Championship Week 46: The beginning of the end

Well that was quite an end to the Championship season to say the least.
It seems all the excitement that left the title and relegation races in the final few weeks fell in to the playoff race on the final day of the season.
That was quite some experience watching those four games go down to the last goal to decide the final two playoff places.

Position	Team	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Goals For	Goals Against	Goal Difference	Points
1	Bournemouth	46	26	12	8	98	45	53	90
2	Watford	46	27	8	11	91	50	41	89
3	Norwich	46	25	11	10	88	48	40	86
4	Middlesbrough	46	25	10	11	68	37	31	85
5	Brentford	46	23	9	14	78	59	19	78
6	Ipswich	46	22	12	12	72	54	18	78
7	Wolverhampton Wanderers	46	22	12	12	70	56	14	78
8	Derby	46	21	14	11	85	56	29	77
9	Blackburn	46	17	16	13	66	59	7	67
10	Birmingham	46	16	15	15	54	64	-10	63
11	Cardiff	46	16	14	16	57	61	-4	62
12	Charlton	46	14	18	14	54	60	-6	60
13	Sheffield Wednesday	46	14	18	14	43	49	-6	60
14	Nottingham Forest	46	15	14	17	71	69	2	59
15	Leeds	46	15	11	20	50	61	-11	56
16	Huddersfield	46*	13	15	17	58	75	-17	54
17	Fulham	46	14	10	22	62	83	-21	52
18	Bolton	46	13	12	21	54	67	-13	51
19	Reading	46	13	11	22	48	69	-21	50
20	Brighton	46	10	17	19	44	54	-10	47
21	Rotherham	46	11	16	19	46	67	-21	46
22	Millwall	46	9	14	23	42	76	-34	41
23	Wigan	46	9	12	25	39	64	-25	39
24	Blackpool	46*	4	13	28	36	91	-55	25

Of course the headline from most of the media was what a complete collapse to Derby’s season – but of those four teams it should really be focused on Ipswich (and to a lesser extent Brentford) who consistently improved as the season went on.
I pointed out throughout the season that Derby’s lofty perch was acquired by a probably unsustainable PDO and thus it proved – even if it did take a little while to come back down to almost earth.

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
10	Birmingham	46	614	724	0.459	204	235	0.465	26.47	72.77	99.24
9	Blackburn	46	694	650	0.516	217	219	0.498	30.41	73.06	103.47
24	Blackpool	46*	528	746	0.414	154	245	0.386	23.38	62.86	86.23
18	Bolton	46	584	728	0.445	194	243	0.444	27.84	72.43	100.26
1	Bournemouth	46	767	528	0.592	270	154	0.637	36.3	70.78	107.08
5	Brentford	46	710	632	0.529	266	215	0.553	29.32	72.56	101.88
20	Brighton	46	663	579	0.534	185	179	0.508	23.78	69.83	93.62
11	Cardiff	46	577	632	0.477	173	183	0.486	32.95	66.67	99.61
12	Charlton	46	475	751	0.387	168	220	0.433	32.14	72.73	104.87
8	Derby	46	602	584	0.508	215	196	0.523	39.53	71.43	110.96
17	Fulham	46	601	712	0.458	193	246	0.44	32.12	66.26	98.38
16	Huddersfield	46*	662	637	0.51	237	212	0.528	24.47	64.62	89.1
6	Ipswich	46	675	605	0.527	228	174	0.567	31.58	68.97	100.54
15	Leeds	46	529	706	0.428	158	218	0.42	31.65	72.02	103.66
4	Middlesbrough	46	663	532	0.555	214	150	0.588	31.78	75.33	107.11
22	Millwall	46	610	601	0.504	171	217	0.441	24.56	64.98	89.54
3	Norwich	46	740	431	0.632	243	154	0.612	36.21	68.83	105.05
14	Nottingham Forest	46	673	649	0.509	213	205	0.51	33.33	66.34	99.67
19	Reading	46	599	574	0.511	185	204	0.476	25.95	66.18	92.12
21	Rotherham	46	618	618	0.5	189	203	0.482	24.34	67	91.33
13	Sheffield Wednesday	46	600	568	0.514	166	181	0.478	25.9	72.93	98.83
2	Watford	46	668	632	0.514	252	206	0.55	36.11	75.73	111.84
23	Wigan	46	547	539	0.504	155	186	0.455	25.16	65.59	90.75
7	Wolverhampton Wanderers	46	598	641	0.483	198	203	0.494	35.35	72.41	107.77

Indeed, one wonders how Derby’s season would have progressed had the Rams only enjoyed league average (100) PDO all season long.
Yes, there may be some talent effects in PDO, but considering that a 100 PDO would probably have seen Derby hovering somewhere between 13th (their overall shot share) and where they actually finished in 8th, which also matched their shots on target ranking.

In fact Ipswich, with a give-or-take league average only finished sixth despite having the sixth highest overall shot share and fourth highest shots on target share.
Mick McCarthy should be pleased with the way he brought his team together.
From a decidedly slow start the team consistently improved its shots and shots on target share to finish the season well above 50% and 55% respectively.

Brentford too had a slow start but again slowly and steadily improved throughout the season.
Yes their shot stats are boosted somewhat by the massacre of Blackpool, but Mark Warburton and the players should be congratulated for not getting distracted by the announcement over the manager’s future near the end of the season.
Yes, it is more than likely the right decision and you would expect the manager and players to maintain a professional approach, but these sorts of changes can have an impact in unexpected ways.
In this case, it seems to have motivated Warburton and the squad as since then they have continued to improve in the shot metrics.

My biggest concern for the playoffs is Middlesbrough.
I was a big fan of Middlesbrough and their excellent shot metrics early in the season, but it is impossible not to notice their deteriorating metrics since that great start.
They still have very good numbers but the slide is undeniable and not a good trend to be owning. I wouldn’t expect them to maintain the early season score at up around 65%+, but you would expect it to flatten out somewhere – continuing its descent is worrying.

So that leaves Norwich as the only remaining playoff team to look at. And the Canaries have been exemplary all season.
Top in shot share and second in shots on target share, the only thing to scupper Norwich’s season was some awful PDO in the first half of the season.
Local derbies are horrible to predict, so I’m not going to.
But on the balance of the season Norwich are the team which deserve to win the playoffs and return immediately to the Premier League.

Looking at the season as a whole, it is noticeable how quickly the top eight broke clear from the rest of the league and how at the midway stage the bottom three teams were also decided.

Considering the shot metrics it is remarkable how quickly these settled down in to pretty consistent measures that by-and-large lasted the length of the season: Norwich, Bournemouth and Middlesbrough at the top; Blackpool, Leeds and Charlton at the bottom.

By contrast PDO remained more volatile throughout the season with a few teams witnessing remarkable fluxes all the way through – Charlton and Derby to name just two.

Let’s see which of these factors had a stronger impact on the final league table.
This season has appeared something of a volatile one, particularly for the lower 16 teams, as it were.
Indeed, the overall shot share produces a rather relationship (if reasonably weak) to points gained by teams – an r2 value of 0.322.

When we then look at shots on target share we get a much greater link – here we see an r2 value of 0.6848.

But the strongest relationship involves PDO – a mighty r2 score of 0.7555.
The powerful hold that PDO had this season was reflected in some of those teams with poor shot numbers finishing much higher up in the final table and the reverse – good shots teams near the bottom of the table.

It sure was a fun season and I’m looking forward to the playoffs now.