When having a debate about finishing position in the Championship I took it upon myself to investigate what happens when a team finishes 7th. I couldn’t remember the last time that a team finished 7th and did well the season afterwards. I cycled through the finishing tables just waiting to find one and I kept having to go back and back and back until eventually, in 2010, I found Brendan Rogers’ Swansea City side who managed to finish 3rd after a 7th placed finish the previous year.
I also noticed that some of the clubs that finished 7th seemed to really struggle. But it was only when I actually traced the clubs that finished 7th that I realised the horrific truth. Every team that has finished 7th in the Championship since Swansea has gone on to finish between 13th and 19th the following season. The uniformity of that drop-off astounded me, and a fair number of other people on Twitter as well!
Of course, finding the fact was only the beginning. I couldn’t let this lie without conducting some kind of investigation as to why this was happening. There were a few hypotheses that came to mind; mental fatigue, disappointment, transfers out, managerial changes but I wanted to dig into the stats first of all to monitor the performance differences.
I also wanted to find out the opinions of people who experienced those seasons much more acutely than myself. The fans of the 7th placed clubs that watched their hopes turn into mid-table mediocrity at best. Some common themes came out of their opinions as well that are very interesting.
Poor Form At The End of the 7th Place Season
It is sometimes thought that the team who finishes in 7th place is the one that stutters towards the finishing line. In some cases this is true, Forest didn’t stutter as much as implode in the 19/20 season, but more generally poor form at the end of a season is often seen as an indicator of a troubled season to come.
However, there really is quite the range of results looking at the last eight seasons. The mean is 9.375 across the 6 matches at the back end of the 7th place season. This translates to around 1.5 points per match which is around the rate you would expect for a 7th placed team.
It is the range that is startling though. Forest’s disaster and Middlesbrough’s charge in the last two seasons combine to make a range of 12 and those two results alone are probably enough to dismiss this idea. Looking back Leeds United and Reading fell away somewhat and perhaps that was an influence in their subsequent slide. I would say the Forest slump certainly had an effect on their subsequent season.
Nevertheless, the remaining five clubs showed a good level of performance at the end of the season, but still suffered from this phenomenon.
A Bad Start – Potential Hangover
So if it isn’t a poor end to the 7th placed campaign, perhaps a very poor start to the next one is a big contributing factor.
Again, there is quite a big range to the points that the clubs in the sample managed to get but that is really as a result of Leeds United’s excellent start to the 2017/18 season. All, or the vast majority, of these teams would’ve had aspirations of playoffs before the season started of course and to achieve that a team would need around 1.6 points per game. Only Leeds and Reading from this set of teams managed this, Preston, Middlesbrough, Forest and Bolton averaged less than a point a game.
Obviously we know that these clubs all finished bottom half but there are signs that clubs that finish 7th are more likely than not to have a poor start to the following season. The last 3 teams certainly follow this pattern, though Bolton Wanderers’ 2013/14 start is definitely the poster boy for this theory.
Summer Transfer Business – Lack of Investment or Loss of Important Players
As a team that finished very close to the play-off positions it stands to reason that the club will have players that are desired by better teams. Players might’ve have been hoping for promotion with their clubs and, having failed in that objective, may feel forced to leave to achieve their goals.
Is it also the case that owners/managers may think that their team was so close to achieving their goals in the previous season that they don’t need that many new additions to get into the top 6.
The image gallery above highlights the key transfer activity in the summer following a 7th place finish for all the teams I have comprehensive statistical data for.
All of the expected trends highlighted earlier can be seen in this sample though. All clubs, with the possible exception of Preston, lost at least one key player, albeit for decent fees in general. Matty Cash for Forest, Flint & Braithwaite for Middlesbrough (although neither player performed to their full potential at the Riverside), Wood & Taylor for Leeds, and Ipswich’s Daryl Murphy.
Of course, it then becomes a question of how you replace those players. Leeds United went for what appears to be a scatter gun approach, bringing in 23 players in the summer alone. Some of the intake have proven to be excellent signings once managed well Alioski & Klich winning promotion under Marcelo Bielsa and Pontus Jansson made the club a nice profit. However, there was no real replacement for Chris Wood’s goals.
Preston North End didn’t really lose much, just Greg Cunningham for a decent fee to Cardiff. However, they strengthened on the cheap. Spending very little and gambling on young EFL players and young loanees from Manchester City. It didn’t work for the club and they have yet to see any return in terms of profit or performances from those young players.
