Joey Barton has Bristol Rovers believing. The League Two play-offs were a realistic aspiration but Saturday’s 1-0 win at Northampton now has the idea of automatics firmly in the consciousness of a Rovers fanbase.
And why not? No team across the Premier League and EFL has won more games than Rovers in 2022 (11), they lead the League Two form table for five, 10 and 15 games and have eight clean sheets from their last 11 games.
Across numerous metrics, they’re resembling the side to beat in the division right now. While, crucially, the gap between themselves and Northampton in third, the latest automatic promotion place, is a matter of one goal.
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Barton is bringing his bravado in terms of assessing his team’s chances but is also speaking with evidence on the field of what they’re capable of. Because that individual quality that got them through games across winter has now been moulded into a cohesive unit and a group who are winning matches collectively.
But while Rovers are believing anything - and mathematically the title is still on - is possible, what do the experts and bookmakers think regarding where the Gas are likely to finish the campaign on May 7?
FiveThirtyEight, the US-based statistical analysis website, run thousands of simulations of 40 domestic league across the world, updated and reprogrammed each week to reflect the relevant results, based on something they refer to as the SPI ratings, which calculates the number of goals a team is expected to score and concede against each of its forthcoming opponents.
On their current projections, Rovers hold the highest SPI across the whole of League Two on 16.4 and are forecast to finish third on 77 points, one point ahead of Tranmere in fourth. That would mean the Gas take 14 points from their remaining eight matches. Say, four wins, two draws and two defeats, which equates to 1.75 points per game; their ratio for the season is 1.65 and 2.17 in 2022.
Of the teams in the promotion equation, having knocked off Northampton, Rovers still have to face Tranmere (A), Port Vale (A) and Forest Green (H) which puts their destiny very much in their own hands.
Twenty First Group, another analytics site or "sports intelligence" as they market themselves, also have Rovers finishing third, based on their automatic promotion probabilities which give the Gas a 21 per cent chance of finishing inside the top three and a 51 per cent chance of reaching the play-offs.
Interestingly, those values were boosted by 11 and 10.4 per cent by their win over Northampton Town on Saturday, emphasising just how important the three points at Sixfields was.
As for the bookmakers, Rovers’ odds don’t quite reflect the statistical outlook as via Oddschecker they’re either 5/2 or 13/5 to get promoted - eighth overall among their rivals - while they’re evens to make the play-offs - fourth overall, although Forest Green and Exeter City aren’t even priced - and 15/2 to win them, bizarrely seventh favourites.
As for the title, well having been what seemed a rather generous 80/1 on Sunday, they’re now drifted to 125/1 following Forest Green’s 1-0 win at Colchester as the Gloucestershire side now boast a eight-point advantage at the top of the table (nine on Rovers), have a game in hand over all the top seven bar Exeter, and host bottom side Scunthorpe this weekend.
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