There was a full set of Championship fixtures last night, plus a few pivotal matches in the National League, so I’ve re-run my end-of-season predictions model to factor these in.

If you’ve not seen these graphics before, they show the cumulative probability of where each club could finish, in descending order of their average final league position across 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season. The simulations are generated using each club’s current E Ratings and those of their remaining opponents.

You can think of the ordering of the teams down the left hand side as a “best guess” of the final league table, with the coloured bars showing the relative likelihood of each club ending up in a certain section of the table. You can also see how these graphics looked before last night by following the link in the previous paragraph.

Championship

Brighton‘s winning comeback at Birmingham keeps them in the automatic promotion hunt – they have just shy of a one-in-three chance of a top two finish – while seemingly destroying their hosts’ own play-off prospects.

Hull‘s heavy defeat at Derby leaves both sides looking almost certain of a play-off spot, which will come as much more of a relief to Rams fans than those of the Tigers, who looked the most likely title winners until their recent collapse.

By holding Burnley at home, Cardiff kept their own play-off hopes alive while allowing Middlesbrough to overtake the Clarets as title favourites with a big win over Huddersfield.

At the bottom it looks like the relegation battle is almost over, with MK Dons‘ home defeat to Wolves leaving them six points adrift of safety with six matches remaining. Their trip to Rotherham on Saturday is now a must-win game, with defeat surely sealing an immediate return to League 1.

Despite leaving Ipswich with a point, Charlton look doomed thanks to three of their remaining fixtures being against clubs in the current top six. Bolton are unfortunately beyond hope, 17 points adrift with 18 left to play for, and face top seven opposition in four of their remaining six matches.

National League

Despite Grimsby‘s entertaining 4-3 win at Aldershot, the Mariners’ chances of catching Cheltenham remain forbiddingly slim: even if they won their two games in hand they would need to win seven more points than the Robins in the final four rounds of matches. With the leaders’ next two matches against the clubs currently sitting 19th and 20thm

Dover‘s win at Altrincham appears to all but guarantee their participation in the play-offs, while leaving their hosts in serious danger of relegation. Boreham Wood are currently 50:50 to join them in the final bottom four after their last-gasp defeat to fellow strugglers Halifax.

Both the Shaymen and Torquay, who comfortably beat Chester, propelled themselves towards safety with their respective victories, although both remain uncomfortably close to the drop zone and will surely need more points to ensure survival.

Barrow have adapted impressively to life at this level and their win over Braintree has put a massive dent in the latter’s play-off hopes. Eastleigh‘s game in hand over the Iron and two over Tranmere sees them remain the most likely to secure the final play-off place, but the margins remain narrow.

 

UPDATE: In case you’re wondering why the bars aren’t always in perfect descending order, there’s a discussion about this on the blog’s Facebook page here. In a nutshell, it’s to do with each club’s remaining fixtures: for example, Torquay generally have better prospects than Chester (not least due to having a game in hand) but two of their remaining fixtures are against teams below them who could still overtake them. Therefore there will be scenarios where they lose one or both of those “six pointers” and get leapfrogged, which is a problem that Chester don’t have.