3 games left. St Mirren v Well tonight. Unsure exactly how I want it to go. A Motherwell win would help our top 6 chances and a St Mirren win would strengthen our gap between the teams below us.

We are 10 ahead of Killie
10 ahead of Hamilton (they have 1 game in hand)
8 ahead of County (they have 1 game in hand)
6 ahead of M'well (they have 1 game in hand - tonight)
1 ahead of Saints who will still have some top 6 ambitions too (their run-in looks nicer than ours)

My own thoughts? Ideally a draw, but if one has to win then for me its St Mirren.

Although I feel we are safe, there is still a good chance we'll go into the split closer to those teams than we are now. Even if we all started pre-split on the same points, I'd still be confident of us not having any issues, but a win this weekend would (in my eyes) cement it that we'll be in this league next season. And on top of that, give us a great chance of making top 6. Our two homes games coming up against Celtic and Aberdeen are our two best chances of beating either of these teams at Tannadice for a very very long time. Lets attack it and see where we end up!
 

Lilley01 wrote:

If we win at Killie, the pressure is off to really make life difficult for Celtic and Aberdeen.

​Very poor form for both teams but with Aberdeen scoring and getting a win last week and Lennon away today, I think we should expect different sides to the Aberdeen team that didn't score for 5 games and the Celtic team that have fucked up endlessly. 

 
Agreed. Making Saturday a very important game.

If we were to get Top 6 we'd really need to beat both Killie and Celtic.

Doubtful we'd win both. But you never know.

Morphman wrote:

Tek wrote:

If we were to get Top 6 we'd really need to beat both Killie and Celtic.

Doubtful we'd win both. But you never know.

From what I've seen of them this season they are pretty stinking yet I have bad feeling that now Lennon is offski Celtic are going to start smashing teams from now until the end of the season. No doubt starting with us next week  

They undoubtedly will.
 

Tek wrote:

If we were to get Top 6 we'd really need to beat both Killie and Celtic.

Doubtful we'd win both. But you never know.

 
Or we could beat the sheep?

Just read the post above lol

Last edited by Arabdownsouth (25/2/2021 8:03 am)

St Mirren's run-in actually might not be as straightforward as we'd think.

County (H) - they are coming off the back of that great result against Celtic so you never know.
Rangers (A) - enough said with that
Hamilton (A) - as we all know that pitch, that team, they find a way to win.

It's still very much ON as long as we win on Saturday. We can't rule out St Johnstone either though. The lift they could get this weekend might really spur them on. It's still all to play for.

It's just much nicer to be talking about our decent chances of top 6 rather than anything else tbh...

Goodie Conway 2 wrote:

Tek wrote:

If we were to get Top 6 we'd really need to beat both Killie and Celtic.

Doubtful we'd win both. But you never know.

We also have Aberdeen at home before the split. I fancy our chances more against them, than Celtic.

 

Yeah, i know.

I just meant so it's in our hands going into that match against Aberdeen.
 

As there's not much else to do with my Sundays at the moment, I've been a bit geeky and looked at the remaining fixtures before the split and worked out that below are the two worst case scenarios going into the split...  This is based on us not picking up a point in the final 2 games (which is possible) and Ross/Killie and Hamilton all winning remaining games.  Ross Co play KIllie next week which is why I've done two tables.
_____________________________________________________

St J      36pts 
Ham     36pts 
Utd       35pts  
Well      35pts        
Ross     32pts  
Killie      31pts  

This relies on Hamilton beating St J, Aberdeen, Livi & St Mirren
And on Killie Beating Ross Co & Motherwell
_____________________________________________________

St J      36pts
Ham     36pts
Utd       35pts  
Well      35pts        
Ross     35pts  
Killie      28pts 

Relies on Hamilton beating St J, Aberdeen, Livi & St Mirren
Ross Co beating Killie, Hibs & St Johnstone
_____________________________________________________

Using a random fixture generator, I then mocked up 4 different outcomes assuming that the lowere placed team always wins the fixture apart from Utd, who lose every game regardless of placing.

After burning out Excel (and learning a few wee tricks along the way) Im of the opinion that we need a maximum of 8pts between now and end of season to guarantee we stay up. 

Excluding St J, it looks like the rest of the teams would have to increase their PPG tally to around 1.4 at least for us to end up bottom 2.  At the moment Killie are lowest on 0.8 and Motherwell are on 1.03 so it's a big increase.  For comparison, Livingston are at 1.37 to date.

This is all 'ifs and buts' and I'll likley redo this next week again to see where we are but although yesterdays draw was a kick in the gut, I'm confident that we can definately sneak 2 wins and 2 draws in our last 7 games.  If we can steal anything in the two home games against Aberdeen or Celtic it will lift a fair bit of weight off.  Win either and a failure for Killie, Ross or Hamilton to pick up 1ppg then we should be all but safe going into the final 5 games.

This could also turn out to be a lot of pish if I've calulated something wrong at the start!

 

Last edited by dyed in the wool (28/2/2021 12:22 pm)

Keep up the good work mate.
I've been trying to do this but totally does my head in.

A very welcome equaliser from ST J tonight.
No place for complacency now.
I still think we are fragile enough to go on a disastrous losing run

Nowhere near that many as after the split bottom 6 take point of each other

Here's a wee thought...
We draw v Aberdeen then remain unbeaten post-split, 5 more draws, we end up on 42 points.
Highly unlikely of course to finish with 6 draws but all I'm saying is supposing we weren't to lose again this season we would have a points total that would likely keep us a perilous one place above the play-off position.
Moral of the story again is you get nothing for draws.
 

Hearing McInnes has been sacked at Aberdeen so not sure how this will affect them when we play them. Hoping their recent form continues and we manage to get the 3 points.