Ipswich were really struggling financially at this time and weren’t able to invest in playing staff. Interestingly one of their deals was a player swap seeing Adam Webster come in with Matt Clarke going the other way. Both now very highly rated defenders.
Middlesbrough had been 5th and 7th under Tony Pulis but the loss of parachute payments and a change of style under Jonathan Woodgate meant a change in transfer policy. Young, cheaper players were sought and didn’t get near replacing the experienced quality that was released and sold.
Nottingham Forest are a stranger one. They lost dynamic left-back Cash but brought in quite a number of players and many of them experienced at the level. However, the mix clearly didn’t work.
Managerial Changes
I think it can be quite hard to classify whether 7th place is a successful season or a failure. In part it will depend on the club’s pre-season expectations, partly down to the wage spend or net transfer fee spend but ostenisbly it is a failure. You put in all of the effort and achieve a good points total, but you have to come back and do it all again the following season.
So in a way it is difficult to know whether managers would be sought after or not. In our list the only managerial changes that happened in the break between seasons were at Middlesbrough as Tony Pulis’ contract was not renewed and Jonathan Woodgate came in and at Leeds in 2017 when Garry Monk was replaced by Thomas Christiansen.
Both of those were rookie managers and it is fair to say in hindsight that the decision to hire them were contributing factors to the problem.
Most other managerial changes in the sample happened after the expectations for the season were not being met. As was seen in the data above about poor starts to the season it is those poor starts that led managerial changes in the following season. This applies to Sabri Lamouchi last season and Jonathan Woodgate the season before.
Overperformance in 7th Place Season
With the use of Infogol’s xG/xPts service going back to 2014/15 I was able to map teams’ actual league finishes to the expected positions according to their xG data.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, in four of the six seasons a team’s expected position was lower than 7th. Preston can clearly find themselves unlucky to have performed so well and missed out, and perhaps that information informed their transfer activity as listed above, also the disappointment may also contribute towards their slow start the following year.
However, all of the other clubs “deserved” to finish outside of the playoff places. Some by quite a distance, and some “should” have finished in the bottom half of the league. This is probably the strongest evidence we have seen so far as to how this phenomenon can be explained. The gap between finishing 7th due to results and how the team has actually performed using underlying performance metrics means that a reversion to the mean is likely to take place over the next set of fixtures, unless there are fundamental improvements to the way that the team play.
Underperformance in Following Season
Following on from the previous hypothesis it certainly made sense to look at potential underperformance in the season afterwards. If there is evidence that the teams should’ve finished higher than they did then that also adds a piece of evidence to the explanation.
Almost all of the teams finished in the bottom half of the table by position and also by performance, with the exception of Wolves in 2015/16 who could’ve scraped into the top half.
This information suggests that there was no real underperformance the season after a 7th placed finish and combining this with the previous graph it is possible to suggest that the 7th placed finish for most of these teams was something of an aberration.
In fact, a number of the clubs still overperformed in this subsequent season. Ipswich seem fortunate to have avoided relegation, a fate that came their way two seasons later. Preston escaped the relegation battle in 18/19 but perhaps they should’ve been more embroiled in it.
Interestingly, Forest had a higher expected position in their subsequent season than their 7th place season (14th over 15th) but most clubs performed worse. This does suggest that there are more factors at play, some of which will be those reasons investigated above (recruitment, managerial changes, psychology) but there may be more to see by looking in detail at some performance metrics.
Performance Metrics Season-by-Season
This next section just takes a snapshot of some interesting performance metrics from the two seasons. There is also a graphic comparison between the two.
Of course, these metrics don’t explain everything and so I have also asked an expert fan opinion from the club involved for their take on the season to see if the evidence I have gathered adds up to how it seemed for the fans.
Nottingham Forest 19/20
These statistics from Wyscout paint an ever clearer picture of Forest’s fortune in getting close to the play-offs in their 7th place season.
They lagged way behind their opposition over the course of the season in penalty area entries, passes into the final third and progressive passes. An explanation for this is perhaps seen in the PPDA numbers that suggest Forest used a low block and other teams pressed them a bit harder.
Interestingly there are clear signs of improvement in the second season over the 7th placed season here for Forest. This is borne out in the expected position data we saw but goes against what you would expect from the positions. The team shut the opposition out of their penalty area much more, albeit Forest also got (even) worse at penetrating the defences of their opponents.
Forest’s pressing became slightly more active in their opponents’ half while the opposition became less active against Forest.
