We seem to be moving towards a ‘points per game’ conclusion to the current season, with placing worked out on the average number of points achieved by each team, per game, thus far.

One model, one which seems preferred, is to work out the average points at home and away to get the current total. We ran an article looking at a possible table here, seeing how it would affect the current standings. It doesn’t affect us greatly, but I did wonder how much it might have affected last season?

No model is perfect, no decision will suit everyone, but I wonder if prior to making a decision the EFL will run last season’s tables as an indicator of whether points per game is a fair route to go down. If they want to but haven’t yet done the maths, then they can rest easy knowing I’ve done it for them. I will stress that I am in favour of using this model to end the season and have been since late March when I first wrote an article on it. You can’t recreate the exact matches without playing them, so this is the fairest way. However, would things be very different in the current divisions if we’d had the pandemic last year?

League Two 2018/19

We were the champions of League Two last season, followed up automatically by MK Dons and Bury. Newport, Mansfield, Forest Green and Tranmere contested the play-offs, with the latter going through. At the bottom, Notts County and Yeovil were relegated, with Sol Campbell saving Macclesfield in a great escape.

Under a PPG model, assuming action stopped on March 7th and the home and away totals were worked out, then ourselves and Bury would have still been promoted, us as champions. We actually finished the season with 5.72 points fewer than the model would give us, but it would still have been around four ahead of Bury. Mansfield would be the big winners under the model, they’d have cleared MK Dons by three points to also be a League One club.

Newport and Forest Green would have missed out, niether making the top seven. Instead, our final day opponents Colchester would sneak in, along with Exeter City. If (as proposed) the team in fourth also got promoted, then MK Dons would come up, meaning three of the four promotion places would have been correct.

At the bottom, not even a pandemic could have saved Notts County, although they ended up with three more points than PPG believed they would. Macclesfield would have been relegated, but it is interesting to see four of the bottom five finish with more points than the model suggests they should. Yeovil, who clearly had a complete collapse, would have stayed up if the season had been ended on March 7th and finished via PPG.

In League Two, of the six promotion / relegation places on offer, a PPG model would have got four of them correct.

	Home			Away			Expected
	P	Pts	PPG	P	Pts	PPG	Home	Away	Total	Act	Diff
Lincoln City	17	34	2.00	18	35	1.94	12.00	9.72	90.72	85	-5.72
Bury	18	41	2.28	17	25	1.47	11.39	8.82	86.21	79	-7.21
Mansfield Town	18	40	2.22	17	24	1.41	11.11	8.47	83.58	76	-7.58
Milton Keynes Dons	18	39	2.17	17	23	1.35	10.83	8.12	80.95	79	-1.95
Tranmere Rovers	17	34	2.00	18	21	1.17	12.00	5.83	72.83	73	0.17
Exeter City	18	30	1.67	17	25	1.47	8.33	8.82	72.16	70	-2.16
Colchester United	17	31	1.82	18	23	1.28	10.94	6.39	71.33	70	-1.33
Forest Green Rovers	18	25	1.39	17	29	1.71	6.94	10.24	71.18	74	2.82
Carlisle United	17	26	1.53	18	27	1.50	9.18	7.50	69.68	68	-1.68
Swindon Town	18	25	1.39	16	25	1.56	6.94	10.94	67.88	64	-3.88
Newport County	17	34	2.00	17	15	0.88	12.00	5.29	66.29	71	4.71
Stevenage	17	29	1.71	18	20	1.11	10.24	5.56	64.79	70	5.21
Oldham Athletic	18	26	1.44	17	21	1.24	7.22	7.41	61.63	62	0.37
Grimsby Town	18	29	1.61	17	18	1.06	8.06	6.35	61.41	56	-5.41
Crewe Alexandra	18	35	1.94	17	11	0.65	9.72	3.88	59.60	65	5.40
Northampton Town	17	22	1.29	18	23	1.28	7.76	6.39	59.15	61	1.85
Cheltenham Town	17	25	1.47	18	16	0.89	8.82	4.44	54.27	57	2.73
Crawley Town	17	27	1.59	18	12	0.67	9.53	3.33	51.86	53	1.14
Cambridge United	17	25	1.47	18	14	0.78	8.82	3.89	51.71	47	-4.71
Yeovil Town	18	19	1.06	17	17	1.00	5.28	6.00	47.28	40	-7.28
Morecambe	17	15	0.88	18	20	1.11	5.29	5.56	45.85	54	8.15
Port Vale	17	15	0.88	18	19	1.06	5.29	5.28	44.57	49	4.43
Macclesfield Town	17	19	1.12	18	11	0.61	6.71	3.06	39.76	44	4.24
Notts County	18	19	1.06	17	10	0.59	5.28	3.53	37.81	41	3.19

