Supercomputer’s pre-season predictions got Championship play-offs horribly wrong, one team was completely misjudged

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Another fascinating Championship campaign is coming to an end, but there’s still the small matter of the play-offs to decide, and they’re set to be absolutely unpredictable as always.

Football is a strange sport, where things very often don’t follow the script you expect, and the Championship is very much a prime example of that.

While Leeds United and Burnley have stormed to promotion as many would have predicted, the fight for a Championship play-off spot and the battle to stay in the division went right down to the wire for so many teams.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LeedsLeeds	46	29	13	4	95	30	65	100
2	BurnleyBurnley	46	28	16	2	69	16	53	100
3	Sheff UtdSheffield Utd	46	28	8	10	63	36	27	90
4	SunderlandSunderland	46	21	13	12	58	44	14	76
5	CoventryCoventry	46	20	9	17	64	58	6	69
6	Bristol CityBristol City	46	17	17	12	59	55	4	68

We now know that Sheffield United, Sunderland, Coventry City, and Bristol City will compete in the play-offs for a place in the Premier League over the next few weeks.

We’re hoping for a truly memorable Championship play-offs scrap between the four teams, but before the season began, the entire quartet was not even expected to finish in the top six at all.

• READ MORE: ‘It won’t happen’… Regis Le Bris has promised one thing as Sunderland draw Coventry City in play-offs

Opta’s pre-season predictions for Championship were way off

Before the season began, Opta’s supercomputer set to work in predicting where each of the 24 teams were likely to finish by the end of the campaign.

Admittedly, the supercomputer correctly predicted Leeds United would win the Championship title, while the bottom two of Cardiff City and Plymouth Argyle were also in the right spot.

However, when it comes to naming the play-off contenders, Opta got it wrong. Their prediction had Burnley in third, West Brom fourth, Luton Town fifth, and Norwich City rounding out the top six.

Of course, we now know that Burnley went on to secure automatic promotion, while West Brom and Norwich ended up in midtable. Luton Town, shockingly, would go on to be relegated, while Middlesbrough, who were second in the prediction, also fell to 10th place by the final day.

The teams who did secure a play-off spot were given varying degrees of predictions at the start of the campaign. In fairness, Coventry City were pegged as seventh in the predicted table, but ended up two spots higher.

Meanwhile, Sheffield United and Bristol City were estimated to finish just outside the play-offs, in ninth and tenth respectively.

Incredibly, Sunderland defied all expectations. The Black Cats were put down for a 21st-placed finish under Regis Le Bris, but after a strong first half of the season, they finished in fourth place despite a dismal end to the campaign.

Before a ball was kicked, Opta had given Sunderland a 0.9% chance of finishing in fourth, which shows just how great a job Le Bris has actually done this year.

• READ MORE: Frank Lampard reacts to Coventry City drawing Sunderland in play-offs semi-finals, he expects their ‘best’

The Championship is almost impossible to predict, and that’s why we love it

Based on Sheffield United’s play-offs record, it would seem unlikely Chris Wilder’s side can prevail this year, but they surely go in as favourites after a strong season.

Meanwhile, Sunderland have enjoyed success in the play-offs most recently, winning promotion from League One in the 2021/22 campaign.

But, the beauty of the wildly unpredictable Championship is that we just do not know which team will come out on top in the play-offs.

That pre-season prediction from Opta says it all. No one would have guessed Luton would end up with back-to-back relegations, just as much as no one would have assumed Sunderland could jump up the table so impressively.

We can’t wait to see what the play-offs bring now.