Fan view
The way it happened for us was probably slightly different to the others as far as the dramatic fashion we dropped out the top 6. In the top 6 from matchday 8 until the final day of the season when a goal difference swing of 4 was just incredible really. The players just didn’t recover mentally for the start of the new season and we started that 20/21 season with 4 defeats and the sacking of Sabri.
It was a very quick turnaround if I remember to the next season which didn’t help us. We lost Matty Cash and didn’t invest that money well at all.
Also, I think you could argue we overperformed slightly in that 19/20 season. Wyscout had us 11th on xPoints.
Chris Kearney (@AnalyticsForest)
Middlesbrough 18/19
Tony Pulis’ Middlesbrough side played the way that we know the Welshman to operate. Defensively with a direct style. This is borne out in the data that perhaps doesn’t show how “effective” that style can be.
Boro lagged behind their opponents in all metrics taken from the Wyscout database for that season. There is a change of style evident within the data for the second season under Woodgate & then Warnock but is also shown to be ineffective for the most part.
As seen here Boro’s defence became less able to keep their opponents out of their penalty area and although they managed more passes in the final third, they were less able to play the ball forward as regularly. The higher pressing style was matched by their opponents as well, clearly finding Middlesbrough possible to get at higher up the pitch as they held the ball there for longer than under Pulis.
Fan view
If you look back to 18/19, we started well and were comfortably in the top six for 2/3rds of the season. We finished really poorly, including a run of six straight defeats, and ultimately Pulis left along with a couple of high earners like Downing, Besic etc. We appointed Woodgate that summer, tried to change style and it didn’t work. He was out of his depth and never settled on a style or team. There was limited money for new players. While Dijksteel and Bola have come good since, they were both pretty disastrous in their first season. If it hadn’t been for Warnock’s appointment, I think we were in serious danger of going down.
Matthew Rea (@m_rea)
Preston North End 17/18
From the numbers it is clear to see how effective Preston were in their close shave with the playoffs. They were much better than their opponents at getting into dangerous positions, they pressed high and progressed the ball well.
There is then a really stark difference in the following season. Interestingly they improved their passes in the final third stats and reduced their opponents’ same metric, and yet allowed their opponents far more access their own penalty area.
The first two metrics are the ones that really explain what went wrong for Preston. There were no real losses in personnel or management than can explain this big change. Perhaps other teams had simply worked them out? Preston certainly didn’t press as high in this season either, almost 30% less than the previous year.
Fan view
In 2018/19, after finishing 7th the previous season, North End failed to strengthen and sort of stood still, resulting in going backwards.
Having sold Jordan Hugill when bang in Play Off contention in January 2018, and then selling Greg Cunningham in the summer, earning around £14 million in transfer fees, North End did things the cheap way. Lukas Nmecha was brought in as a raw 19 year old on loan from City and Andrew Hughes was a left back signing for around £200,000 from Posh.
1 win from the opening 10 games had Alex Neil under heavy pressure, losing Hugill, Cunningham, and injury issues to Callum Robinson and Sean Maguire disrupted things massively. After a 3-3 draw at Villa Park in November, 1 loss in 11 followed and PNE then strengthened in January, albeit 6 months too late.
Brad Potts and Jayden Stockley made good impacts, and North End sat 7th after 38 games. As usual though, the squad lacked depth and injuries, suspension and fatigue left us losing 6 of the last 8 games to stumble to 14th. Had Callum Robinson, on course for 20 goals, stayed fit, it could’ve been a different story but PNE failed to adequately reinvest the £14 million they earned.
Oli O’Connell (@gorn__)
Leeds United 16/17
Similarly to Preston, Leeds show a slight dominance in their 7th place season that is then totally reversed in the following season. It is exactly the type of pattern you would expect to see in this investigation.
All defensive metrics suffered in the subsequent season. Garry Monk’s departure and the style implemented by Christiansen and then Heckingbottom clearly led to Leeds being more porous and allowing their opponents more access to their box. This despite a higher press across the season.
Fan view
17/18 there were a few factors. Management was a big one. As much as I don’t like the guy, Garry Monk did a good job the previous season so him walking away didn’t help. Thomas Christiansen started well but we quickly saw that was the exception not the rule. Some of his in-game decisions were poor. He also shipped out Mateusz Klich after a couple of games, and we see now how that decision looks.
He was replaced by Paul Heckingbottom who is the only Leeds manager that – to this day – I have no idea what he was even trying to do. Came to Leeds off the back of 1 win in 17 at Barnsley, and was absolutely hopeless.
