Just seven games into the Championship season, SAINTS have already dropped three games, which has sparked some external anxiety.
Before a single kick of the ball was made, the club made it clear that they intended to achieve automatic promotion back to the Premier League this season.
It is not entirely unreasonable to have set the new manager, Russell Martin, high expectations given the team’s large budget and appealing concept.
When Saints were previously promoted from the division in 2012, they had 88 points, had lost several games, and had let up an average of one goal per game while doing so.
Following three straight losses, Saints have been compared to Burnley’s success from the previous campaign, already equal their total losses in 39 less games.
The Clarets won the Championship in their first season back, but with only three losses, they have the fewest in the division since 2012, making them a bit of an anomaly.
Following three straight losses, Saints have been compared to Burnley’s success from the previous campaign, already equal their total losses in 39 less games.
The Clarets won the Championship in their first season back, but with only three losses, they have the fewest in the division since 2012, making them a bit of an anomaly.
Sheffield United lost 11 games in the same campaign yet still earned automatic promotion. The most defeats endured by an automatically promoted team were 15, which Hull City recorded in 2013.
Saints in 2012 Including, there have been 24 clubs that have received automatic promotion since, and the mean average number of games lost is 8.5.
Losing three consecutive games is not a good indication, especially in a Championship with
powerful, ex-Premier League teams, but is probably not yet a fatal blow.
The automatically promoted 24 clubs have accumulated over 91 points on average, but that does include league champions who, of course, scored above the necessary level.
Since the beginning of the 2011–12 season, the 24 automatically promoted teams have averaged 41 goals allowed.
Saints have already given up 17 goals in just seven games, and if the team continued to play as they have in the previous games, they would likely lose 20 games overall, give up more than 110 goals, and earn 66 points.
However, this is not about predicting where they will end up. On the present trend, Saints are significantly underperforming even the clubs who came the closest to squeaking promotion.
An increase in current performance is probable given the new manager’s entirely new style of play, the high player turnover, and a few injuries on top of that.
The most ever, 80 points were required to qualify for the play-off semifinals in 2016–17. The least number was 68, recorded by Leicester City in 2012–13.
The magic number is discovered to be somewhere around 74 after calculating the average points total of the teams which placed sixth, qualifying for the playoffs in the last spot.
Although this season may turn out to be entirely different, the statistics indicate that Saints must win 39 more games and accrue 64 more points at a least to have a chance of being promoted.
Additionally, the sample size is not indicative of the whole history of the league, and each year, as a result of financial inequality, the Championship’s competitiveness changes.
Martin and the Saints know that in order for this season to be a total success, they will need to improve on their present performance, but we already knew that.
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