Championship update...........a little research can go a long way!

Apr 18, 2023

Championship:

I have neglected the Championship a bit recently, that is not a long term thing, just a mixture of two clubs at the top and three at the foot of the table being clear/cast adrift of the rest for much of the campaign , not "feeling" the fixtures and having significant long term interest and lengthy notes on three teams, which has anyway, given us something to support most rounds.

Those three are WBA who were my early season pick and Millwall and Middlesbrough whom I highlighted in December. If Albion could win this evening ( away at Blackpool) they would have postseason destiny in their own hands and we could be in the incredible position of having all three in the top six. It is a little amazing as the trio were all outside the top 10 as we approached the WC break and Millwall were 15th and the other two were bottom 4 through 13 games.

In December I updated the Albion position and also noted .........

Millwall are currently 6th and a win at the Stadium of Light would take them 4th and knock, knock, knocking on "heaven's" door. The Lions are a big second half of the season team and I have written multiple times about their improved form after Christmas , back in January I highlighted just how strong the SE London club were once turkeys were finally safe to venture out from their hiding place .......

15/16 first 23 games 34 points- second 23 games 47 !

16/17 34-39

17/18 26-46 !

18/19 19-25

19/20 33-35

20/21 26-36

Collecting 57% of points in the second half of the season across six campaigns, which must be one of, if not THE best record in the EFL.

They went from 15th at the time of writing, to still having a top 6 chance on the final day of last season to continue that record . The benefits of knowing when a team is "likely" to play better in general terms are obvious and we can always look to use that to our advantage and the Lions are not an isolated case and we will look at one or two others in the next month. Lions head coach Gary Rowett has been at the club for over three years through which 'Wall have finished 8-11-9 and through 20 games in each they were a respective 15-16-10, so never previously in such a good position to kick on.

Rowett has a lot of second tier experience (325 games as head coach) and he and the backroom staff at the New Den took some very brave decisions this last off season, letting some senior players go, reducing the age of the squad, bringing in additions from far and wide. For example 20 yo CB Charlie Cresswell on loan from Leeds and AM Zian Flemming , signed from Fortuna Sittard for a very big fee (in Millwall's case) have been getting rave reviews and both made the last Championship team of the month. Flemming has already scored 8 goals and would apparently have joined Huddersfield if they had got that already mentioned promotion to the EPL last season, but when they came up short, could not afford him.Their loss is Millwall's gain and he looks likely to end up in the top flight eventually , either with or without Millwall. There are others like Shackleton (held in high regard by Leeds) , Styles, Honeyman , Afobe who have not yet contributed as much as they can or were expected to and surely improvement to come from at least a couple of those. Supporters are really pleased with the options and greater strength in depth and they seem sure to have a solid 2023.

2 units Millwall to finish top 6 @ 3.5 general quote.

1 unit Millwall to gain promotion 9.0-10.0 general quote.

Having discussed two teams in detail last week, I have to at least talk a little about Middlesbrough today. They are currently 15th, but only six points off 4th place and arguably the #1 expected team ( #2 if not!) . Boro finished 7th last season which is kind of ideal if you are not going to be promoted, as it is a strong placing and spares teams the anguish of missing out in the postseason and avoids the shortened off season. They came into this campaign full of optimism, head coach Chris Wilder had taken Sheffield United up and Boro were much improved after his arrival in November last year, being top 5 in all statistical categories. However, he was sacked in October with Boro bottom three and having won just 2/11 starts and the word amongst supporters and I am only repeating what I read, was that Wilder was pursuing his own agenda, totally intransigent with regard to formation and selection when things were clearly not working and had lost the support and respect of the players.

He was replaced by Michael Carrick who was born and raised in the North East and spent 15 years at Manchester United as player and coach until last season . Carrick has collected 10 points from his first game in charge after unluckily losing the first and he has sorted out the defence immediately and the difference at the training centre under him and his coaching staff is said to be like night and day compared to the Wilder regime. That includes former players Grant Leadbitter and Jonathan Woodgate who was actually Boro head coach until his dismissal in 2020, so that is an odd one, but he was born and raised in the city and supported the club as a boy. Also, Aaron Danks joined the staff last week, he is young and well thought of and has been working at Aston Villa and also with the England U20 (World Cup winners) and U21 groups.

The Boro numbers are sensationally good , they have been all season really, but the results and goals are starting to come for Carrick , they have been free scoring on the road (13 in their last five) and now need to bring that flair to home games at the Riverside. I understand that they might bring in one or two in the January window and the coaching staff have a lot of contacts in the game between them to use in the loan market, but that they are pretty happy with the squad as it stands. The division looks weak, I discussed that last week and you can see how tight everything is, last season two teams picked up 50+ points from the final 25 games (the stage we are at now), Huddersfield Town (53) and Nottingham Forest (52) to move up from mid table into the top 4 and actually faced off in the playoff final and Boro have that potential and almost certainly don't need that number of points to break into the top 6. I can see the Championship table having a very different look in a couple of months time and Boro seem almost certain to put in a top 6 challenge.

This morning the table looks like this ...........

