The "Trajectory"

[Dyed Petya]

The way I see it, you have to look beyond the points target anyway. Certainly, that's how I approach it.

The key thing is that, in any event, something big has changed since last summer when the points and placings targets were set. Namely Liverpool, whom most so called 'experts', would have thought to be top four certainties last summer have proved to be absolutely cack, keaving a real possibility, as we look at it now, that a top four vacancy will open up for one of the hopefuls like us, Spurs or Villa. If I'd known that last summer, then I'd all have said fourth was the minimum target, with all due respect to Messrs Redknapp and O'Neill (as it was, I thought fifth or sixth). Not that it would be easy or inevitably achieved, but that it should be our aim.

For us to stand any chance of achieving that aim, we had to improve in two areas above all: firstly, in terms of goals conceded (we conceded 53 in Sven's season and a marginally better 50 in Hughes's first season); and secondly, in terms of away form (19 away games brought 18 points under Sven and a pathetic 11 points last season).

Now, maybe you can excuse Hughes for last season's level of performance given that he had to impose his way of doing things, weed out the bad apples, and so on. He told us enough about those tasks, after all. Nor, with lots of new players coming in last January and in the summer, should we expect the team to be the finished article. We all know that a new side won't completely gel immediately. But surely after the backing Hughes has had and the money spent giving him the team he wants we should be able to see signs of progress in key areas.

In fact, all but halfway through the campaign, we've conecded goals at a rate that will see at least sixty shipped over the season if continued over the remaining games. And after two away wins in the first two games on the road (albeit our opponents had presentable chances to have levelled in each of them), we've reverted to type there as well. We currently have no wins in the last seven away league games.

I think he can blame being fired on it's his failure to address issues like that. And if, as reported, his only answer to the board in terms of how to go about doing so was to buy more players - well, you can see why the board might think that they really want to entrust to someone else the task of trying to make the top four in this, a season in which the chance to do so may be unparalleled.

 

[vonksbignose]

Look, before anyone else gets nowty I posted this in good faith with no agenda. I wasn't trying to predict we'll end up with X points at the end of the season. I was trying to show that if our future form continues the same way as our last 8 or 9 games then 70 points is a f****** pipe dream. For all I know Hughes might have won the next 10 games on the trot but the owners didn't and I can see why.

I'm off to the pub. Cheers!

in that case don't post shite statistics and to have a pop at city fans who see things differently to you

What's this? Maths for the terminally illogical
and it makes me piss that supposed 'intelligent' posters agree with your flawed, shall we call them, 'statistics'
noobs ,who should know better, agreeing with your falsehoods as it suits their agenda

Erm, is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black squirty?

 

[cibaman]

The trajectory line was a load of nonsense aimed at trying to justify the sacking as being an objective decision. It would have been far more honest to simply say "we've been dropping points to teams we expect to beat, the defense seems to be getting worse by the week, we no longer have faith in MH to spend the owners's money wisely in January and the nature of the performance against spurs was the final straw". Not very objective but much closer to the truth.

 

[squirtyflower]

in that case don't post shite statistics and to have a pop at city fans who see things differently to you

What's this? Maths for the terminally illogical
and it makes me piss that supposed 'intelligent' posters agree with your flawed, shall we call them, 'statistics'
noobs ,who should know better, agreeing with your falsehoods as it suits their agenda

Erm, is this not a case of the pot calling the kettle black squirty?

i happen to like both kettles and pots....

oh and the colour black

and by the way, you may have noticed when trolling i don't start posts having a pop at others, just leap to the defence when faced with continued abuse when it should be dropped

 

[DontLookBackInAnger]

The way I see it, you have to look beyond the points target anyway. Certainly, that's how I approach it.

