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.

Rotherham‘s performances are continuing to surge while both Wigan and Blackburn stall, so the automatic promotion race could have a few more twists in it yet. Plymouth continued their own recovery this weekend and, despite their predicament, Bury also look to be on a promising track.

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:

Wigan and Blackburn still look favoured for the two automatic promotion spots, with Shrewsbury and Rotherham still in need of some luck to dislodge them. While Scunthorpe still look likelier than not to join those four in the final top six, the final play-off place looks up for grabs with neither Bradford or Charlton making a convincing claim as it stands.

At the bottom Bury are still in trouble despite their strong showings of late, with MK Dons also needing to get results and fast. As it stands Northampton and Rochdale are likeliest to join them in the final bottom four, but the likes of free-falling Fleetwood could still get dragged into a relegation battle.