[ad_1]
Following a vital weekend of League One action at the top of the table, we give an update on the Opta supercomputer’s projections for automatic promotion.
3 April
Leaders Portsmouth further cemented their promotion credentials by following up a 3-1 win at Wycombe Wanderers on Good Friday with a home draw against second-place Derby County on Tuesday. Owen Moxon’s stunning strike at Fratton Park earned a 2-2 draw with the Rams and increased Pompey’s promotion chances to a near-certain 98.8%, according to the Opta supercomputer.
Derby are still considered likely to join them, though were unable to improve on their previous likelihood of 73.3% over the Easter period. Paul Warne’s side did secure a 1-0 win over Blackpool on Friday before their draw at Portsmouth, and now hold a four-point lead over third-place Bolton Wanderers.
Bolton do have a game in hand, though, with a 0-0 draw at Stevenage followed by a 5-2 home win over Reading on Monday. They slightly increased their chances of sneaking into the top two to 20.6%, though a play-off spot is likelier at 79.4%.
Peterborough (6.3%) and Barnsley (1.1%) are very much outside bets for automatic promotion but near certainties for the play-offs at 93.5% and 98.1% respectively. They had similar Easter periods, with Peterborough losing 3-1 at home to bottom club Carlisle United on Friday before earning a 2-1 win at Leyton Orient on Monday, while Barnsley followed up a shock 2-0 home loss to Cambridge United with a 3-1 victory at Burton Albion.
It promises to be a tense battle for the final play-off spot, currently occupied by Lincoln City, who remain unbeaten since New Year’s Day and have now won 10 of their last 12 games (D2). Michael Skubala’s men beat Leyton Orient and Carlisle over Easter to move above Oxford United, who they are now level on points with. Lincoln now have a 48.7% chance of making the play-offs, compared to Oxford’s 38.4%. The two teams will face off on 16 April at the Kassam Stadium.
Steve Evans’ Stevenage still have an 11.7% chance of making the play-offs after a pair of 0-0 draws with Bolton and Charlton Athletic. Blackpool the only other team with a percentage chance of doing so at 2.2%, though they only picked up one point from their two Easter games.
As for the relegation battle, it looks likely to be four from five, with Carlisle not yet mathematically down even though the supercomputer considers it to be a 100% certainty to ultimately happen. The Cumbrians did enjoy only their sixth win of the League One campaign at Peterborough, before losing at home to Lincoln. Their relegation back to League Two will be confirmed if they lose at Northampton Town on Saturday.
Fleetwood Town join them in the fourth tier in 99.1% of the supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations. Back-to-back defeats to Cheltenham Town and Oxford United left Charlie Adam’s side six points from safety with five games remaining. Cheltenham themselves have better prospects as they have played two games fewer and are just two points from safety, though their home defeat to Exeter City on Monday didn’t help matters. The Robins go down in 54.6% of scenarios.
Above them, Port Vale (71.9%) and Burton (60.1%) are considered likelier to drop, with Darren Moore’s Vale following up a 2-0 win over Bristol Rovers with a 2-0 defeat at Northampton, while Burton drew 1-1 with Wigan Athletic before losing at home to Barnsley.
Cambridge (4.0%), Reading (2.9%) and Shrewsbury Town (7.2%) should all be able to stay clear of relegation.
18 March
Portsmouth took a giant step towards automatic promotion from League One at the weekend with a 1-0 away win at fourth-place Peterborough United.
Kusini Yengi came off the bench to score the only goal of the game with 13 minutes remaining, sending John Mousinho’s side nine points clear of Bolton Wanderers in third.
With just seven games remaining, that gap has prompted the Opta supercomputer to increase Portsmouth’s chances of automatic promotion by 14.7 percentage points to 93.4%. They also won the title in 72.8% of the supercomputer’s most recent 10,000 season simulations.
That result ended Peterborough’s excellent five-game winning streak in League One and has seen their projected chance of automatic promotion fall to 13.1% from 31.4% before the weekend’s action.
Bolton were another side to see a big drop-off after the weekend’s action, as they lost a huge game against Derby County on Saturday afternoon.
Bolton would’ve overtaken Derby and gone second with a win at Pride Park, but a 1-0 defeat thanks to Kane Wilson’s 78th-minute header left them four points adrift of the automatic promotion spots.
