Promotion Watch – How many points do Newcastle need?
Posted on March 8th, 2010 | 135 Comments |
As it stands there are 12 games left. We sit top of the table with 72 points, 8 points clear and with a game in hand on second placed Nottingham Forest and 9 points clear of third placed West Brom. That means we can get a maximum of 108 points if we manage to win the remaining games. Of course that is unlikely to happen although it would be nice, but with 4 out of our next 7 games coming away from fortress St James’ then the potential is there for a slip up.
Perhaps it’s my constant pessimism that has been brought on by following Newcastle for my whole life. With us, nothing is ever done until it’s sealed and signed although I do concede that we are in a great position and seem to have the fight to carry our form on until the end.
Right, so our next few games are:
Middlesbrough(a), Scunthorpe(h), Bristol City(a), Doncaster(a), Nottm Forest(h), Peterborough(a), Sheffield United(h)
Those fixtures take us to Easter Monday by which we will have played 41 games. If we can win our home games and claim a win away that will put us on 84 points with 5 games left. Perhaps I’m being conservative with my estimations, but even on 84 points with with 5 games left I can still see us being top.
Lets move onto the post Easter period and see what games we have then:
Blackpool(h), Reading(a), Plymouth(a), Ipswich(h), QPR(a)
If we were to just win our home games then that would only give us 90 points. I don’t think that will be enough which is why we need to still keep picking points up on the road. As it happens I think we will get 9 from the last 5 games giving us a total of 93 points. You would be very unlucky to at least miss out on 2nd with that points total.
What do you guys think? Obviously discussing this can be taken much much deeper and you can look at other teams games and the like. I just think that as long as we keep our own house in order then we should be fine. Interestingly, if we do beat Nottingham Forest then that would mean he maximum points total they could get is 94 points, and that would only happen if they won their last 10 on the spin which would be a big ask.
93 points, enough or not?
87 points will do it.
I don’t see Forest winning 8 of their last 11 games. Also they have to play at St James’ and they need to win the game – W