It wasn’t a window like 11/12 where the writing was on the wall. Klich, Pontus Jansson made permanent, Samu Saiz, Ezgjan Alioski, and (before he played) Vernon Anita all looked like good signings. Plus Adam Forshaw and Tyler Roberts in January. Although GK was a big problem as Felix Wiedwald was poor, as was Andy Lonergan, leading to Bailey Peacock-Farrell getting the shirt. The only outs that were an issue were Rob Green and Chris Wood.
We really missed Chris Wood, 30 goals the previous season and no-one took on that mantle at all. The best chance was Pierre-Michel Lasogga on loan and he wasn’t fit/motivated enough despite having lots of ability. Where 11/12 was awful management from the boardroom, this was more down to the people in the dugout – Bielsa then fixed that.
Mighty Whites Pod (@mightywhitespod)
We were hugely reliant on Hernandez and Chris Wood. Wood scored 30 goals. Monk left in the summer and Wood left after 2 games. Replaced by an unknown manager who had us too after 8 games but lost the plot discipline wise and he got sacked. Then Heckingbottom was rubbish.
Josh Hobbs (@JoshAHobbs)
Ipswich Town 15/16
Back to the “effective” brand of football here with Mick McCarthy’s Ipswich side. Again, even in their 7th placed season their opponents entered Ipswich’s penalty area more often but clearly weren’t as effective as the Tractor Boys as they gained more points.
Looking at the passes to the final third and progressive pass numbers, they are exceptionally high in 15/16 and its’ no surprise that they dropped off substantially the following season. A part of that may be down to the loss of Daryl Murphy and the inability to replace him as a top target man.
It is clear to see here that Ipswich’s attacking output dropped off a cliff in the second season. Murphy’s loss clearly hurting the club.
Fan view
Whilst we finished 7th, we were always some way outside play off contention, a poor April had seen us slip from a very small outside chance to no chance. We won our final 2 games which were total dead rubbers to finish 7th, but were still 5 points outside the play offs and nowhere near.
We had finished 6th in 2014/15 with 78 points and everything had clicked with Murphy scoring 27 goals, he didn’t have a brilliant season the year after, but late on in the window in August 2016 he was sold to Newcastle for £3m, and just wasn’t replaced. Leon Best picked up on a free transfer and was a total failure – so we just lost our focal point and main goalscorer from a team that had already drifted a long way backwards, and were already a mid table side.
Joe Fairs (@joefairs)
Will Reading 21/22 follow in the footsteps?
Using the fantastic guide given by Peter Loehmann (@phloehmann) where he has gathered all of the 1-24 predictions from EFL experts Reading come out in 15th position. This would be bang in the middle of the usual range for previous 7th placed finishers.
They are suffering from financial difficulties. According to Kieran Maguire’s most recent study into the accounts of Championship clubs, Reading were spending 190% of their turnover on wages. This is sailing very close to the wind for both FFP regulations as well as being extremely poor business.
However, I’m not the expert on Reading’s current situation having not watched a 90 minutes of any of their games this season. The Royals currently sit 18th having won one and lost three of their opening games, so it certainly fits the trend of the poor starts we saw above.
To get the educated view on Reading I asked The Biscuit Analytic (@biscuitanalytic):
“On the subject of history repeating itself, it’s more than likely. Reading tried to make a run at promotion the last few seasons and it hadn’t paid off. Having had to now sell players and trying to replace them on frees or with academy players means we are down on quality. It feels not quite a mirror image but certainly one where Reading are looking at financial errors as part of the issue to blame for a lower league position the year after missing the playoffs”
The Biscuit Analytic (@BiscuitAnalytic)
The remainder
With Wyscout data only kicking in from the 2015/16 season it wasn’t possible to delve into the stats as deeply for any of the other clubs in the decade.
As a result I went searching for some expertise to help me to understand where the clubs went wrong and whether any of the theories discussed above show up in their seasons.
Wolves 14/15
Wolves’ 2014/15 season was a huge case of what might have been, most of which hinged on the fact it was Bakary Sako’s final year of his current contract. The Malian was an integral part of the team, part of a devastating trio of forwards with Benik Afobe and Nouha Dicko who carried the team on a wave of exhilarating attacking football to within goal difference of finishing in the play-offs.
Had we done so, the momentum created in that second half of the season would have served us well I feel, perhaps culminating in promotion, an extension to Sako’s time at the club and an opportunity to tackle the Premier League. As it was Sako moved on a free transfer to Crystal Palace, Nouha Dicko did his ACL in the fifth game of the 15/16 season, leaving Benik Afobe to near enough fend for himself as re-investment to replace Sako was unavailable.
