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The brutal race for two play-off spots in the Championship and why Norwich City could be biggest winners

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Often referred to as the most most expensive game in football, the Championship play-off final is certainly up there with the most dramatic, the most eagerly-anticipated and, depending on the side you happen to be on, the most brutal.

By Karl Matchett

Plenty of teams have gone into the playoffs thinking they have the impetus, the know-how or the outright quality, but have been done over by the occasion, the Wembley pitch…or just by a team they’ve already beaten twice that season being better than them on the day.

It can be a soul-crushing affair, a 49th match of an arduous campaign in England’s second tier where a club who missed out on automatic promotion only on goal difference can still find themselves facing another year below the Premier League in the most incredible and heartbreaking of fashions.

But before worrying about whether they’ll turn up for the big occasion, clubs have to actually get there first. And to do that, even the teams currently in the running for a late-season charge have to barge half the table out of the way.

That’s how matters look right now once again: Leicester are clear at the top, Southampton, Leeds and Ipswich are – for now – a distant second to fourth, one eventually to end up automatically up and the other two, barring a total collapse, occupying two of the four play-off spots. But after that, it’s anybody’s to fight for. From West Brom in fifth to Cardiff in 12th, just eight points separate nine teams, with only two places likely up for grabs. Dogfight doesn’t even begin to do it justice, and the second tier has a remarkable tendency to see a team from the bottom half surge up the table in the last four months of the season to sneak a top-six finish.

Typically, the Championship is a tight-fought league, hard to escape and harder to find real consistency in. Consider this: none of the quartet of clubs who ended up in the play-off places last season won even half of their fixtures. That explains much about the relegation rate straight back down: When teams do escape and head up to the Premier League, imagine how difficult it is to win ten fixtures against the very best, after only winning 20 against those ranked 21st to 44th.

West Brom, Hull, Coventry, Sunderland, Norwich, Preston, Watford, Middlesbrough and Cardiff: of the nine, only North End have never played in the top flight during the Premier League era. Three of them ended up on the sore side of the play-off fight last year and will have that mental reminder of the all-or-nothing scenario to deal with in another dozen games or so, either spurring them on to a final push or perhaps leaving some feeling flat at the knowledge that they face only a slim chance of success once more.

As for picking a potential candidate for eventual celebration, it might well be that Norwich City, currently in ninth and yet only one point off the pace, are a smart pick.

The Canaries suffered some atrocious results at the start of the campaign and have been playing catchup, but they’ve been doing so at some pace. Of their last 15 league games, they’ve lost only four, all of them on the road.

They have the sixth-best home record, almost always a vital source of points for finishing in the play-off places, and are unbeaten at Carrow Road since early November. Admittedly, the January departure of Adam Idah robs them of some goal threat, but he was a rotation player at best all the same and his consistency was questionable. Further, Norwich rank sixth for goals scored per match, outperforming their season-long xG – though to balance that, we must also note that on the xG alternative table, they’d be a lowly 13th right now.

But the trend is upwards all the same. A second half of the season improvement is far better than starting fast and fading faster – as looks the danger with rivals Ipswich just now, coincidentally.

And the architect of this rise over the past few months? David Wagner, a man who has very much been here before. He led Huddersfield out of the Championship and into the top flight in 2016/17, and kept them there the following year. He knows his way out of the division, and how to knit teams together to fight for a common cause.

Results and performances haven’t been perfect, and Norwich’s defence certainly needs a significant amount of work still. But this is a league which can forgive for errors which turn draws into defeats, as long as you keep attacking them and turn others into wins. Norwich, with fewer draws than any top-half team other than the league leaders, might be on the late path to the play-offs thanks to Wagner’s approach.

(Image from IMAGO)

You can follow every game from all three EFL divisions – with xG, deep stats, and players ratings on FotMob. Download the free app here.

The brutal race for two play-off spots in the Championship and why Norwich City could be biggest winners

Often referred to as the most most expensive game in football, the Championship play-off final is certainly up there with the most dramatic, the most eagerly-anticipated and, depending on the side you happen to be on, the most brutal.

By Karl Matchett

Plenty of teams have gone into the playoffs thinking they have the impetus, the know-how or the outright quality, but have been done over by the occasion, the Wembley pitch…or just by a team they’ve already beaten twice that season being better than them on the day.

It can be a soul-crushing affair, a 49th match of an arduous campaign in England’s second tier where a club who missed out on automatic promotion only on goal difference can still find themselves facing another year below the Premier League in the most incredible and heartbreaking of fashions.

But before worrying about whether they’ll turn up for the big occasion, clubs have to actually get there first. And to do that, even the teams currently in the running for a late-season charge have to barge half the table out of the way.

That’s how matters look right now once again: Leicester are clear at the top, Southampton, Leeds and Ipswich are – for now – a distant second to fourth, one eventually to end up automatically up and the other two, barring a total collapse, occupying two of the four play-off spots. But after that, it’s anybody’s to fight for. From West Brom in fifth to Cardiff in 12th, just eight points separate nine teams, with only two places likely up for grabs. Dogfight doesn’t even begin to do it justice, and the second tier has a remarkable tendency to see a team from the bottom half surge up the table in the last four months of the season to sneak a top-six finish.

Typically, the Championship is a tight-fought league, hard to escape and harder to find real consistency in. Consider this: none of the quartet of clubs who ended up in the play-off places last season won even half of their fixtures. That explains much about the relegation rate straight back down: When teams do escape and head up to the Premier League, imagine how difficult it is to win ten fixtures against the very best, after only winning 20 against those ranked 21st to 44th.

West Brom, Hull, Coventry, Sunderland, Norwich, Preston, Watford, Middlesbrough and Cardiff: of the nine, only North End have never played in the top flight during the Premier League era. Three of them ended up on the sore side of the play-off fight last year and will have that mental reminder of the all-or-nothing scenario to deal with in another dozen games or so, either spurring them on to a final push or perhaps leaving some feeling flat at the knowledge that they face only a slim chance of success once more.

As for picking a potential candidate for eventual celebration, it might well be that Norwich City, currently in ninth and yet only one point off the pace, are a smart pick.

The Canaries suffered some atrocious results at the start of the campaign and have been playing catchup, but they’ve been doing so at some pace. Of their last 15 league games, they’ve lost only four, all of them on the road.

They have the sixth-best home record, almost always a vital source of points for finishing in the play-off places, and are unbeaten at Carrow Road since early November. Admittedly, the January departure of Adam Idah robs them of some goal threat, but he was a rotation player at best all the same and his consistency was questionable. Further, Norwich rank sixth for goals scored per match, outperforming their season-long xG – though to balance that, we must also note that on the xG alternative table, they’d be a lowly 13th right now.

But the trend is upwards all the same. A second half of the season improvement is far better than starting fast and fading faster – as looks the danger with rivals Ipswich just now, coincidentally.

And the architect of this rise over the past few months? David Wagner, a man who has very much been here before. He led Huddersfield out of the Championship and into the top flight in 2016/17, and kept them there the following year. He knows his way out of the division, and how to knit teams together to fight for a common cause.

Results and performances haven’t been perfect, and Norwich’s defence certainly needs a significant amount of work still. But this is a league which can forgive for errors which turn draws into defeats, as long as you keep attacking them and turn others into wins. Norwich, with fewer draws than any top-half team other than the league leaders, might be on the late path to the play-offs thanks to Wagner’s approach.

(Image from IMAGO)

You can follow every game from all three EFL divisions – with xG, deep stats, and players ratings on FotMob. Download the free app here.