Friday 13 February 2015

Championship Week 30: Predicting the playoff and relegation spots


So Middlesbrough are top of the Championship table now - and deservedly so.
Those who've been following this season with me will know I've had Boro up with Bournemouth and Norwich as the three best sides in the division by quite some way for pretty much all season.
Of course I'm not guaranteeing it'll finish this way, but I do think there's every chance these two teams (Middlesbrough and Bournemouth) could be the ones to go up automatically.


Position Team Played Won Drawn Lost Goals For Goals Against Goal Difference Points
1 Middlesbrough 30 17 8 5 48 20 28 59
2 Bournemouth 30 17 7 6 64 31 33 58
3 Derby 30 17 7 6 58 28 30 58
4 Ipswich 30 15 9 6 48 30 18 54
5 Watford 30 16 5 9 59 34 25 53
6 Brentford 30 16 4 10 46 39 7 52
7 Norwich 30 14 8 8 57 36 21 50
8 Wolves 30 13 9 8 38 38 0 48
9 Blackburn 30 11 9 10 40 40 0 42
10 Nott'm Forest 30 10 10 10 43 42 1 40
11 Sheffield Weds 30 9 12 9 23 28 -5 39
12 Birmingham 30 9 11 10 32 41 -9 38
13 Bolton 30 10 7 13 37 44 -7 37
14 Reading 30 10 7 13 35 45 -10 37
15 Huddersfield 30 10 7 13 40 52 -12 37
16 Cardiff 30 9 9 12 37 43 -6 36
17 Leeds 30 9 8 13 32 40 -8 35
18 Fulham 30 10 5 15 43 53 -10 35
19 Rotherham 30 7 12 11 29 38 -9 33
20 Charlton 30 6 15 9 28 41 -13 33
21 Brighton 30 6 12 12 32 39 -7 30
22 Millwall 30 7 9 14 28 47 -19 30
23 Wigan 30 4 10 16 27 42 -15 22
24 Blackpool 30 4 8 18 23 56 -33 20


Realistically I can't see Wolves getting back in to the top six given their mediocre shot and shots on target share statistics and in all probability I see Norwich replacing Brentford in that top six. Again, Brentford's shot statistics are well below those of the other contenders, meaning they are reliant on a hot run of form (PDO) to make an impression.



Incidentally, the story which emerged that Brentford may already be planning on replacing manager Mark Warburton at the end of the season is not such a crazy one. As I tweeted during the week, I'm not advocating sacking managers just for the fun of it.

But instead of following the PDO flow and canning a manager after a run of poor results, the Brentford board have obviously noticed that the Bees are not performing at a playoff level. The club is an average team which has enjoyed a nice warm PDO run to push it into the top six, but this is not likely repeatable and they want better for their team.
Whether a new coach can provide that improvement is always the question.

And kudos to the Brentford board for one of the least enthusiastic non-denials of a story I've ever seen. Such a ringing endorsement: 

And yes, that means I see Norwich taking one of those playoff places - and given how tight it is within those places it could be as high as fourth. Anyone for an East Anglia derby in the play offs? Two legs of that could be fun.


Position Team Shots for total Shots against total Corsi/TSR shots on target for total shots on target against total Shots on target share Shooting % For Save % PDO
12 Birmingham 411 477 0.463 130 154 0.458 24.62 73.38 98
9 Blackburn 469 409 0.534 151 142 0.515 26.49 71.83 98.32
24 Blackpool 330 487 0.404 103 156 0.398 22.33 64.09 86.42
13 Bolton 373 456 0.45 124 151 0.451 29.85 70.86 100.71
2 Bournemouth 483 362 0.572 175 105 0.625 36.57 70.49 107.06
6 Brentford 395 444 0.471 149 148 0.502 30.87 73.65 104.51
21 Brighton 457 382 0.545 127 110 0.536 25.2 64.54 89.74
16 Cardiff 375 444 0.458 117 131 0.472 31.62 67.17 98.79
20 Charlton 318 468 0.405 99 149 0.399 28.28 72.49 100.77
3 Derby 395 387 0.505 140 126 0.526 41.42 77.78 119.2
18 Fulham 380 470 0.447 127 151 0.457 33.85 64.91 98.76
15 Huddersfield 449 428 0.512 159 141 0.53 25.15 63.12 88.28
4 Ipswich 440 414 0.515 147 115 0.561 32.64 73.92 106.56
17 Leeds 360 455 0.442 101 138 0.423 31.68 71.02 102.7
1 Middlesbrough 452 327 0.58 148 92 0.617 32.43 78.26 110.69
22 Millwall 394 395 0.499 112 140 0.444 25 66.43 91.44
7 Norwich 497 302 0.622 166 105 0.613 34.33 65.73 100.06
10 Nott'm Forest 438 388 0.53 125 130 0.49 34.4 67.69 102.09
14 Reading 396 372 0.516 122 125 0.494 28.69 64 92.68
19 Rotherham 417 423 0.496 130 126 0.508 22.3 69.84 92.15
11 Sheffield Weds 404 369 0.523 104 112 0.482 22.11 75 97.11
5 Watford 446 433 0.508 159 131 0.548 37.1 74.04 111.14
23 Wigan 366 361 0.504 100 124 0.446 27 66.12 93.12
8 Wolves 415 407 0.505 123 136 0.475 30.9 72.07 102.97

At the other end of the table its also getting tight for the final relegation place - yes, sorry Blackpool and Wigan, I think both those teams are as good as down.
Sure a late run could rescue either, but given both sides' pretty poor underlying numbers its going to take something miraculous.
And being dragged in to that final relegation spot could well be Charlton.



I warned a few weeks ago when the Addicks sacked Bob Peeters that the slow motion car crash of their season could become a high speed one if they were not careful - that the underlying numbers indicated a serious problem. Well, guess what? That crash not only accelerated but it has sailed off a cliff since Guy Luzon was appointed (see graph below).
Now, part of this can be attributed to a pretty tough schedule in the five games since, which included Watford, Wolves, Middlesbrough and latterly, Norwich.


But, and here is the scary part, in those five games (the other one was against fellow strugglers Rotherham) they scored just four goals and conceded twelve - a ratio of three to one. Now that sort of performance would typically produce a pretty big effect on Charlton's PDO, given that it combines shooting % and save %.
So ergo, not scoring many goals and shipping lots of goals will probably produce a low number. However, this depends on the number of shots on target you are taking or allowing per goal scored.
So here in Charlton's example: Score one goal at a league average of roughly three shots on target and the shooting % is 33. Concede three goals from those same three shots on target, and the save % is 0. And so your PDO score would be just 33%. Brutal. And also very unlucky to be maintained over a long term trend.

Over this terrible spell of five games, Charlton's PDO was 98.9% - yes, a near as damn-it league average.
They were scoring goals at the same rate of shots on target as they were conceding them. And that is really quite worrying indeed.
All that means that these past few weeks have not necessarily been particularly unlucky or unusual for Charlton. This is what they are.
And as this last graph shows, if they don't turn performances around, soon they will be under a point per game - and that is relegation form.


One final point that makes me think Charlton could be the ones to make the drop: all the teams below them have horrible PDO scores. Any kind of positive regression back to league average for those sides (yes, I've been saying this about Brighton all season), as would be expected over a long enough season and they will sail past Charlton.
Charlton are statistically the second worst team in the league right now, by the end of the season they could well be living down to that rating.
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