Eight Out Of Ten Stats

The last post of the month is going to be stats driven, so please be patient.

It’s still really early in the season, but after four games there seem to be some surprise team at both ends of the table.

First of all, here are the highlights from last weekend’s game of the week:

This isn’t the best stat of the week, but it’s been over a decade since Ipswich had a shirt sponsor that wasn’t Marcus Evans.

Anyway, I’ve identified a number of teams who were playing in the Championship last season but are currently performing either above or below the level they were in 2017/18. I looked at how they’ve performed against (a) the current teams in the top six and (b) those sides currently in the bottom six, then compared the points they earned from those games against the grand total they’ve earned this season:

This seems to suggest the following:

• Any club that’s earned more than 50% of their total points against teams from the bottom six has probably had an easy start: Bolton, Brentford, Leeds and Preston fall into that category – although the Lillywhites are currently underperforming compared to last season, which indicates this may be a bump in the road rather than a crisis.
• Birmingham have had a bad start due to having already played Bolton, Middlesbrough and Swansea, but they don’t have to face another club in the current top six until the middle of next month. That being said, you have to wonder if the Blues would have been in this position if they’d had an easier schedule: I think it’s highly likely that the end of last season was something of a dead cat bounce.
• I’d be very worried if I was a QPR fan. A couple of seasons ago Rotherham were relegated to League One after finishing 19 points adrift at the bottom but after four games The Millers had one win and three goals under their belts – which is a better record than Steve McLaren’s team currently has.
• Nottingham Forest have improved – they couldn’t have got any worse without being relegated – but probably not enough to be considered promotion candidates. They to come from behind at both Bristol City and Wigan to earn draws, struggled to beat Bury in the League Cup and lots of teams are going to beat Reading this season.

Once again, although this is far too early in the campaign to make predictions, I think that Aston Villa, Brentford and Middlesbrough will be in the mix at the end of the season. It’s a ‘wait and see’ situation with Leeds (when isn’t it?) but I’d be very surprised to see Bolton in the top half of the table at Christmas. Overall though, I think it’s still wide open at the top.

At the bottom, it’s Birmingham, QPR and Reading who will need to look over their shoulders – I picked Reading out before the season began – but I’ll be honest and thought that QPR were the type of team that could do well. Of course, that could still happen. I deliberately haven’t mentioned any of the new arrivals in this post, but Stoke have had a dreadful start.

Elsewhere I’d suggest keeping an eye on Frank Lampard’s progress at Derby. It could go either way but at the moment I’d suggest their lowest finish in the Championship for half a dozen seasons is a realistic outcome: a guaranteed playoff hangover combined with an inexperienced manager is not a recipe for success.

This weekend’s televised games: Middlesbrough v WBA (this evening, 7:45pm, Sky Sports Main Event/Football) and Nottingham Forest v Birmingham (Saturday, 5:30pm, Sky Sports Main Event/Football). The first one looks like an interesting one, the second one has draw written all over it.

It’s the second round of the League Cup next week and I’ll cover that in next weekend’s post. I may not have a hangover by then