Play-offs or not ?

I think the more interesting question is ‘who misses out’? Personally, I think the top 7 will consist of the current top 9, though Dagenham, Yeovil and maybe even Southend might feel that’s harsh.

I think Stockport, Chesterfield, Halifax, Bromley and Boreham Wood will all make it (with one of those five winning the league, probably Stockport as things stand). So that leaves two spots to play for between four; Solihull, Wrexham, Notts County and Town, and we’ll need to register a higher PPG than at least two of them between now and the end of the season.

That’s no mean feat in my opinion, when you consider that we still have to play Boreham Wood twice, Chesterfield (a) and Stockport (h). If you extrapolate the PPGs of our immediate rivals we’re going to need something in the region of 82 points, another 36 points or 2 points per game.

Our current PPG is 1.64, though it’s hard to make sense of that as it’s derived largely from one extremely good and one extremely poor runs of form.

What I’d take from that is that we will need to be consistently very good between now and the end of the season, and cut out those frustrating, undeserved 1-0 defeats.

On balance, I think the odds are against us. It’s absolutely doable, but we have to unlock a level of ruthlessness and consistency I’ve not seen from this team since the early part of the season.

What I found disapointing was Hurst's after match interview a while back. We lost the game 1-0 and he suggested we didn't attack at 0-1 early on as he wanted to 'stay in the game'. I paraphrase slightly.

But we've lost ten games in the league, most of them by the odd goal. If we're 1-0 down with 60 minutes to play, I see that 60 minutes as an opportunity to equalise and maybe get ahead in the game. He sees is as 60 minutes to keep it tight and snatch something. It's an outlook he won't easily change.

The only team I have seen that were comfortably better than us is Stockport - and that was their cup game v Bolton on the telly.

We should already be in the playoff places -  we deserved points from the Chesterfield and Notts home games and Halifax away and no doubt others but results are what they are.

However, our results have obviously picked up, we have improved the team with Rhaiky, Amos and JMD and I would expect and hope we will finish in the top 7.

If we get there, with our support and a nice settled team who knows what might happen?

I do think it is important we reach the playoffs regardless of the ultimate outcome, as I think that would be a springboard for even bigger season ticket sales and player recruitment as it would confirm we are going in the right direction especially if it is confirmed we haven't got Fenty anymore.

Quoted from Poojah

I think the more interesting question is ‘who misses out’? Personally, I think the top 7 will consist of the current top 9, though Dagenham, Yeovil and maybe even Southend might feel that’s harsh.

I think Stockport, Chesterfield, Halifax, Bromley and Boreham Wood will all make it (with one of those five winning the league, probably Stockport as things stand). So that leaves two spots to play for between four; Solihull, Wrexham, Notts County and Town, and we’ll need to register a higher PPG than at least two of them between now and the end of the season.

That’s no mean feat in my opinion, when you consider that we still have to play Boreham Wood twice, Chesterfield (a) and Stockport (h). If you extrapolate the PPGs of our immediate rivals we’re going to need something in the region of 82 points, another 36 points or 2 points per game.

Our current PPG is 1.64, though it’s hard to make sense of that as it’s derived largely from one extremely good and one extremely poor runs of form.

What I’d take from that is that we will need to be consistently very good between now and the end of the season, and cut out those frustrating, undeserved 1-0 defeats.

On balance, I think the odds are against us. It’s absolutely doable, but we have to unlock a level of ruthlessness and consistency I’ve not seen from this team since the early part of the season.

Think you are being a tad pessimistic there. Usually low 70's gets you to 7th spot.

We have won 50% of our games so far this season and if that were to carry on, we would get 72 points. A few draws would take us to mid 70's points wise.

I get what you are saying though and this may be a season with a higher points total than usual, given there are much better sides now in this league than has been the case on previous years.

I think PH has done some good transfer business and we seem to have a decent balanced side now, particularly considering we have Maguire Drew and Wright injured.  A decent run needed now but might just do it.  

At the start of the season I’d have taken being in contention for the play offs and taking a decent squad into next season.  Anything more is a bonus.

I think we were unlucky with injuries and suspensions which contributed to that bad run but something is hopefully building now.

The games we lost to Chesterfield, Wrexham and Bromley could have easily gone either way. I think we're a better team now with Raikhy and Amos who are only going to get better. If we can get Fox and Maguire Drew back and avoid injurys i think we're as good as anyone bar Stockport we just need to get that winning mentality back

Quoted from AdamHaddock

We're too inconsistent to predict at the moment.

Good point.

82 points, honestly I don't think we'll land anywhere near that, but equally I don't think it will require that many points either low to mid 70s I think would be enough for 7th.

Quoted from ginnywings

Think you are being a tad pessimistic there. Usually low 70's gets you to 7th spot.

We have won 50% of our games so far this season and if that were to carry on, we would get 72 points. A few draws would take us to mid 70's points wise.

I get what you are saying though and this may be a season with a higher points total than usual, given there are much better sides now in this league than has been the case on previous years.

Yeah, last season 69 was sufficient and Chesterfield actually finished 6th with that tally. But this season low 70s would mean at least two of those aforementioned rivaks seeing their PPG drop by around 25% over the remaining games.

I don’t see much evidence of that happening, in particular where Wrexham are concerned given the money they spunked in January.

Not sure how many of top 10 have to play each other again, and there are teams still in FA Trophy which means extra game midweek in league. Boreham Wood look in a great position on paper - but playing the amount of games they have to - it’ll be hard and they’ll drop points along the way. Bromley are the ‘spoilers’ for me, but I think we ‘could’ catch Halifax for example. All depends on Wrexham and Notts County..