Play-Offs, Play-offs, Play-offs - The Thread

I thought we could have one thread to keep all the Play-Off news together between now and Friday. I'll start us off with some stats.

So it seems we've finished in the worst possible place in the Play-offs.

If you're not sure what I mean, have a look at this. I've compiled a table of all the Play-Off winners since the league became "The Championship" in it's current format.

It makes grim reading.

Yellow is the eventual Play-off winner. Red is the team which lost the Play-off final.​

It's incredible to see fourth has only won it once since the 2004-05 season. It also shows the 4th vs 5th is pretty 50-50 in terms of who makes the final, as we're expecting really against Derby.

In terms of recent stats, Sheffield Wednesday look least favourites to make it to the final. 6th place hasn't done so for the last 5 years! That said, Brighton's mentality could have taken a hit after missing out on automatic promotion today.

Here's the form guide of the last six going into the Play-Offs:


And the results from over the season:


The other three are unbeaten in the head-to-heads.

How do you rate our chances now?

Discuss...

 

Interesting !!!
Does this pan out the same in the other divisions

 

is it incredible or just random variation?

 

Sheff Wed are gonners for starters.
They haven't beaten a top 8 team all season.
Brighton look slightly the better thun the rest

 

I don't think you can call it random variation. There are far too many factors to be considered. You'd expect 4th to have the second most likely win % as they win the second most amount of games over the season compared to the other play off teams. So it's incredible that they've actually only won it once.

 

Oh wait.. I don't know which thing you're referring to as I said "it's incredible" twice. My mistake

 

it's still only one win different to the wins by the 5th placed team. maybe more data would help.

 

no, as you thought.

 

Law of averages, 4th wins this time.

It's wrong to break the law.

 

I guess it could be taken further back in terms of data as the league didn't actually change - just its name. I've not looked but the next three before those in the table could all have been 4th place winners.

 

with the play-offs, it's often the case that whoever came 3rd was fighting for 2nd till the season ended, whereas perhaps 4th and even 5th were safely in the zone but with no chance of the autos, so they stopped fighting. teams in 5th and particularly 6th may have had to keep playing to secure their play-off place. that could explain 4th not doing as well as the others and might be a genuine thing.

there is plenty more data there if you feel like checking through it, for other divisions as well as the championship.

 

We and Brighton do look to be the form teams from the last 6 games. Depends how deflated Brighton are on missing automatic.

 

We dont have to worry about them at the minute gladly.
Hopefully we'll pack the midfield and frustrate Derby next Saturday

 

This is where I worry about starting Diame. I hope he's up for it because he can easily go missing in games.

 

I have a feeling the likes of Diame will be up for these games and their experience will prove critical. I fancy us to get past Derby now but the final itself we might have our usual problems again of players not being very good with a lot of matches together, which has happened all season without any real solution from Bruce

 

This.

Has 'Typical City' written all over it.

Then it would really be a 'remarkable season'

 

First leg will probably have a huge effect on the outcome. Bruce knows how to defend a lead but with so much else going on elsewhere,and Derby having turned us over twice,surely they will be favourites?

 

Just had a butchers at the odds for next Saturday.

Derby 11/8
City. 7/4

11/5 the draw

 

That could be as they have the best of the managers?

 

He wasnt when he took Norwich down and we stayed up. But dont let anything stop you from been negative about your own club.