Here is the latest update of 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.

Wigan‘s performances are ebbing while both Blackburn and Rotherham are going from strength to strength, so the promotion race isn’t over yet. Three wins on the bounce for Southend sees them continue to climb the rankings, while Plymouth‘s ratings are also rebounding nicely.

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:

Despite their defeat this weekend it’ll take a lot more to dislodge Wigan from promotion contention, but Shrewsbury‘s loss means they’re ceding ground to Blackburn in the battle for the remaining automatic promotion place.

Bradford‘s ongoing woes mean that there’s at least one play-off place up for grabs, with both the Bantams and Scunthorpe seeing their chances of a top six finish reduced by around 10% this weekend.

At the bottom, Bury still need a significant turnaround to save their League 1 status, with Northampton, Rochdale and MK Dons currently on course to fill out the rest of the bottom four despite the Cobblers’ win at Wimbledon.