CatRyan
Striker
Nothing shows confidence so much as breaking down to minutiae exactly why you are safe.Since the move to a 20-team league in 1995, the average points tally for the 18th-placed team (the highest to go down) is 35.6 points.
We are currently on 36 points after 24 games... We have already reached the "average" safety mark with 14 games to spare. Historically, 36 points is enough to stay up in more than 50% of all Premier League seasons.
The "2-Sigma" Safety Net represents a threshold that covers 97.7% of all likely outcomes.
Based on 30 years of data, the standard deviation for the drop is ~3.4 points.
The "Ironclad" Safety Number: 43 points. At 43 points, you are safe. Only once in history has a team gone down with more than 40 (West Ham in 2003 with 42).
The Math for the Rest of 2026
Current Points: 36
Target for 99% Safety: 43
Required: 7 points from 14 matches.
Required Rate: 0.50 Points Per Game (PPG).
Our Current Rate: 1.50 PPG.
We could literally play at one-third of our current level and still hit the scientific safety mark.
The "Weak Floor" Factor
The current bottom three are historically poor. West Ham (18th) is on 20 points, Burnley (19th) on 15, and Wolves (20th) on just 8. For us to go down, West Ham would need to win almost half their remaining games while we lose every single one.
The risk of relegation is now statistically less than 0.01%.
No need ti worry about relegation, we should be trying to figure out if we can make it to Europe some way.
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I have the same PTSD and appreciate the PSA. However if any club could break records and set precedent for going down, it is us, we have form... we broke records we set.
Was just saying pretty much we are comfortably safe to my brother just this morning... the more acceptable sane public face of the utter anguish and trauma of years of torture that whispers we will manage to snatch abject failure from the jaws of logic and all historical precedent.