Conclusion
What does this tell us about Christmas? In the 25 years before this one, 12 seasons we have got less than a single point per game. Basically, 48% of our Christmas periods since the turn of the century have, frankly, been rubbish.
Four you could class as okay, between one and 1.5 PPG, but it’s still not great. However, it does mean that on nine occasions, we’ve had a ‘good’ Christmas, averaging 1.5 PPG or more. That’s 36%, but of those nine, five came in our six seasons in the League Two play-offs, and another during our League Two title win.
Here is a ‘nice’ stat – 56% of the time, our Christmas points haul is lower than our average PPG, and in six of the last nine seasons, our Christmas haul has been below our season average.
In terms of managers, Chris Sutton is actually the best, albeit aided by the fact that we only played once. John Schofield hauled 2.3 PPG in his single season, while Cowley, Appleton and Alexander all averaged 1.7 across their longer spells.
Michael Skubala will be hoping for some joy – he’s on 0.4 points per game (just three from eight fixtures), level with David Holdsworth and below Phil Stant, Peter Jackson and Mark Kennedy, who all took less than one per game.