Top 10 by February? What Posh would need to do
After another defeat at Bradford, the club's two top men have very different views of where we are.
Robbie Savage, in his post-match interview, said: "The players who made mistakes will learn from it and will have the support from me. They are great kids and we will give them everything, but inevitably we will have to learn quick as we are in a relegation battle, let's be totally honest."
Darragh MacAnthony, a few hours later on X, said: "For some reason I have a lot of confidence in the current one. RS will bring the best out of them & we as owners will support him in doing so. My promise to you the fans is always honesty, So I make a promise that if this squad isn't top 10 by February, I'll put my share of the club up for sale & let others take the baton with our wonderful club."
Both of them say they’re being honest. So rather than argue about who’s right, I gave Claude’s highest model the last two seasons of League One results, this season’s table and fixtures, the xG numbers, and had it crunch what it’d take.
To reach 10th by February, we need 30 points from 15 games.
We start in 21st place on 10 points from 12 games with:
Two wins
Four draws
Six defeats
11 goals scored
21 goals conceded
International call-ups postponed both the Notts County and Oxford home games, and neither has a new date yet. Games like these usually go into a free midweek slot once the EFL finds a date that suits both clubs.
With the FA Cup, EFL Trophy and Christmas fixtures crowding the winter, plenty end up being played in February or March.
Posh do have free midweeks in November and early January, so we've assumed one of them, Notts County, gets played before the end of January.
So, what does 10th look like on 31 January? The last two seasons give a pretty clear answer.
Season | 10th on 31 January | Points | Games | Points per game |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2025-26 | Reading | 40 | 28 | 1.43 |
2024-25 | Reading | 41 | 27 | 1.52 |
This season is tracking similarly. 10th had 19 points at this stage last year, and Mansfield in 10th have 18 now.
That means Posh needs 30 or 31 points from the next 15 games.
That's 2 points per game, which means we need something like nine wins, three draws and three defeats.
We've managed 0.83 points per game so far, and the only side in the league going at that rate is Huddersfield (2.08), who look like automatic promotion candidates.
How often does anyone do that?
Not often. We looked at every 15-game stretch for every League One club over the last two seasons.
Only 12 of the 48 sides took 30 or more points from any 15-game run. Most were promotion or play-off sides, including Birmingham, Wycombe, Lincoln, Cardiff, Charlton and Wrexham.
In 2025-26 just five clubs managed it all season: Lincoln, Cardiff, Plymouth, Stevenage and Bolton.
Our own best 15-game run was 23 points in 2024-25 and 28 in 2025-26.
Then there's last season, which Darragh surely has in mind.
On 28 October 2025, we moved from the bottom of the league to 12th, just two points off 10th, the biggest climb in the league.
So it's been done, nearly.
What xG says: better than the table, still nowhere near 10th
Expected goals (xG) measures the quality of the chances a side creates and gives up. On that measure, Posh look like a very ordinary mid-table side rather than a relegation one.
Per game | Posh | League average | Posh rank |
|---|---|---|---|
xG for | 1.49 | 1.48 | 12th |
xG against | 1.53 | 1.49 | Joint 14th |
xG difference | -0.04 | 0.00 | 14th |
Goals scored | 0.92 | 1.40 | 21st |
Goals conceded | 1.75 | 1.40 | 21st |
We're 14th on xG difference but 21st in the actual table.
Put simply, we're creating decent chances and not finishing them: 14.3 shots a game, only 3.2 on target, and a 6% conversion rate that's joint-lowest in the league.
The 15 games, and which ones must be won
Here's everything left before February, with the Notts County game slotted in (date to be confirmed). The win chances come from a model that blends two views of every side: their actual goals for and against, and their xG for and against, adjusted for home and away.
