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There are five games remaining in the Championship for 2023/24 with Leeds United, Southampton, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City battling it out in the play-offs to join Leicester City and Ipswich Town in the Premier League for 2024/25.
Leeds take on Norwich and Southampton face West Brom in the semi-finals with the sides that progress over the two legs, and extra time and penalties if necessary, setting up a play-off final date at Wembley on Sunday 26th May.
We’ve also included a quick recap of our 2023/24 Championship Outrights winners at the bottom of the page.
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Championship Play-Offs Best Bets
➡️ Leeds to Reach the Final @ 1.40 on Sky Bet
➡️ West Brom Promotion @ 6.50 on Sky Bet
Championship Play-Off History
It is clear to see what the bookmakers think of the four teams in the play-offs, the pricing is very straightforward.
Leeds United and Southampton are both around 2.5-2.63 to be promoted, with Norwich and West Brom around the 6.5 mark.
The question is, is this discrepancy justified?
The history books
Recent history suggests that finishing in 3rd or 4th in the Championship tends to help when trying to win promotion via the play-offs. Seven out of the last nine seasons have seen one of those top two seeds get into the Premier League. Indeed, 5th v 6th in the final has happened only once in the last nine editions of the Championship play-offs, 3rd v 4th has occurred four times in nine.
Digging into the data even more tells us a little more about the form of teams going into the play-offs.
xGF = expected goals for
xGA = expected goals against
In 2021 and 2022 it would be fair to say that the form team going into the play-offs were the ones who triumphed in the end. It does seem from this sample of the last four years that having a degree of form and confidence going into the play-offs can help, but most teams in the recent past have had some aspect of good form going in.
However, it is interesting to note that, in comparison to previous seasons, there is a real lack of form across the four 2024 play-off contenders. The data suggests, though, that perhaps Leeds and West Brom’s lack of points is not fully representative of their performances.
Head-to-Head Stats and Recent Form
Here is a table of the times that the play-off contenders have played this season. The home side is the team on the same row, on the left.
For a team’s away results: read from top to bottom
The team with the best record across the board is Southampton with four wins, two against Leeds, two against West Brom, and two draws with Norwich.
Leeds’ only wins are against Norwich, so it could be good fortune that they play the Canaries in the semi-finals.
West Brom have narrow home wins to Leeds and Norwich, but struggled away from The Hawthorns.
Leeds
Leeds feel like the club with arguably the most disappointment at the situation they find themselves in.
They had automatic promotion fleetingly in their own hands and their record against both Leicester and Ipswich was superb, taking maximum points from those four fixtures.
Indeed, seasonal performance data would have Leeds as potentially the best team in the Championship. Leeds top the expected points (xPts) charts of many models, and certainly their expected goals against (xGA) data was the best in the league.
The problems come when looking at the recent form. Only one win in six, and four defeats in those six as well give the Elland Road outfit the worst form of the four teams coming into the play-offs.
However, as we know, the bookmakers are happy to make them solid favourites against Norwich City over two legs and level with Saints at a neutral venue.
Southampton
The Saints also had a fleeting glimpse at the top two in the season, but the vast majority of the year saw Russell Martin’s side striving to catch Ipswich and Leicester, but ultimately it was a stretch too far.
Southampton looked like they checked out of their league campaign early after last-minute defeats to Ipswich, and then Cardiff knocked the stuffing out of them.
They put in really poor performances against both Leicester and Stoke, before the final day win at Leeds provided some form of impetus before the play-off campaign.
Southampton’s strength is in ball retention and their attacking data. Russell Martin has grown as a manager throughout his tenure and has found slightly more versatile ways to play and be effective, without losing his principles. However, it is still the case that teams feel that Southampton will give you a chance. Taylor Harwood-Bellis did that for the Leeds goal on Saturday, and it has happened across the team too often over the course of the season.
West Brom
Look up fifth in the dictionary and there is a photograph of Carlos Corberan.
West Brom have occupied the position of “not good enough for the automatic promotion race” and “too good for the pack” for the vast majority of the season.
