Goal difference, goals scored, points, relegation (25 replies)

I've read some opinions about us perhaps not having the points we deserve from how we've played, some crucial decisions skewing our league position and even our pitch dimensions and firmness kyboshing our home form etc. I've found myself thinking similar thoughts but I've come to the painful conclusion that we're probably exactly where we deserve to be.

Whenever I question whether or not a team has about the number of points they deserve in the league, I usually have a look at goal difference as a reasonable predictor. Sure there are always some teams that are outliers but it works pretty well in general and, in any case, outliers tend to become less extreme the longer the season goes on. Our current haul of -12 is comfortably in the bottom three in the Championship.

The next thing I tend to look at is goals scored and we're in the bottom four with only 18. To my mind this is the main reason behind our home form - teams know that they can employ typical away tactics and play conservatively and one goal will be enough to take points out of the game as we will only manage to score one goal, if any, against a simple disciplined shape.

My initial reaction to people's opinions on us looking like relegation material is that we have looked too good for that when we play our best team and system. However, when I consider the goal difference, goals scored and the fact that Sheff Wed have had points deducted, I can't help but conclude that our league position might actually be flattering us slightly.

The good news is that we do have some decent players and might get on the right side of some of these marginal games but that only seems likely to me if we make some significant tweaks to our attacking intent as many people have already observed.