the bottom three.

 

Dundee United & Hibs will be well safe sadly, too much quality and squad depth. Don't think St. Mirren / Motherwell as good, despite this being a 'great' season so far.

Aberdeen surely too big to fall into this. St. Mirren better get the new manager choice right, otherwise they could be in danger. Can see St. Johnstone and County get few wins on the table. Maybe too late for Dundee, but County will score goals still. Saturday is massive for County, home to St. Johnstone. 

[RandomGuy.]

Us and Dundee would need to be gaining 9+ points on anyone above County to drag them into it, in 11/12 games. First goal is probably hitting 33 points before the split, which requires both sides to pick up 3 or more wins in the next 6/7 games.

I'm intrigued to see how certain teams would react if they find themselves within 4 points of 11th headed into the split, mind you. 

[Bobby_F]

Always find it hard to be on the optimistic side when thinking about Saints, but if we can somehow get a win against Dundee tomorrow I think we’ll be play offs at worst.

Hopefully we’ll be nowhere near that, but it’s an incredibly tight league, and County, Dundee and Saintees have all had some very good results and decent performances recently.