Afobe, who performed relatively well given a distinct lack of support from other areas of the pitch, angled for a move to Premier League Bournemouth in the January transfer window. Kenny Jackett’s response was to recall forgotten man Bjorn Sigurdarson and spend £3m on long-term target Joe Mason. Neither were able to pick up the goalscoring baton and without those goals, Jackett reverted to a more circumspect approach, seemingly unable to cajole the team into climbing the table and settling for a rather underwhelming final league position, away from danger, but no threat to the play-off places
Musings from Molineux (@molineuxmusings)
Here we are seeing the themes of recruitment not being good enough and perhaps trying to rely on a previously successful style being found out by opposition. As we have seen it is rarely effective to expect the successful aspects of what got teams to the brink of the playoffs being enough to force your way in the following year.
Reading 13/14
Reading after being relegated in 12/13 started the season under Nigel Adkins back in the Championship in 13/14. 100 points, 100 goals was the target. The club never quite achieved the goals they set for themselves during 13/14.
Despite starting 13/14 scoring goals and winning games, the last 14 games only saw 18 points and they missed the playoffs on the final day. By this point, it was clear Anton Zingarevich had sold Reading up the river, with Adam Le Fondre sold to pay a HMRC bill, Sean Morrison following him to Cardiff in mid summer. Reading also lost first choice keeper Alex McCarthy.
Following a relatively strong start to the season, Reading were in the top 10 by the end of September but by this point it was clear Reading were struggling with squad depth particularly in central midfield, where Oli Norwood played alongside 4 different midfield partners in 4 games, in which Reading conceded 9 goals. After this, the wheels had come off under Adkins, with his style of play not dominating teams in the Championship with players unsuited to the style Hope Akpan, Jake Taylor, John Mackie coming in to replace injured players such as Danny Williams and Jem Karacan.
This led to Reading losing 7/11 games after the reasonable start, culminating in a 6-1 loss away at Birmingham. Adkins was fired in mid December. Steve Clarke was bought in as a replacement and never found his feet with the squad, winning just 6 league games. This may be slightly attributed to the fine FA Cup run the club went on making the semi finals that season losing in ET to Arsenal. Reading resting players in league matches during the season prioritising the FA cup matches once they got past the 4th round.
The season ended with Reading winning just 1 of their final 10 league games, struggling to score scoring just 9 goals, after Glenn Murray having returned to Brighton in January. The sole win was a 3-0 win against Derby on the final day stopping The Rams from making the playoffs.
The Biscuit Analytic (@BiscuitAnalytic)
Bolton 12/13
The decline in Bolton’s performance in the 2013/14 campaign, in relation to the previous season, can be put down to a number of factors.
A negative feeling had festered around the club, after missing out on the play-offs at the end of the 2012/13 season with a thoroughly deflating 2-2 home draw with Blackpool.
The loss of rock-solid loanee Craig Dawson meant the defence was porous at its heart, while their big £1m summer signing Jermaine Beckford took too long to acclimatise to the team.
It took Freedman’s side eleven games to get a first three points of the campaign at Birmingham, and although they followed that up with an undefeated run of five games, including three wins, the defence was still being overran. A 3-2 defeat at local rivals Wigan and a madcap 5-3 reverse at Leicester preceded a dark day in Berkshire. An Adam Le Fondre inspired Reading would devour a rotten Wanderers side 7-1, with the increasingly beleaguered Freedman suggesting afterwards the players as a whole were not up to the task, in terms of quality.
Three losses in the next four, as we moved into February meant any likelihood of a late surge up the table was over. This rendered immaterial the following three-game winning streak, including a surprising 4-0 home thumping of Blackburn Rovers and a 5-1 win at Elland Road.
Ending the season with one defeat in ten certainly gave fans cause for optimism though, with the Scottish manager showing a propensity for a shrewd loan signing once again, in the form of target man Lukas Jutkiewicz. Alas as financial issues started to rear their head, Jutkiewicz would not return and moved down the M65 to Burnley instead Overall the horrendous start, a hangover perhaps from the final day debacle, hampered any real hopes of competing for the play-off places again.
The lack of a potent striker, despite plenty of options in Beckford, David N’Gog, Joe Mason and Jutkiewicz meant Wanderers drew games they should’ve won. The quartet only scored 23 goals between them but it was in the heart of defence, where the often calamitous Zat Knight and underwhelming Matt Mills had mainly held sway, that Wanderers struggled the most.
