League One Week 43: Three games to go

It’s been a while since I had the chance to look at the lower leagues so apologies for that.
Bristol City’s astronomical PDO has seen them promoted and it’s only a matter of time until they claim the title.
To be fair the red half of Bristol have also been a very good shots team throughout the season, but there have been a handful of teams with consistently better overall shot share (Corsi/TSR) and shots on target share rates.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bristol City	43	27	11	5	86	36	50	92
2	Preston	42	23	13	6	71	36	35	82
3	Milton Keynes Dons	42	23	10	9	84	40	44	79
4	Swindon	41	23	7	11	70	47	23	76
5	Sheffield United	43	19	11	13	63	50	13	68
6	Chesterfield	43	19	10	14	67	52	15	67
7	Rochdale	42	18	6	18	69	57	12	60
8	Fleetwood Town	43	16	11	16	45	48	-3	59
9	Barnsley	43	16	10	17	56	59	-3	58
10	Peterboro	43	17	7	19	47	51	-4	58
11	Bradford	42	15	12	15	51	53	-2	57
12	Doncaster	42	15	12	15	52	55	-3	57
13	Gillingham	43	14	14	15	60	63	-3	56
14	Oldham	43	14	13	16	53	64	-11	55
15	Walsall	42	13	15	14	42	42	0	54
16	Coventry	43	12	15	16	46	56	-10	51
17	Scunthorpe	42	13	12	17	55	66	-11	51
18	Port Vale	43	14	8	21	50	60	-10	50
19	Crewe	43	13	9	21	39	72	-33	48
20	Leyton Orient	42	12	11	19	55	59	-4	47
21	Notts County	42	11	14	17	41	54	-13	47
22	Crawley Town	43	12	11	20	47	73	-26	47
23	Colchester	42	12	8	22	51	72	-21	44
24	Yeovil	43	9	10	24	33	68	-35	37

The three point gap should be enough to see Preston secure the second automatic promotion spot and being second in both shot share and shots on target share it is, remarkably, exactly where they “deserve” to finish.
You can’t help but feel sorry for MK Dons. Third place and probably being left to the volatility of the playoffs, but they are far and away the best team in both shot share and shots on target share.
It’s tough to swallow a season like that not ending in promotion.
It is, however, hard to fault Chesterfield, Sheffield United and Swindon being in the playoff places. Doncaster especially so can consider themselves a bit unfortunate not to be there or thereabouts.

Position	Team	Played	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
9	Barnsley	43	406	490	0.453	161	217	0.426	34.79	72.82	107.61
11	Bradford	42	437	414	0.513	191	159	0.546	26.71	66.68	93.39
1	Bristol City	43	537	448	0.545	223	171	0.566	38.56	78.95	117.51
6	Chesterfield	43	520	398	0.566	214	182	0.54	31.32	71.44	102.76
23	Colchester	42	445	496	0.473	194	213	0.477	26.27	66.2	92.47
16	Coventry	43	442	416	0.515	170	163	0.511	27.06	65.63	92.68
22	Crawley Town	43	340	615	0.356	120	264	0.313	39.16	72.35	111.5
19	Crewe	43	336	620	0.351	161	260	0.382	24.23	72.31	96.55
12	Doncaster	42	499	399	0.556	210	163	0.563	24.77	66.26	91.02
8	Fleetwood Town	43	438	564	0.437	180	199	0.475	24.99	75.88	100.87
13	Gillingham	43	402	550	0.422	165	220	0.429	36.36	71.36	107.73
20	Leyton Orient	42	472	416	0.532	216	175	0.553	25.46	66.27	91.73
3	Milton Keynes Dons	42	610	340	0.642	260	140	0.65	32.32	71.45	103.77
21	Notts County	42	428	589	0.421	179	235	0.432	22.91	77.02	99.92
14	Oldham	43	440	422	0.51	175	177	0.497	30.3	63.82	94.12
10	Peterboro	43	469	478	0.495	189	189	0.5	24.86	73.03	97.88
18	Port Vale	43	455	513	0.47	184	223	0.452	27.18	73.09	100.27
2	Preston	42	573	373	0.606	231	132	0.636	30.75	72.73	103.47
7	Rochdale	42	436	421	0.509	186	179	0.51	37.1	68.15	105.25
17	Scunthorpe	42	443	503	0.468	190	218	0.466	28.94	69.73	98.67
5	Sheffield United	43	484	402	0.546	194	153	0.559	32.46	67.32	99.79
4	Swindon	41	531	352	0.601	231	152	0.603	30.31	69.09	99.4
15	Walsall	42	478	409	0.539	159	178	0.472	26.42	76.41	102.83
24	Yeovil	43	437	430	0.504	156	177	0.468	21.16	61.58	82.74

Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, Leyton Orient’s relegation fight is one of the most unwarranted I can think of; well above 50% in both shot share and shots on target share, its been a brutal PDO run that has left them battling the drop.

Already relegated Yeovil can, to some extent at least, consider themselves unlucky as well. But their PDO slump is exacerbated by their poor shot numbers – in this instance not the share, but the raw quantity.
Yeovil have taken the eighth fewest shots and the second fewest shots on target. When you don’t have the sheer number of shots to your name it makes things a lot more volatile and means accidents, isolated poor play or just bad luck can have a much more significant influence.
I suspect this plays a big part in Yeovil’s position.

One can only imagine how bad Crawley’s season would have been without a mammoth PDO boost. It’s quite remarkable that with three games to play they have a decent chance at staying up; breath-taking indeed.
The other relegation places are going to be quite the scrap and although I have my preferences of who “should” stay up, when it gets this close, there’s not much you can predict safely.