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[Alty365]

My honest appraisal of the next 6 games is as follows:

Salisbury (A) Draw
Ebbsfleet (H) Draw
Histon (A) Lose
Weymouth (H) Win
Stevenage (A) Lose
Kidderminster (H) Win

So I make it 8 points from our next 6 games. I don't think defeats at Histon and Stevenage would be any disgrace and I see some solid home performances coming up. If we work on the basis that 40 points is a realistic survival target this year, that would mean we're almost half way there with less than half our games completed.

What does everyone else think?

[RedWhiteRedWhite]

I think 40 points leaves a lot of our fate in the hands of the teams around us...

As close to 50 points as possible would be a better target....but then in saying that it's just as easy to state the obvious and say 60/70/80 etc etc!

I think 25 points by the end of the year should stand us in good stead. (Potentially we could be awarded 6 straight away if Vics fold, and everyone gets a 3-0 win, and with most teams having already beaten them...it saves us a potential banana skin!)

I'm enjoying the optimism on here though...

[Jenga]

Did we not get 51 last season to enter the AGM cup?

So surely 50 has to be the target?

[markecky]

Last year there wasn't as many appalling teams though.

[teasybeaver]

I think realistically it will go down to who is the better of us, York and Farsley will survive. Meaning, one of the three will join vics (rip), droylsden and stafford.

I think that we will start to build home form soon and away record will remain pretty decent. I haven't got a clue how many points this will equate to, or how many we will need, but my gut feeling is we will be ok. That is simply down to the fact that, unlike last season, the contenders for relegation are already cut and dried. We must use that in our favour instead of wallowing in it.

[Jenga]

Use or Farlsey will go down in my opinion.

But I believe we are getting stronger and stronger now, and I think we can pick up some good points.

[Alty365]

I can't help feeling that Farsley will get found out a bit in the new year just as St Albans did. Our best is yet to come in my opinion and with Shotton on board for another two months I am quietly confident of some decent results.

[louise1925]

Agree with Alty365 and Jenga. Our best chances of victory in the next 6 games are v Kiddy and Weymouth. If we can collect draws in as many of the other 4 games as possible, that would be fine. It will probably be between us and Farsley for 4th bottom, though I can see Droylsden splashing a bit of money in January and possible improving. The problem is that 5 point gap. It needs to be eaten up as soon as possible and so there is a bit of pressure on the lads. I can also see Grays getting sucked into the relegaton dogfight, just to make it a bit more interesting.

[Alty365]

Agree with Alty365 and Jenga. Our best chances of victory in the next 6 games are v Kiddy and Weymouth. If we can collect draws in as many of the other 4 games as possible, that would be fine. It will probably be between us and Farsley for 4th bottom, though I can see Droylsden splashing a bit of money in January and possible improving. The problem is that 5 point gap. It needs to be eaten up as soon as possible and so there is a bit of pressure on the lads. I can also see Grays getting sucked into the relegaton dogfight, just to make it a bit more interesting.

If Northwich go that would be three of the five points eaten up straight away. Goes without saying that the two games against Farsley are massively significant and I can see it going down to the very last game once again.

Would we do it any other way? 

[altyf]

This season is going to be extremely different from last...whilst there are worse teams in the league this year, there are also less teams that will get dragged into the relegation battle. So whilst Vics, Droylsden, Stafford and Farsley are much weaker than the likes of Southport, there are only really five teams that COULD go down, where as last season there was Cmbridge, Halifax etc that always had the risk of getting dragged in. Therefore, I cant see that we would need as much as 51 points again, I think 46 should be the aim, 1 point a game. By that estimation, 25 points at the new year would be fantastic.

[crossie]

Its going to be one of those seasons where alty gives us a heart attack again. I believe we will stay up fair and square and probably get 55-58 points. With 20 points coming in the last few months of the season! Where we put up a fight for servival. In the next 6 games, i would say anyone of them is a possible win or draw, you never know how we will play on the day. I think realistically we will get 11 points with wins at Histon, Weymouth, and Sailsbury and then draws at Kiddiminster and Gravesend (oh sorry Ebbsfleet waste of time changing the name of that place its still a dump).

So come on alty

[altyf]

A win against Histon is rather optimistic! 
But fair enough if thats what you predict.

[penfold]

Histon will be a tricky game, they are having a good bast at bsp football, so might prove a game with a few goals.

[Ballers]

I believe we will stay up fair and square and probably get 55-58 points.

45 - 48 points from 32 games...that's top 10 form

[ManagementGuru]

I've just done some quick analysis over the last 10 seasons of what it takes to stay up in a 24 team league with 4 down.  The lowest total needed to survive was 45 points (achieved 10% of the time).  The highest was 54.  The bad news is that if the league has crap teams at the bottom then on average the 5th bottom club needs MORE points than usual to survive.  For example in Division 2 of the Football League ion 2000-01, you would have needed 52 points to survive with the bottom 3 getting 40, 37 and 29.  To have a lower than average points total and escape you would need 5 really crap teams.

Currently, extrapolating the league table gives Farsley 47, Halifax and Grays 46, York 42 and Alty 32 - but it's amazing how many of the other struglers games (and points) are against Stafford, Droylsden, Vics, Histon, and each other.  And Halifax are unbeaten at home!

And every season someone at the bottom gets out of trouble (FGR last year) and someone in mid table plummets like a stone - my money would be on Histon this season. (it was Woking last year)

Realistically then, we're probably looking at 48 - 53 points to survive and therefore I think the next 6 matches will need to unroll as follows:

Salisbury - we'll probably lose - they are full of confidence and scoring for fun: defence is a bit porous though: 2-3?
Ebbsfleet - this is the kind of team we need to beat at home - fringe playoff / midtable side
Histon - a draw would be good
Weymouth - see Ebbsfleet comment above
Stevenage - lose
Kidderminster - see Weymouth, Ebbsfleet comment above.

I believe we need to aim for at least 7 points from the next three home games and hope for a couple on the road - nine points from the nect six games anyone?