2022/23			Overall									Home						Away
2022/23			P	W	D	L	F	A	Gdf	Pts	Form	P	W	D	L	F	A	P	W	D	L	F	A
	1	Burnley	41	26	13	2	78	30	+48	91	OWWO	21	15	6	0	45	13	20	11	7	2	33	17
	2	Sheffield United	41	24	7	10	64	36	+28	79	WLWW	20	13	3	4	40	18	21	11	4	6	24	18
	3	Luton Town	42	20	14	8	53	36	+17	74	WWOW	21	9	8	4	29	20	21	11	6	4	24	16
	4	Middlesbrough	42	21	8	13	79	51	+28	71	WXLL	21	12	6	3	42	17	21	9	2	10	37	34
	5	Millwall	42	18	11	13	50	41	+9	65	WLOO	21	11	6	4	31	17	21	7	5	9	19	24
	6	Blackburn Rovers	41	19	6	16	45	47	-2	63	OXLL	20	13	2	5	25	16	21	6	4	11	20	31
	7	Coventry City	42	16	14	12	52	43	+9	62	WXOL	21	9	7	5	26	23	21	7	7	7	26	20
	8	Preston North End	42	17	11	14	41	47	-6	62	LWWW	21	7	6	8	19	24	21	10	5	6	22	23
	9	Sunderland	42	16	13	13	60	51	+9	61	WWXO	21	7	7	7	30	30	21	9	6	6	30	21
	10	Norwich City	42	17	10	15	55	47	+8	61	LOWL	21	8	5	8	27	23	21	9	5	7	28	24
	11	WBA	41	16	12	13	52	45	+7	60	WXLO	21	10	7	4	28	17	20	6	5	9	24	28
	12	Watford	42	15	14	13	51	47	+4	59	WXLL	21	10	6	5	32	20	21	5	8	8	19	27
	13	Swansea City	42	15	11	16	57	59	-2	56	WWOW	21	9	4	8	31	28	21	6	7	8	26	31
	14	Bristol City	42	13	14	15	50	52	-2	53	LXWX	21	8	7	6	27	21	21	5	7	9	23	31
	15	Hull City	42	13	14	15	48	57	-9	53	OWXO	21	8	5	8	22	26	21	5	9	7	26	31
	16	Stoke City	42	14	10	18	54	49	+5	52	LOLW	21	6	5	10	25	25	21	8	5	8	29	24
	17	Birmingham City	42	13	11	18	45	53	-8	50	LOXW	21	7	6	8	23	21	21	6	5	10	22	32
	18	Rotherham United	41	10	15	16	44	54	-10	45	LOWO	20	8	5	7	33	26	21	2	10	9	11	28
	19	Huddersfield Town	42	11	10	21	41	60	-19	43	LXWW	21	7	6	8	23	25	21	4	4	13	18	35
	20	QPR	42	11	10	21	40	67	-27	43	LXLL	21	6	4	11	20	32	21	5	6	10	20	35
	21	Cardiff City	41	11	9	21	34	50	-16	42	LLWL	21	6	6	9	18	21	20	5	3	12	16	29
	22	Reading¹	42	13	9	20	43	62	-19	42	OLXX	21	10	6	5	29	22	21	3	3	15	14	40
	23	Blackpool	42	9	11	22	44	67	-23	38	WLLL	21	6	6	9	26	29	21	3	5	13	18	38
	24	Wigan Athletic²	42	8	13	21	34	63	-29	34	LLLW	21	4	6	11	15	34	21	4	7	10	19	29
^¹	Reading (-6)
^²	Wigan Athletic (-3)

Millwall are trading somewhere between 1.2-1.33 to finish top 6 and host Birmingham this evening and a good chance that two wins from their four remaining games will get them into the playoffs. Their second half of the season record across EIGHT seasons is truly remarkable and highlights what can be learned from a little research.

Boro have been on fire since I wrote those notes, with a 15-2-5 record and wonderful 52-26 goal difference, I write often about GD being a great and easy indicator of true ability and giving a fantastic starting point for a little research and +28 for the season puts them on a par with Sheffield United and +26 through those 22 games as an elite Championship side.

It would also highlight Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End , both with a negative GD, as having overachieved to be top 8 currently and Stoke City , down in 16th but with +5 goals as , once again (it is a long and sorry tale of woe at the Bet365 stadium), having played better than their results suggest. As I said this should only ever be a starting point and is anyway, not the purpose of this post , but as I picked out those three teams, I can also say that xP suggests that City are a respective 19 points better than Rovers and 13 superior to North End.

We are in very strong positions with our long term bets in the EPL, Championship and League 1 ( we skipped L2) and plenty to keep us glued to the edge of our seats in the coming weeks.

clubgowi Glossary:

ITB= inside the box attempts, Goal of the month competitions usually feature several long range contenders and we always remember those 30 yard bullets into the top corner, but only 12.87% of Premier League goals over the last three seasons have been scored from outside the box , good coaches are known to encourage players to look for better scoring opportunities and it is usually only supporters urging "shoooooot" everytime the goal is within sight, even if there are 20 players between ball and net .

XG= expected goals.

XGF= expected goals for.

XGA = expected goals against.

XGD = expected goal difference.

XP = expected points.

BC = big scoring chance.

Good luck.