That result has seen Derby’s chances of finishing inside the top two move from 52.0% to 73.3% in the Opta supercomputer’s projections. Bolton, on the other hand, fall to having just a 15.9% chance of automatic promotion to the Championship.
Across the latest supercomputer season simulations, the play-offs look likely to consist of Barnsley (94.8% likelihood of finishing between third and sixth), Peterborough (86.6%) and Bolton (84.1%), while the fourth and final place looks set to spark a close-run battle.
Oxford United average 73.8 points at the end of 2023-24 in the latest projections and look most likely to finish in sixth place, but they are closely followed by Stevenage (73.1 points), Lincoln City (72.2 points) and Blackpool (71.6 points).
15 March
The top four teams play each other in League One this weekend, in what is undoubtedly the biggest matchday of action in the competition of 2023-24 so far.
League leaders Portsmouth travel to fourth-place Peterborough United, with Posh having the chance to move within six points of John Mousinho’s side with a game in hand. Elsewhere, Bolton Wanderers head to Derby County, with the hosts currently ahead of their opponents by a single point.
Portsmouth’s current lead at the top of the table is giving them the edge in the Opta supercomputer automatic promotion projections. Across 10,000 season simulations ahead of tomorrow’s matches, they finished inside the top two 78.7% of the time while winning the title in over half of the sims (54.9%).
As it stands, Derby are tipped to follow Portsmouth. They won automatic promotion in more than half of the current season simulations (52.0%) and even won the title 21.1% of the time. Three wins from three games in March so far have moved them inside the top two after Bolton dropped points away at both Barnsley and Exeter with two draws earlier this month.
Peterborough started February in disastrous form, losing four successive league matches and seemingly blowing any chance of automatic promotion. However, a run of five wins in a row, including Wednesday night’s 3-1 win against play-off hopefuls Stevenage, have taken Darren Ferguson’s side within four points of the automatic promotion places and with a game in hand on each of the top three.
As a result, Peterborough are currently the third favourites for automatic promotion (31.4%), just ahead of Bolton (30.3%). That could dramatically change after Saturday’s games, however, should Bolton defeat Derby, and Peterborough lose to Portsmouth.
Barnsley are another team with a game in hand on the top three, but a shock 5-1 home defeat to play-off chasing Lincoln City last weekend dented their promotion challenge. They snuck past bottom club Carlisle United in midweek (3-2) but have seen their projected chance of automatic promotion fall to 7.7% heading into this weekend.
Neill Collins’ side are currently the most likely to finish in the play-off spots, however. They are projected to finish between third and sixth in the table 90.9% of the time, with Bolton (69.7%), Peterborough (68.5%), Derby (48.0%), Stevenage (45.4%) and Blackpool (27.8%) behind them.
At the bottom of the table, Carlisle are almost certain of relegation. They finished outside the bottom three in 0.02% of the 10,000 simulations. The most likely sides to join them in League Two next season are currently Fleetwood Town (85.1%) and Port Vale (75.7%), with Cheltenham Town (59.0%) and Cambridge United (30.4%) the only other teams to finish inside the bottom three in more than a quarter of current season simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
4 March
The top four sides in League One all picked up victories this weekend, with Portsmouth’s win at Fratton Park against Oxford United giving them a seven-point cushion at the top with 10 games remaining.
John Mousinho’s side have dropped just four points in their last nine games (W7 D2 L0) after a slight blip in form over the festive and New Year period, where they collected just five points from six fixtures.
The Opta supercomputer is confident of Portsmouth finishing inside the top two this season and winning automatic promotion back to the Championship. They achieved this in 80.4% of the 10,000 season simulations played out today, which is nearly double that of Barnsley (41.1%) and more than twice as often as Bolton and Derby.
Pompey still have to play each of the top four sides below them in the League One table across their final 10 games, so it’s not going to be easy.
Both Bolton and Derby suffered back-to-back defeats on 24 February and the following midweek League One fixtures to put a dent in their hopes for automatic promotion. Derby’s first defeat came against Barnsley, who have now moved themselves into a position where they could go just four points off Portsmouth should they win their two games in hand on the league leaders.
While Portsmouth win the League One title more often than not in the current simulations (58.5%), the second automatic promotion slot could go down to the wire.
Across the current 10,000 season simulations, Barnsley averaged 87.4 points while Bolton (87.0) and Barnsley (86.4) narrowly missed out. Peterborough are the outsiders, with an 11.7% chance of winning automatic promotion.
