I følge en nerd så kommer ikke Leeds til playoff engang. Da er det bare og bevise nok en gang at en computer er stokk dum og bare gjør det den blir told to do.
Computer says it’s Forest and Cardiff
It’s very tight at the top of the Championship, and there seems to be a split between those clubs who are gambling with big signings in a final push for promotion (QPR/Cardiff), those who are putting their trust mainly in the hard-working players, organisation and team-spirit. that has earned them success so far (Watford, Forest, Norwich, Leeds and Swansea)
Those are the clubs who are competing for promotion. Everybody else is out of it, and unless Reading, Portsmouth or Leicester can come up with some special form in the last half of the season, the six promotion/play-off places will come from the seven teams mentioned in my first paragraph. But in what order?
I wrote recently about Cardiff’s relatively comfortable run in, once the tricky games of February are out of the way. I wondered what sort of fixtures were in front of the other teams competing for promotion. At times like this, the BBC results predictor comes in handy, in a decisive, yet ultimately useless kind of way.
I was looking to assess the promotion race on the basis of the run-ins left for each time. In order to do that I devised a loose system for my predictions. A home game against a lower-placed team would be a win. Away against a mid table team, or any game against a promotion rival would be a draw. Away games against a bottom half team would be a win. I didnt want to affect goal difference, so every game was either 1-0, 1-1, or 0-1.
The results are interesting, and suggest that promotion will be won by whoever does best against their rivals at the top. There are some key dates too, where the results will go some way to deciding the finishing order.
12th March
Leeds v Ipswich
Forest v Doncaster
QPR V Palace
Derby v Swansea
Watford v Sheff UtdCardiff v Barnsley
Norwich v Bristol City
Everyone of the contendors would be expected to win that day . The ones who don’t will lose ground.
April 16th
Cardiff v Portsmouth
Leeds v Watford
Norwich v Forest
Burnley v Swansea
And on the final day of the season, QPR v Leeds looks to be crucial.
Here is the final tables a predicted by the Ffwtbol system:
champs Computer says its Forest and Cardiff