Today's key games
Fleetwood v Blackpool
Posh v Pompey
Shrewsbury v Oxford
Sunderland v Gillingham
Draws for Fleetwood and Sunderland and a win for Posh and/or Oxford will push us out of the play-offs
Also Ipswich v Coventry and Rochdale v Rotherham - just in case anyone still thinks we might go up automatically...
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And with the bunching at the top of the league neither Coventry or Rotherham are guaranteed a playoff place - there’s still a chance they may have a particularly bad run.
Shrewsbury 1-0 Oxford
I think Coventry will pull away now, but Rotherham have the very odd bad result in them and could drop out.
2-0 Shrewsbury but also 1-0 Peterborough. As it stands, for the first time all season, we are OUT of the play-offs
But we have a game in hand over Sunderland, Peterborough and Rotherham, but it is away to Coventry.
As it stands the bottom 3 in the Championship are the three that went up from L1 last season. Shows the gulf between the two divisions.
Somehow we're still three points off 2nd with a game in hand - Rotherham now 2-0 down at Rochdale, who they also lost to at home.
Rotherham 3-0 down now.
Sunderland and Oxford both winning - Chairboys down to 8th.
Good to see Sunderland bottle a lead in the 90th minute - Blues still 8th.
4th - 8th all on 59 points
Oxford winning is a shame, but not too bad a set of rests for us. Still right in the mix and being out of the top 6 won't be a concern
Oxford having the usual helping hand from the ref they were 2-0 down before ref sent off a Shrewsbury player.
What a ludicrously tight promotion race. Three points from second with a game in hand and only 8th.
It's like last season's ridiculous relegation scrap - and we're going to have been involved in both of them, who would have thought it?
Oxford game is a right blow, But the rest went pretty well.
Oddly being down to 8th was the worst case scenario at the start of the day but with Fleetwood, Rotherham Sunderland and Portsmouth dropping points it's gone well still.
Ipswich continue their mad run of appalling form.
Pompey v Fleetwood on Tuesday night is a biggy
With teams all so close / level on points, the thing sticking out like a sore thumb is our considerably worse goal difference... Here's hoping those goals we shipped over the Christmas period don't ruin our chances!
Next 5:
Burton A
Oxford H
Coventry A
Shrewsbury A
Rotherham H
Final 5:
Southend A
AFC Wimbledon H
Lincoln A
Gillingham H
Accrington A
The first half of the run-in looks considerably tougher, but get 9-10 points and I'll be very confident of a play-off finish. We're probably looking at needing 18-20 overall.
Rotherham H
Home banker. Ask Rochdale.
Goal difference is only worth half a point.
Hope im proved massively wrong, but can't see us getting anything from the next 5!!! Such an optimist ?
You can't see us doing anything but losing the next 5!?
22 including a point at Crown Ground
A half point which is currently the difference between 5 teams
Realistically, I think we're going to have to win all our home games; it's impossible to have any faith in us on the road.
Total realistic to think two or three away wins are well within reach for me.
This current group of players cannot be discounted over a 10 game season.
Only once in the last ten seasons - ten years ago in 2010 - has a points total greater than 74 been needed to be in the League One play-offs. That may suggest that 15 points from our final 10 matches would be enough. IMO we are capable of getting that many.
That need for 74 points has been in 46 match seasons, not from 44 matches as there are this season. On a pro-rata basis, 71 points from 44 would have been enough. I think we will easily get another 12, but the fewer the number of matches the closer the points totals of teams in the competition will be and the more important a team's goal difference becomes.