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Bill's Take: Tabling Clues To Predict How It May End For The Rams
Thursday, 8th Oct 2015 06:30 by Bill Riordan

None of us knows at this point how the season will end for the Rams, or any other club for that matter.

We have little choice but to slog through the forty-six league matches, and gradually all will be revealed. It’s how it has always been but that does not stop us from trying to examine the available clues however.

We can look at the Rams’ early form, examine the league tables for signs, while some will place great importance in the tables as soon as the first ones are published, others will state authoritatively that after ten matches they do not mean anything.

Back at the end of August when the Rams had played just five matches, I did a study of league tables for the last seven years; after five matches and then again at the end of the season. From there I tried to find out how much we could deduce from those early season league tables.

My conclusion at that time was that the league table after five matches was, at least as far as the top two teams were concerned, surprisingly predictive of season’s end, not exact certainly, but it showed which teams seemingly possessed the most quality. So using that as a guide, Brighton and Hull, first and second after five matches this season, looked likely to be among the top teams at season’s end.

That being the case, I just had to repeat the study after ten matches, to see if there might be some predictive value to it. It is fair to say the results were mixed.

For the last two seasons, the top team after ten games was not in the top two at season’s end; in 2014/2015 Norwich, who were top after ten, had to be content with the playoffs, as did QPR in 2013/2014. But for the previous five seasons, the team that was top after ten games always finished in the top two.

Furthermore, in the last seven seasons, only six of the fourteen teams finishing in the top two were outside the top two after ten games; and three of those six were third after ten games.

After all of that, is there any conclusion that can reasonably be drawn? Certainly. I think we can say that the league table after ten matches is not meaningless.

We can also say with some confidence that current leaders Brighton and Middlesbrough will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. It is also quite likely that the team currently in third place will finish in the top two. That said, with four teams equal on eighteen points, can we really say that any one is in third place?

But what does all of this mean for the Rams?

Certainly nothing is conclusive, take Bournemouth for example, who of course finished in first place last season were fifteenth after ten matches. So, it is possible for virtually any club to salvage a poor start and gain automatic promotion, let alone reach the playoffs.

But it is also true that Rams fans would be mistaken to ignore the table and assume that the team’s recent run of good form is a guarantee of great things to come. Brighton and Middlesbrough already have an advantage over us that they may be unwilling to give up.

All of that said, things are looking very much better for the Rams. The defence is looking much stronger than last season, and the money spent just before the transfer deadline has given us a robust look in midfield.

All told, we can go into the international break in a confident mood, looking forward to what should be an attractive match against Wolves on the 18th.

On a completely different subject, I was going about my business the other day, when a name popped into my head; that name was Mason Bennett.

Mason last appeared in the first team in a couple of sub appearances back in January, but has not made it as far as the bench since then and is currently playing in the club’s under 21’s. No longer the child prodigy of a few years ago, Mason turned nineteen in July.

Given that a number of players are ahead of him in the line for first team places, I would like to see him go out on loan for a while, success in League One or League Two could do his development the world of good. It would be tragic if an immense talent never reached its full potential.

In the meantime, Chris Martin, Darren Bent, Andy Weimann, Tom Ince, Johnny Russell and Simon Dawkins — the players ahead of Bennett — show the depth of talent now available at the club.

Photo: Action Images



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