The points per game Portsmouth, Bristol Rovers, Port Vale, Peterborough & Co need to stand any chance of making play-offs: gallery

Indeed, with 18 league games left to play, John Mousinho’s inherited side sit 11th in the League One table on 38 points – and 12 adrift of sixth-placed Barnsley (50), who occupy the final play-off position.

Mathematically, it is still possible. As is the automatics with 54 points left to play for – something that quite a few clubs on the fringes of the promotion race will be telling themselves with just under three months of the season remaining.

But with 73.8 points the average total needed for a top-six finish over the past 10 seasons, there’s a significant amount of ground to be made up between now and May 7.

So in terms of points per game, what do the Blues and those who consider themselves promotion contenders realistically need to be well and truly in the promotion mix?

Well. we’ve got the calculator out to work out exactly what’s required.

We’ve also determined what points per game is needed for those sides with a realistic eye on automatic promotion, with 89.2 points the average target.

And it all makes for interesting reading when the figures are there in front of you.

Here’s what we discovered…

Note: average totals do not include 2019-20 campaign when Covid ended season early.