Lee Tennant (@trottertenzo)
Middlesbrough 11/12
Weirdly, 11/12 and 12/13 were quite similar seasons, and typical or where we fell short under Mowbray. Both times we started well, and were close to automatic spots around Xmas and then collapsed after Xmas.
In 11/12, we picked up a little to have a small chance of sneaking into the top 6 until the last day. But the following year, when the slump started it didn’t stop and we were probably relegation form January onwards.
In Mowbray’s defence, I think in both years we were nowhere near promotion standard. He raised expectations above what was realistic and then suffered the consequences.
While 12/13 wasn’t a great season on paper, in the longer term it was the start of a positive change at the club. Strachan’s overpaid army of mediocre SPL rejects were moved along in the summer of 2012. We brought in Leadbitter on a free, Friend for £100k, Ben Gibson started to break into the team. It was the basis of the team Karanka would take to the play-off final in 2015 and then promotion in 2016.
Matthew Rea (@m_rea)
Leeds United 10/11
11/12 can be put down to two words. Ken Bates.
Leeds got promoted from L1 with a good side, couple of good signings lead to 7th in the 1st season. That summer, the club lost Kasper Schmeichel, Bradley Johnson, Neil Kilkenny, and Max Gradel. While signing a lot of aging players that did not work out.
We were in with a shout of the playoffs at the halfway mark, but Bates refused all transfers that Simon Grayson put forward such as Gareth McAuley who was available cheap when we desperately needed a CB. Bates also basically forced captain Jonny Howson out of the club to get £2m. He then got to February 1st when the window closed and immediately sacked Grayson. Leeds were 7th at this point if I recall correctly.
Bringing in Neil Warnock did not work in the slightest, he’s done well at most clubs but he was abysmal at Leeds so we fell away badly.
Mighty Whites Podcast (@mightywhitespod)
In 10/11 we had Simon Grayson in charge – good first season back in the Champ after promotion but a leaky defence cost us playoffs. The next season the squad was worse and Grayson couldn’t fix the defensive issues. Sacked and replaced by Warnock == death.
Josh Hobbs (@JoshAHobbs)
Interestingly, in these final four accounts from the fans we see some aspects that we haven’t investigated above. A lot of ownership issues for Reading, Bolton and Leeds that meant that recruitment and money were becoming the dominant narrative for each of the clubs. Sometimes this came around from horrendous mismanagement of funds. If any of the clubs had sneaked into the playoffs and been successful getting into the Premier League then their futures could have been so different.
Bolton are obviously the club who suffered most from this, going all the way down to the fourth tier, although as I write they are having a very strong start to their League One season. Reading though are still suffering from the Zingarevich era and their chances of earning that promotion are being severely handicapped by the financial hangover from this time.
The loss of parachute payments really affected Middlesbrough owner Steve Gibson’s approach to squad building. Tony Mowbray was working on more of a shoestring budget and this is something that hindered recruitment. As Matthew said though, it was actually the beginning of a good era for the club resulting in promotion a few years later.
Final Conclusions
When I originally found this stat it was as part of an argument about whether it matters where clubs finish in the Championship between 7th and 15th. It really is a remarkable stat but when you start to dig into it there really is a lot of reasons that build into why this happens more often than you might think.
In reality, the difference between the quality of the teams that finish in midtable in the Championship is close to negligible. As we demonstrated here, most of the 7th placed finishers in the “data era” according to their xG data “should have” finished much lower than 7th (except Preston).
In most cases across the whole cohort recruitment has been questionable at best. A mix of losing the players that took them close to the playoffs, financial problems perhaps caused by chasing the PL dream and perhaps owners/management believing that the playing squad was close enough to not add as much as they should have, meant that teams slid backwards rather than pushing forwards.
In the performance metrics every team, other than Nottingham Forest, really struggled to maintain the tightness of their defences. Most clubs also saw a reduction in their attacking outputs. Some of this is related to the recruitment issues discussed, but some of it may be down to the psychology of getting so close and not being quite ready to chase the dream again to the same extent. Certainly we saw that a lot of the clubs, especially recently, had unusually poor starts to the following season.
It looks like the trend is continuing at the moment with Reading’s struggles. If anyone has any other theories, comments or opinions about this blog or this topic then please message me on Twitter or comment on here. Hope you found this as interesting as I did!
Andy Watson Sport 