The key thing is that, in any event, something big has changed since last summer when the points and placings targets were set. Namely Liverpool, whom most so called 'experts', would have thought to be top four certainties last summer have proved to be absolutely cack, keaving a real possibility, as we look at it now, that a top four vacancy will open up for one of the hopefuls like us, Spurs or Villa. If I'd known that last summer, then I'd all have said fourth was the minimum target, with all due respect to Messrs Redknapp and O'Neill (as it was, I thought fifth or sixth). Not that it would be easy or inevitably achieved, but that it should be our aim.

For us to stand any chance of achieving that aim, we had to improve in two areas above all: firstly, in terms of goals conceded (we conceded 53 in Sven's season and a marginally better 50 in Hughes's first season); and secondly, in terms of away form (19 away games brought 18 points under Sven and a pathetic 11 points last season).

Now, maybe you can excuse Hughes for last season's level of performance given that he had to impose his way of doing things, weed out the bad apples, and so on. He told us enough about those tasks, after all. Nor, with lots of new players coming in last January and in the summer, should we expect the team to be the finished article. We all know that a new side won't completely gel immediately. But surely after the backing Hughes has had and the money spent giving him the team he wants we should be able to see signs of progress in key areas.

In fact, all but halfway through the campaign, we've conecded goals at a rate that will see at least sixty shipped over the season if continued over the remaining games. And after two away wins in the first two games on the road (albeit our opponents had presentable chances to have levelled in each of them), we've reverted to type there as well. We currently have no wins in the last seven away league games.

I think he can blame being fired on it's his failure to address issues like that. And if, as reported, his only answer to the board in terms of how to go about doing so was to buy more players - well, you can see why the board might think that they really want to entrust to someone else the task of trying to make the top four in this, a season in which the chance to do so may be unparalleled.

This really cuts to the hart of the matter and is a really great post, if I may say so! In a way, it's because Liverpool have been losing that Hughes lost his job, as whacky as that sounds.

 

[bizzbo]

it's a poor turn of phrase but the concept is most definitely not nonsense.

the only method I've seen used to do this is to include as many results as possible, but weight the results so the more recent results are more significant in your estimation of future results... that is what we mean by 'form', isn't it? I don't know the correct weightings for this.... and to do it properly you should weight the fixtures by their difficulty (at this point you need a series of matrices of every other teams results!)...so whilst I'm not going to try it in practise, it is how The Times' 'Think Tank' predictions are calculated.

unfortunately for MH regardless of the weightings involved this would neccesarily have us arrive at a points total lower than extrapolating the average points per game this season, as we accrued most of our points in the first 7 games.

the point seems to be that even the methods that arrive at more flattering figures show us below target. how much is open to debate. in his defence form can be misleading, and you could argue that if this is the end of a bad run then taking our sample now is unfair on him.

 

[Neil McNab]

Interesting. It would clearly have taken a massive turnaround to achieve the 70 point target and there was very little sign at all of that happening.

41 points would be needed from 21 remaining games, which would mean winning the majority. Not impossible, but very unlikely the way things were going.

No....it could be achieved wining a minority of 10 games + 11 draws, but who cares, the gap between us and where we want to be is all that matters!

 

[squirtyflower]

Interesting. It would clearly have taken a massive turnaround to achieve the 70 point target and there was very little sign at all of that happening.

41 points would be needed from 21 remaining games, which would mean winning the majority. Not impossible, but very unlikely the way things were going.

we have already won the majority of our games
9 from 17 is a majority

 

[bizzbo]

Interesting. It would clearly have taken a massive turnaround to achieve the 70 point target and there was very little sign at all of that happening.

41 points would be needed from 21 remaining games, which would mean winning the majority. Not impossible, but very unlikely the way things were going.

we have already won the majority of our games
9 from 17 is a majority

7 from 17

 

[Project]

Interesting. It would clearly have taken a massive turnaround to achieve the 70 point target and there was very little sign at all of that happening.

41 points would be needed from 21 remaining games, which would mean winning the majority. Not impossible, but very unlikely the way things were going.

we have already won the majority of our games
9 from 17 is a majority

We've won 7