Are League Position or Momentum Linked to EFL Play-Offs Success? ...Middle East

Ahead of the action starting on Thursday, we examine to what extent a team’s final league position impacts their chances of earning promotion via the EFL play-offs.

There is something special about the EFL play-offs. After a long and arduous campaign, 12 teams across the Championship, League One and League Two essentially have their season’s fate sealed in the space of no more than three games.

All that came before is pretty much meaningless; the marathon of a season becomes a sprint and the margins are finer than ever. One mistake could be the difference between semi-final elimination and eventually securing promotion at Wembley Stadium.

For three-quarters of the teams involved, the play-offs ultimately bring despair and agony, condemning them to at least another season at whatever level of the English football pyramid they’re at.

But for the three teams who do secure promotion via the play-offs, it’s ecstasy, like a double dose of jubilation as the glory of winning what is, in essence, a cup final marries up with the relief and excitement of earning promotion.

It’s no wonder Tony Mowbray, in charge of Sunderland in the 2023 Championship play-offs, concluded “it’s the best way to go up, undoubtedly; it’s better than winning the league”.

Speaking in April 2023, he said: “I’ve [won a league title] as a manager, but the day you win promotion at Wembley is amazing. It’s like winning a cup final and promotion all in one.”

Of course, Mowbray’s Sunderland fell short, narrowly missing out to Luton Town in the semi-finals, with the Hatters going on to beat Coventry City on penalties at Wembley after a 1-1 draw. But that’s the nature of the play-offs – they are brutal.

Nevertheless, both Sunderland and Coventry are in contention again this time around, with the Championship play-off semi-final first legs taking place across Thursday and Friday this week. Those two clubs go up against each other on Friday; but first, Bristol City and Sheffield United tussle at Ashton Gate to get the action started.

A curious quirk of their matchup is that Bristol City actually finished closer to the relegation zone (+19 points) than they did to the Blades (-22 points).

The League One and League Two play-off semi-final first legs then take place over the weekend. By the time Saturday 17 May concludes, we’ll know which six sides make up the play-off finals across the three divisions.

With the play-offs on the horizon, then, it’s the time of year when discussions invariably turn to identifying who the favourites are.

For many, it’s a simple answer: whichever team finished highest in the table. It makes sense; that team accumulated the most points over the regular season, so they’ve a pretty sound claim to being the best of the four sides involved from their division. And the highest-placed team always faces the lowest-placed team in the semi-finals, with the second leg at home, thus theoretically giving them the easiest route to the final.

But we all know that’s not how things always turn out, which in itself encapsulates the magic of the play-offs. So, is it essentially a lottery, or does your final league position actually have some bearing?

Looking back over every season in the Championship, League One and League Two since the 1989 play-offs, which were the first played in more or less their current guise, there is a similar trend across the three divisions.

In both the Championship and League One, 36.1% of play-off finals have been won by the team that finished the season in third place. Admittedly, that does include the 1994-95 Championship season, when Bolton Wanderers went up through the play-offs after finishing third, but in that campaign only one team went up automatically, so Bolton didn’t actually finish highest of the four teams in the play-offs.

Nevertheless, that’s offset by the fact that three went up automatically four years earlier. Notts County won the play-offs that year having finished highest of the four teams involved (fourth).

When we then look at the outcome of the Championship play-offs more recently, over the last 20 seasons (so, since the EFL rebrand), that third spot looks even more important; 45% of the teams to win the play-offs over that period finished the regular season in third.

League One doesn’t look massively different in that respect over the last 20 seasons, with 40% of the teams to go up via the play-offs ending the campaign third in the table. That is heavily influenced by the fact that four of the last six League One play-off winners came third, a promising omen for Stockport County this season, then.

The greatest proportion of play-off winners from League Two are also the side who finished highest in the regular season; 41.7% of winners have ended the season fourth or third (in 1994-95, when only two went up automatically). However, only four of those have been in the 20 seasons since the rebrand; in that time, the team that’s finished seventh – the lowest-ranked of the play-off sides – have won the League Two play-offs most often (seven times); cue wry smiles from fans of Chesterfield, this season’s seventh-placed side in League Two.

This would suggest that in League Two there’s less of a gulf in quality between the best and worst teams – or at least between the middling sides and those not quite good enough to earn automatic promotion. After all, three teams go up automatically, so the last play-off spot is a place lower in the table than in the Championship or League One.

Another aspect we can take into consideration is form. There’ll be those who argue being on a good run is more important than your league position once you’re in the play-offs; momentum is a valuable commodity in football, so it stands to reason.

To get a measure of form, we’ve looked back at each team to reach the play-offs across the three divisions going back to the 1993-94 season and worked out whether the eventual winners took the most or fewest points out of the four teams over their final five league games.

Obviously, there are caveats here. Like, just because a team haven’t won the most points over the final five games of a regular season doesn’t mean they aren’t “in form”; similarly, one team might have had a much trickier fixture schedule over the final weeks of the season. So, with that in mind, it’s not an exact science, but looking at how they finished their campaign does provide some indication as to a team’s momentum, at least in relation to the other teams they’re competing against in the play-offs.

For instance, in the Championship, 32.3% of the last 31 winners of the play-offs have won either the most or joint-most points of the four teams in their final five league games heading into the semi-finals. Just 12.9% of them have earned the fewest or joint-fewest points in their last five regular-season fixtures.

There’s a comparable split in League Two, with 25.8% of the last 31 winners going into the play-offs as the form team – or as the joint-form team – and 19.4% having finished the league season with the fewest or equal-fewest points in their last five games.

But in League One, it’s much more even across the board. Sure, form teams edge it with 38.7% of the winners falling into this category, but a third of the clubs to go up via the play-offs have earned the fewest or joint-fewest points over their final five matches. Perhaps a reason for optimism then for Wycombe Wanderers, who head into Sunday’s first leg having taken just six points from their last five games, losing each of their past three.

When it comes to form or momentum, Leyton Orient go into the League One play-offs in the best shape after taking a maximum 15 points from their last five outings.

In League Two, Chesterfield appear to have the edge after dropping just four points over the past five matchdays – none of their rivals have claimed more than a single win over the same period.

In the Championship, Coventry and Sheffield United have each taken seven points over the past five matchdays – that’s as good as it gets among the four play-off sides in the second tier.

In fact, fourth-placed Sunderland ended up losing each of their last five matches of the regular season; that makes them the first team ever to enter the EFL play-offs (in any tier) on a run of five successive defeats.

The evidence suggests form or momentum do come into it – how could they not? But it’s an undeniable fact that teams who finish the highest in the table win the play-offs in each division more often than clubs in any other position.

As noted, this is especially true in more recent times in both the Championship and League One, which is potentially a knock-on effect of teams having increasingly more money after dropping down from the Premier League. They might just get pipped to automatic promotion, but in the sprint of the play-offs, their better and bigger squads can get them over the line.

But, of course, nothing is guaranteed. Sheffield United might have statistically the best chance of winning the Championship play-offs, but they’ll still have to earn it.

And that’s the beauty of the play-offs. Sure, it’s another bite of the cherry, but it’s also a second threat of failure.

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Are League Position or Momentum Linked to EFL Play-Offs Success? Opta Analyst.

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