6 games to go - a look back at the last 20 Championship seasons

[goats]

14th July Game against Derby will I think be a shit or bust game for both teams.

Having said that - if we get 6th we'll probably end up playing Brentford ( or possibly WBA ) and I think we'll lose that one

That’s the great thing, no one expects anything. I can’t even recall if we’ve been in the top 6 all season, once maybe?

[Eric the Half a Bee]

That’s the great thing, no one expects anything. I can’t even recall if we’ve been in the top 6 all season, once maybe?

No we haven't been there before. We got to 8th after a run of 3 wins on the bounce in Nov/Dec. Back to back wins at Luton and Huddersfield saw us still in 11th after a run of 18 points from 12 games, albeit only 2 of those were lost (too many draws). Then we were 4 points adrift. 2 points from 4 games saw us in 11th but amazingly we were only 1 point further adrift of the playoffs.

Those 4 games were particularly odd in terms of form (when we had draws against Wigan and Brentford and lost to Stoke and Forest). At the same time Preston lost 3 out of 4, Brentford were winless, Forest picked up 5 points while Bristol City won a solitary point. Our dodgy run of form was replicated by others around us and we stayed afloat. Winning 3 of our last 4 has seen us reach the top 6.

It might be worth pointing out that Bristol City haven't won in 8 games and are having their usual end of season slide down the table, Preston have 1 point in 6 games, Blackburn have faded, Swansea and Millwall are inconsistent. Derby have won 5 on the bounce, but those wins have come against Sheffield Wednesday who are out of form, Blackburn (same), Preston (same) and Millwall and Reading who are pretty inconsistent. It'll be interesting to see whether this run continues when they play better teams who are in form. You'd suspect it might - they have the best record of all Championship sides in 2020 (we are 7th in that table).

https://www.soccerstats.com/table.as...ngland2&tid=10 might be of interest. Average points per game of remaining opponents (factoring in home or away performance). Derby's run in is the 2nd most difficult of all Championship sides on paper. Ours is 7th easiest. Of course the game isn't played on paper....