Ironically, it did look as though fifth might slip through their fingers at the very end as Norwich sat there before the final round of fixtures, but the Baggies’ victory at home to Preston, coupled with Norwich’s defeat at Birmingham, meant that West Brom jumped back into fifth and will play Southampton in the semi-finals.
West Brom’s success in 2023/24 has been built upon their impressive defensive record. They finished the season with the third-fewest goals conceded, 47 in 46 matches, albeit, they were fifth in terms of xGA behind the top four. They did manage 18 clean sheets as well, just one behind Leeds, who topped the list.
Where Baggies could come unstuck is their forward play. They actually had the 20th-best shots on target per match ratio in the competition. They were 10th for xGF and 7th for actual goals scored, so while those stats aren’t disastrous, attacking certainly couldn’t be described as a strength of Corberan’s side, especially not when compared to the other play-off contenders.
Norwich
If the other three contenders were pretty confident of play-off places for most of the season, then Norwich were definitely the ones that emerged from the pack towards the end of the season.
It all looked, and felt, so different when a 3-1 home defeat to Blackburn in November rounded off a run of nine defeats in 12 matches in all competitions. Norwich went down to 17th in the table that evening, and the calls for David Wagner to leave were deafening to the extent that it seemed inevitable that the German would lose his position.
It is full credit to the Norwich City decision-makers that they kept faith with Wagner and Norwich began their remarkable ascent to the top six. The return of key players from injury, such as Josh Sargent, Ben Gibson, and Grant Hanley was also a catalyst for their improvement. Sargent, in particular, provided a lot of quality that was missing from Norwich’s forward line and provided the ruthlessness to win more matches.
When looking at the seasonal data, Norwich’s attack has been strong for most of the season. They are fifth for total goals scored across the season, seventh for xGF and ninth for shots on target.
Although their defensive numbers across the season are very much bottom half, there has actually been an improvement in the second half of the season. However, will this be enough against some of the best attacks in the Championship?
Although Norwich were the team to emerge from the chasing pack to reach the play-offs, their recent form is not that impressive. Narrow wins at home to Ipswich and away at Preston did the heavy lifting to secure their top six status. However, they are winless in their last three matches and only scored three times against Bristol City, Swansea and Birmingham altogether.
Championship Play-Offs Best Bets
As discussed above, the Championship play-off contenders all find themselves in muddled form ahead of the play-off campaign.
Taking form out of the equation, then, which team should be fancied most for the return to the Premier League?
The performance data would suggest that Leeds United should be favourites. They have the best season-long data and the best performances and results against the other top teams in the division. However, the bookmakers are very much aware of this and they are short enough in price.
Norwich come into the play-offs as potentially the weakest team, and it would be a surprise if they could buck the trend of 6th-placed teams reaching the Premier League.
Southampton v West Brom is potentially a tougher semi-final to call. West Brom carry a lot of experience in their group, and a manager who has reached a play-off final before. Southampton are an impressive collection of players, with a strong style, and some really positive data, but West Brom are probably too long in price for this play-off campaign.
Overall, given the prices, West Brom are the value pick for promotion at 6.50 on Sky Bet. They have the potential to keep things very tight, very low margin, and with a manager who has the ability to plot his way through the three matches meticulously. We’re also willing to back Leeds to reach the final at 1.40 with Sky Bet, considering the quality gap between them and the Canaries.
Championship Outright Predictions Recap 2023/24
- Leicester City Automatic Promotion @ 3.0 with Sky Bet – tipped in pre-season.
- Ipswich Town Automatic Promotion @ 6.0 with Sky Bet – tipped in pre-season.
- Sammie Szmodics Top Goalscorer @ 2.88 with Sky Bet – tipped in January.
Huddersfield relegation also came in, tipped @ 1.57 in January, while we had near misses in the form of Sheffield Wednesday relegation, tipped pre-season, and Haji Wright Top Goalscorer E/W @ 80/1, which was posted in January.
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* All odds displayed correctly at the time of publishing *
Written by an Andy verified content writer
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