Three clubs will miss out in this five-way battle, and they are most likely to come up against Stevenage in the playoffs. Steve Evans’ side currently sit in the final playoff spot (6th) and finished between 3rd and 6th in 67.3% of simulations, ahead of Oxford United (17.9%) and Blackpool (14.0%).
At the bottom of the table, Carlisle were relegated 99.9% of the time, which won’t come as too much of a surprise with a 15-point gap between themselves and safety. Fleetwood Town (87.0%) and Port Vale (70.3%) are the next most likely to drop to League Two, with Cheltenham Town (43.6%) the fourth most likely side to be relegated.
23 February
Portsmouth hold a six-point lead at the top of the League One table, but are nervously looking over their shoulder at fellow former Premier League sides Derby County and Bolton Wanderers. Derby have a game in hand on the leaders, while Bolton could go level with Pompey if they win their two games in hand.
It might be a nail-biting period for Portsmouth fans, but some solace can be found in the Opta supercomputer.
After simulating the remainder of the League One season 10,000 times, the model currently projects that John Mousinho’s side win automatic promotion 71.2% of the time, while they win the league in 41.3% of sims. That would mean a first league title since their League Two crown in 2016-17 and their first third-tier title since 1982-83.
If Portsmouth do win automatic promotion, the second spot for a place in the 2024-25 Championship season looks set to be a real battle.
Derby are currently second-favourites to finish inside the top two (59.0%), but Bolton closely follow on 53.3%. To emphasise how tight the automatic promotion fight could be, Portsmouth averaged 91.8 points over the 10,000 supercomputer simulations, with Derby (89.9) and Bolton (89.7) within 0.2 points of one another. It’ll surely be between those three clubs, with the next most likely side to win automatic promotion Barnsley on 12.8%.
Portsmouth suffered a wobble over the Christmas and New Year period, winning just one of their six League One matches between 23 December and 13 January (D3 L2). If the 3-0 defeat to Leyton Orient in mid-January had fans worried, their seven-game unbeaten league run since will have them dreaming again – they have collected 19 points from a possible 21 in this sequence.
Portsmouth’s 72-point tally after 34 games is up there with one of the best returns in third-tier history, too. Since the inception of the Premier League in 1992-93, only 11 teams have won more by this stage, including Sheffield Wednesday last season (77), who eventually missed out on automatic promotion and had to rely on the play-offs.
Bolton’s 66-point return from their 32 matches is seven more than at this stage last season and 21 more than in 2021-22, showing how just much they’re a club on the up. Bolton are unbeaten in seven League One matches now, but three of their last five have been drawn. They’ll hope to extend that unbeaten streak in a local derby against Blackpool on Saturday afternoon. Only Peterborough (1.88) have a higher goals-per-game average in the league than Ian Evatt’s side (1.84).
Alongside Portsmouth, Derby have the best goals conceded per game average in League One this season (0.88), while it’s only Pompey (15) that have kept more clean sheets (14), albeit from a game more.
Derby have had to play catch-up this season in League One. After losing 3-1 at Stevenage on 28 October, the Rams were 10th in the table and 14 points off leaders Portsmouth having played one game fewer. They stuck with manager Paul Warne and went on to emphatically win their next match – 4-0 at home to Northampton – and have picked up eight more points than any other side (45) since then, with Pompey and Bolton both trailing on 37 in that timeframe.
Nathaniel Méndez-Laing has been instrumental in their upturn in fortunes, with a league-high 21 goal involvements, including more assists (13) than any other player in the competition in 2023-24.
Of course, automatic promotion isn’t the only route to the Championship. Four teams will take their place in the play-offs, with the current most likely quartet being Bolton (89.7 average projected points), Barnsley (83.6), Peterborough United (80.5) and Stevenage (74.9), although Oxford follow just behind with an average projected points total of 74.8.
The Opta supercomputer doesn’t offer much hope at all to Carlisle, with them expected to remain bottom of the league with an average projected points total of 32.4 – six below Fleetwood Town’s 40.4. Carlisle were relegated in 9,992 of the 10,000 current supercomputer projections.
As it stands, they are most likely to be joined by Fleetwood (95.1%), Port Vale (53.0%) and Shrewsbury (40.0%) in falling into League Two at the end of the season.
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our new football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
[ad_2]
