Can you provide some evidence to base that assertion on?

Again, here's my examples of a league table lying:

1. Hull FC after 5 games of last season
2. Hull City after half of their first Premier League season

And, it can be argued that sometimes a league table can lie even at the end of the season:

1. Salford making the playoffs a few years back and getting relegated the next season
2. Rovers finishing 4th last season (I'm not saying that was false but a lot of people on here were over on the Rovers board saying so)
3. Ipswich Town in 2000, narrowly missing out on a Champions League place in their first season back in the Premiership, the following season with the same manager and a squad that had been improved they were relegated.

I've raised such examples several times now and nobody takes me up on them...sighing and saying some people are never happy etc, repeating the mantra 'the league table doesn't lie', shouting 'get it?!!' and saying I'm crazy really doesn't wash... It's a debate so if somebody wants to disprove what I'm saying then my examples should be easy enough to dismantle...

WTF has football got to do with it


Look TODAY we are 4th...have a look at the table...it really is simple...
4th! 4th! 4th! 4th! 4th!4th!....is that clear....we have played all the other teams and we are 4th!!!


I have not got a crystal ball so I do not know where we will finish the campaign...All I know is [uup to[/u now we are the 4th best team...I AM NOT REPLYING TO YOU ON THIS MATTER ANY MORE because your posts really are silly now.

6th after the play-offs.

Repetition, feigned exasperation, smileys, refusing to discuss the points raised...I'll take it as you have no argument then, one down... does anyone have a reasoned argument against what I'm saying?

But the league doesn't lie

Correct. The truth must be that that there were 10 truly awful teams last year.

What's the point?

It has already been suggested that [iusually[/i after three quarters of a season when clubs have played half of their opposition both home and away - and the others [ieither[/i home or away - the league table is a fair representation of how each team is doing. We are 4th best at present, that may change.

You have quoted examples of how a club can fall away towards the end of a season but these are exceptions rather than the norm. The top six now will very likely finish in the top six albeit perhaps in a different order.

I stick by my point I made a few pages ago - to suggest that a league table means nothing in terms of how strong teams are until the end of the season is bollox.

But only one truly awful team in Hull

Yes.

You're making a subjective judgement of our worth/quality compared to the other teams in SL. Our league table position is an objective assessment. It's also the only assessment that counts.

Right now we are the 4th best side in SL based on the only criteria that matters - league position. Simplez. No amount of sophistry will change that indisputable fact.

There's no sophistry, I'm just taking a view that looks beyond the obvious. I agree that objectively up to this point in the season we have performed the 4th best, my issue is that a league table is not always a particularly accurate guide to how strong one side is in relation to other sides, especially when the fixtures aren't complete.

There's a big difference between having [iperformed[/i better for a period of time and actually [ibeing[/i better. Now in a straight league that doesn't necessarily matter because at the end of the season you finish where you finish, but we have playoffs to contend with so surely we should be basing our judgments with that in mind instead of claiming to be the 4th strongest team in the country based on a season that's nowhere near finished?

Where we end up will dictate on what we can claim to be.

You're not right and rarely are

Fans are saying we are 4th best as of now, not at the end of the season but now. Any comments about the end of the season are speculation unless you have a crystal ball.