Date | Opponent | Venue | Their position | Their xG rank | Posh win chance | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
31 Oct | Luton Town | H | 8th | 5th | 33% | Swing game |
21 Nov | Plymouth Argyle | A | 5th | 12th | 26% | Bonus points |
28 Nov | Cambridge United | H | 7th | 8th | 33% | Swing game |
1 Dec | Leyton Orient | A | 16th | 20th | 28% | Swing game |
12 Dec | Barnsley | H | 23rd | 6th | 40% | Must win |
19 Dec | Wigan Athletic | A | 24th | 21st | 36% | Must win |
26 Dec | Wycombe Wanderers | H | 15th | 13th | 39% | Must win |
29 Dec | Reading | A | 6th | 4th | 20% | Bonus points |
1 Jan | AFC Wimbledon | A | 17th | 22nd | 36% | Must win |
9 Jan | Wigan Athletic | H | 24th | 21st | 46% | Must win |
16 Jan | Burton Albion | A | 12th | 17th | 29% | Swing game |
19 Jan | Huddersfield Town | H | 1st | 2nd | 25% | Bonus points |
23 Jan | Bromley | H | 22nd | 24th | 55% | Must win |
30 Jan | Luton Town | A | 8th | 5th | 23% | Bonus points |
TBC | Notts County | H | 19th | 15th | 39% | Must win |
The route to 30 points looks something like this:
Win all seven must-wins: Notts County, Barnsley, Wigan home and away, Wycombe, AFC Wimbledon and Bromley (21 points)
Win three of the four swing games against Luton at home, Cambridge, Orient and Burton (9 points)
That gets to 30 without a point from the toughest four. Drop a must-win, and you'd need draws at Plymouth and Reading and against Huddersfield or at Luton to make it back.
Only one of those seven must-wins comes out above 50%: Bromley at home, a side we struggled to draw against.
Where that leaves us by February
On a blend of results and xG, we finish January about 13 points short of 10th.
Results alone are harsh on a side that's been this wasteful in front of goal, and xG assumes the finishing suddenly sorts itself out, which seems unlikely. So we've blended the two, half results, half xG, to get a rough guide.
Measure | Results only | xG only | Blended |
|---|---|---|---|
Expected points from 15 games | 17.0 | 20.9 | 18.9 |
Points by 31 January | 27 | 31 | 29 |
Chance of 30+ points (top-10 pace) | 0.6% | 4.5% | 1.8% |
Rough position | 19th to 21st | 19th to 20th | 20th |
The model gives us less than a 2% chance of hitting the top 10 by February.
Here's the bottom half of the table projected to 27 games each on the blended numbers, which is more likely.
Projected position | Team | Points now | Blended points per game | Projected points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
10th | Sheffield Wednesday | 19 | 1.52 | 41.9 |
11th | Leicester City | 18 | 1.51 | 40.7 |
12th | Stevenage | 15 | 1.40 | 37.4 |
13th | Burton Albion | 17 | 1.28 | 34.9 |
14th | Wycombe Wanderers | 15 | 1.31 | 34.7 |
15th | MK Dons | 15 | 1.27 | 34.1 |
16th | Leyton Orient | 14 | 1.20 | 32.0 |
17th | AFC Wimbledon | 13 | 1.12 | 29.8 |
18th | Notts County | 11 | 1.14 | 29.3 |
19th | Doncaster Rovers | 12 | 1.13 | 28.9 |
20th | Peterborough United | 10 | 1.26 | 28.9 |
21st | Blackpool | 11 | 1.08 | 28.2 |
22nd | Barnsley | 8 | 1.12 | 25.9 |
23rd | Bromley | 9 | 0.84 | 21.7 |
24th | Wigan Athletic | 7 | 0.88 | 20.3 |
That puts 10th at about 42 points and Posh around 13 short.
Even the kindest reading, xG alone, leaves us about 10 points adrift and in a pack of seven sides separated by three points near the bottom.
Who we'd need to pass
To reach 10th we'd need to overtake everyone currently between 10th and 20th:
Mansfield (18 points), Leicester (18), Burton (17), Stevenage (15), MK Dons (15), Wycombe (15), Leyton Orient (14), AFC Wimbledon (13), Doncaster (12), Notts County (11) and Blackpool (11).
On top of that, at least one of the current top nine would have to fall away.
Savage's league record so far is 1.25 points per game. To hit Darragh's target, he needs to get it up to 2 points per game, starting with Luton on Saturday.
Miracles do happen
Football is a funny old game. You can use statistics to guess where we may end up, but there are a lot of unknowns.
There is a transfer window to account for, admittedly likely too late to change our course significantly before February arrives.
Teams also beat the stats, as Fleetwood’s historic victory over Arsenal shows. However, we’d need a handful of miracles like that to pull off what feels like an impossible task.
Can we do it again?
We did manage a startling run of form last season that pulled us up the table, and if we finish 12th again by the end of January, only the most pedantic fans would deny Darragh a victory from his prediction.
But that was then, and this is now.
Then we had a good tactical manager and an experienced coach who built a system that got the best out of the team, until injuries and exhaustion ravaged our chances.
Now we have a rookie manager, an inexperienced team, and a coaching staff plucked from the academy.
The model gives us less than a 2% chance of hitting Darragh’s target, and we’ll likely be in another relegation scrap this season, but I’ll have my fingers crossed we somehow find safety in mid-table.
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