League One 2018/19

League One has three promotion places and four relegation spots, meaning than there is more scope for a PPG model to be wrong. However, the top two teams, Barnsley and Luton, would have remained top had the season finished on March 7th and been simulated. Both ended up with slightly fewer points than expected, but it was enough to hold off Sunderland. The play-off spots would also have remained the same, but Sunderland would have finished third and potentially been promoted under the PPG model. They amassed almost seven points fewer than a PPG model thought they would, whilst Charlton picked up almost nine more.

The bottom would be very different. Wimbledon would have been relegated, but their great escape defied the odds. They pulled in almost 11 points more than the model suggested they would and finished outside the bottom four. Sadly, Bradford couldn’t have been saved, but Plymouth, Walsall and Scunthorpe would all also have stayed up. Rochdale, who showed some super form towards the end of the season, would have gone down, as would Bristol Rovers. That means the PPG model would have got just three of the seven positions in League One correct.

	Home			Away			Expected PPG
	P	Pts	PPG	P	Pts	PPG	Home	Away	Total	Actual	Diff
Luton Town	18	46	2.56	17	29	1.71	12.78	10.24	98.01	94	-4.01
Barnsley	17	39	2.29	18	31	1.72	13.76	8.61	92.38	91	-1.38
Sunderland	18	38	2.11	16	30	1.88	10.56	13.13	91.68	85	-6.68
Portsmouth	18	33	1.83	17	32	1.88	9.17	11.29	85.46	88	2.54
Charlton Athletic	17	35	2.06	18	25	1.39	12.35	6.94	79.30	88	8.70
Doncaster Rovers	17	33	1.94	17	22	1.29	11.65	7.76	74.41	73	-1.41
Peterborough United	18	24	1.33	17	31	1.82	6.67	10.94	72.61	72	-0.61
Coventry City	17	26	1.53	18	24	1.33	9.18	6.67	65.84	65	-0.84
Blackpool	17	26	1.53	17	22	1.29	9.18	7.76	64.94	62	-2.94
Fleetwood Town	18	27	1.50	17	22	1.29	7.50	7.76	64.26	61	-3.26
Burton Albion	18	26	1.44	17	18	1.06	7.22	6.35	57.58	63	5.42
Accrington Stanley	16	21	1.31	17	20	1.18	9.19	7.06	57.25	55	-2.25
Wycombe Wanderers	17	28	1.65	18	15	0.83	9.88	4.17	57.05	53	-4.05
Plymouth Argyle	17	25	1.47	18	16	0.89	8.82	4.44	54.27	50	-4.27
Scunthorpe United	17	21	1.24	18	20	1.11	7.41	5.56	53.97	46	-7.97
Southend United	18	20	1.11	17	21	1.24	5.56	7.41	53.97	50	-3.97
Gillingham	17	18	1.06	18	22	1.22	6.35	6.11	52.46	55	2.54
Shrewsbury Town	18	28	1.56	17	12	0.71	7.78	4.24	52.01	52	-0.01
Walsall	17	19	1.12	18	20	1.11	6.71	5.56	51.26	47	-4.26
Oxford United	18	26	1.44	17	13	0.76	7.22	4.59	50.81	60	9.19
Bristol Rovers	18	17	0.94	16	20	1.25	4.72	8.75	50.47	54	3.53
Rochdale	17	15	0.88	18	19	1.06	5.29	5.28	44.57	54	9.43
Bradford City	17	20	1.18	18	13	0.72	7.06	3.61	43.67	41	-2.67
AFC Wimbledon	17	12	0.71	18	18	1.00	4.24	5.00	39.24	50	10.76

Conclusion

It is impossible to come up with a suitable measure by which to end the season, but this does show that some clubs might be aggrieved by PPG. I think in League Two, the difference would have been negligible, although Yeovil fans might not agree. Similarly, anyone looking at the bottom of League One might argue against PPG. It would be hard to see Bolton or Southend survive, but what of Bristol Rovers? They would have gone down under a PPG system and yet they finished 15th. Also, Plymouth and Scunthorpe were relegated and they were 14th and 16th respectively on March 7th… either side of where we are right now.