2 Posts On Form: Form and Strength of Schedule

Bournemouth.

I like Bournemouth, and I'm happy they're doing well. A club that seems (finally) to be well run, and one that is becoming successful; indeed, they recently signed Donal McDermott from Town. However, they started this season abysmally, so there was a fair bit of time that results against them would be increasingly difficult to get, despite the league table suggesting they wouldn't.

The solution I thought of was form. I tend to think of that as the last six games a team played, so I worked with the same weighting idea, just with the last six games being the table I drew it from rather than the whole season so far. In practise, this meant that for the first few weeks of the season, the form might be a little changeable but once it settled in, it allowed me to draw conclusions like I did in the previous form post (See here). This job finally came to a head with Tuesday night's results (well done Bury, but also well done Charlton) and I've got a table and a graph to represent it.

If I explain the table first of all. You'll recognise the first five columns; games played, games won, games drawn, games lost, and points. The sixth column (FPts) is 'Form Points' because I couldn't think of anything else. Effectively, they're worked out like this. A win against the team in 13th place over the last six games earns 3 points - half way. A win against the top team earns four, and a win against the bottom team earns two - the rest are spaced out evenly between the two figures. I did wonder if it would skew the numbers too badly, but it worked well for my purpose. Draws are weighted between 1.5 and 0.5 respectively. After the FPts is Form Points less Actual Points - to see how different the two outcomes are. Centred around 0, but averaging a shade below; as one would expect - it is easier to beat a team who are out of form.

All of which explains the two greyed out columns and the columns to their right. Win Total and Win Average, and Draw Total and Draw Average. That means that Charlton's average win is against teams who are 10th in the form table (3.21 points per average win) whereas Rochdale's wins are generally against weaker teams, average 18th in the form table.

So what does this tell us? Not as much as I thought it might, to be honest, but look at the differences between Town and Sheffield Wednesday. Even basing teams' abilities on form, we can see that Wednesday beat more teams higher up the league, whereas Town draw against them. The common 'we don't beat the teams around us' is very much played out in that. Although, it has to be said, only Stevenage, of the playoff teams and above, have to host Town, so that number might well change by the end of the season.

Look, too, at Orient's WA - 3.32. If Orient beat someone, they make sure they beat someone good - mind you, so do Walsall, though their - only- four victories perhaps skews the figures.

What I would say about the graph is that it gives the same information as the table; I'd view the form points - navy - (average per game in both cases) as the potential the team has been playing at, in comparison to the red bar, which is the actual points; I expect the ones with the blue lines higher to improve a little towards the end of the season, and the ones with the red lines higher to fade away which, in theory, should see Walsall away from trouble; I expect to see Rochdale fall away, and Yeovil to struggle in the 2nd half of the season.

I also, at the other end of the table, expect Wednesday to be the biggest challenge to Town for 2nd spot as Charlton motor away. Stevenage will be interesting....interesting...to see if that slight sway with the red bar higher will lead to a more difficult second half of the season.

As ever, then, Town, more wins will help.

I will update this table at the end of the season- then we will see which teams had the easiest ride, and which made the best of a bad job.