A nine-point week has put Nottingham Forest right in the thick of the promotion race as the end of the season fast approaches.
Seeing off Blackpool, Coventry City and Birmingham City after returning from the international break made it five league wins in a row for the Reds. They are also unbeaten in 10 in the Championship ahead of Friday’s trip to Luton Town.
Huddersfield Town’s victory over the Hatters on Monday pushed Forest down a place, into fourth. But Steve Cooper’s side are just two points adrift of the Terriers, with two games in hand.
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They have also closed the gap on second-placed Bournemouth to six points. And there is still the clash between the two sides to come, in what will be the Reds’ penultimate fixture.
Plenty of Forest fans have hope of snatching an automatic spot. But predicting how the final table will look is not easy.
According to the data experts at FiveThirtyEight, the chances of Cooper’s men achieving promotion has increased on the back of their last three results. However, they are predicting a third-placed finish, behind Fulham and the Cherries.
Prior to their last three games, the Reds were forecast to finish sixth with 73 points. They were said to have a 55 percent chance of making the play-offs and an 18 percent chance of reaching the Premier League.
Now, FiveThirtyEight have Forest finishing third with 77 points. Their chances of making the play-offs have gone up to 82 percent, while they now have a 37 percent chance of securing promotion.
FiveThirtyEight have forecast the final table, including end-of-season probabilities for relegation, making the play-offs, being promoted and winning the Championship. Their predictions are based on their Soccer Power Index, which, they say, are “our best estimate of a team’s overall strength”.
They add: “In our system, every team has an offensive rating that represents the number of goals it would be expected to score against an average team on a neutral field, and a defensive rating that represents the number of goals it would be expected to concede. These ratings, in turn, produce an overall SPI rating, which represents the percentage of available points — a win is worth 3 points, a tie worth 1 point, and a loss worth 0 points — the team would be expected to take if that match were played over and over again.”
Here’s how the final table looks, based on their data. A team’s current points tally is included in brackets.
Predicted final Championship table
1 Fulham (83 points) - 94 points
2 Bournemouth (73 points) - 84 points
3 Nottingham Forest (67 points) - 77 points
4 Huddersfield Town (69 points) - 76 points
5 Sheffield United (65 points) - 73 points
6 Luton Town (65 points) - 72 points
7 Middlesbrough (62 points) - 71 points
8 Blackburn Rovers (63 points) - 70 points
9 Millwall (61 points) - 68 points
10 Coventry City (59 points) - 66 points
11 QPR (59 points) - 65 points
12 Swansea City (57points) - 65 points
13 West Bromwich Albion (57 points) - 65 points
14 Preston North End (57 points) - 64 points
15 Stoke City (55 points) - 62 points
16 Blackpool (53 points) - 61 points
17 Cardiff City (49 points) - 56 points
18 Birmingham City (45 points) - 51 points
19 Bristol City (45 points) - 51 points
20 Hull City (44 points) - 50 points
21 Reading (37 points) - 42 points
22 Barnsley (29 points) - 36 points
23 Derby County (28 points) - 34 points
24 Peterborough United (28 points) - 32 points
