Here is the latest update of the season to the E Ratings and how they predict the rest of the season will pan out. The rating system is explained here, but in a nutshell it’s based on the combined quality of chances that clubs create and allow, rather than their results.

The attack rating broadly equates to how many goals’ worth of chances a team would create against an average opponent (so higher is better), with the defence rating equivalent to the chances they’d be expected to allow (so lower is better). The overall rating is the difference between the two – effectively the average expected goal difference per match – so a positive number is good and a negative one is bad.

The graphic below lists each club in descending order of their overall E Rating and shows how this – along with their individual attack and defence ratings – has changed over the past 30 league matches. The red and green arrows indicate how the overall rankings have moved in the past month and the numbers in brackets show the ranks for each team’s attack and defence ratings.

You can see how the model assessed the latest round of matches here.

Portsmouth remain the team to beat after an impressive display, and the stock of Cambridge and Grimsby also rose after convincing wins. Meanwhile a fortunate-looking victory for Plymouth continued their ratings’ downward trend and Hartlepool‘s disappointing display at Notts County leaves them bottom of the ratings table.

Predicting the rest of the season

Below I’ve used each club’s current ratings and those of their remaining opponents to predict how the rest of the season could play out. Each of the remaining fixtures has been simulated thousands of times, using the current E Ratings to generate probabilities for where each club will finish.

This graphic shows the cumulative probability of where each club could end up, in descending order of average points won. 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:

Another win for Doncaster leaves them looking all but assured of automatic promotion with Portsmouth and Plymouth by far the likeliest to join them in the final top three.

Another win for Stevenage has increased their chances of making the play-offs: both they and Exeter are likelier than not to finish in the top seven.

Despite Newport‘s win, both they and Leyton Orient remain the favourites to drop out of the EFL at the end of the season.