What should we expect as EFL season reaches conclusion with the playoff finals?

Two weeks ago I said Sheffield Wednesday were the first EFL team to get 96 points and not win automatic promotion but they could go up through the playoffs. I explained how teams who had done better than their opponents in the regular season tended to do better in the playoffs as well.

That night Wednesday contested their playoff semi-final first leg at Peterborough, who had finished 19 points below them in League One. And Peterborough won 4-0.

Oh dear. I had written something that within a few hours of publication sounded silly. It was not the first time.

No team had lost a semi-final first leg by more than two goals and reached the final. Until last week when Wednesday won their second leg 5-1 after extra time then came through a penalty shootout.

On Monday the Owls will face South Yorkshire neighbours Barnsley in the League One final at Wembley. On Sunday Stockport play Carlisle in the League Two final, while on Saturday Luton play Coventry in the Championship final.

Anything can happen, in the playoffs, other football and almost everything else. All we can do is try to identify possibilities and estimate chances.

Regular-season form has tended to be replicated in the playoffs. Some teams did better than would have been expected, others worse. Overall, though, regular-season form worked out.

This season five of the six playoff semi-finals were won by the team who had finished higher in table. The only turnaround was in the Championship, where Coventry knocked out Middlesbrough who had finished five points above them.

Over the previous 33 seasons 60 per cent of semi-finals had been won by the team who finished higher in the table. That period 1989-90 to 2021-22 covers all 33 completed seasons in which finals were decided by a single game at a neutral venue. What happened in those?

Fifty-four per cent of the time the finalist who had finished higher in the regular season won promotion. The progression-rate was lower than in semi-finals, for two reasons. First, the theoretically stronger team will triumph less often over one game than over two games. Second, the difference between teams in regular-season form was smaller on average in finals than in semi-finals.

At the end of normal time 44 per cent of ties had been won by the team who had finished higher in the regular season, 33 per cent by the team who had finished lower in the regular season. The other 23 per cent went to extra time and potentially a penalty shootout.

In normal time 58 per cent of ties yielded no more than two goals. The average number of goals scored was 2.3.

How were goals split between the finalists? Teams who had finished higher in the regular season scored 53 per cent of all goals. Regular-season form suggested they would score 52 per cent of all goals. Almost, though not quite, identical.

So what does regular-season form imply this season? That Luton have a 55 per cent chance of scoring each goal that is scored in their tie against Coventry, Sheffield Wednesday have a 57 per cent chance of scoring each goal that is scored in their tie against Barnsley and Stockport have a 52 per cent chance of scoring each goal that is scored in their tie against Carlisle.

The chance of gaining promotion – whether in normal time, extra time or after a penalty shootout – would be 57 per cent for Luton, 60 per cent for Sheffield Wednesday and 53 per cent for Stockport.

There are no certainties, only degrees of uncertainty. I think the numbers I have given express those reasonably well, but I could be wrong.

About 30 years ago – perhaps one or two more, perhaps one or two fewer – I wrote an article in the Wembley programmes for the playoff finals. The playoffs were still new and sometimes criticised. I said the playoffs drew large crowds and teams who went up through them had done as well at a higher level as teams from the lowest automatic promotion position before. It was what the organisers would have wanted to hear, which may be why the article was accepted for publication, but it was also true.

I cannot remember exactly when I wrote that article. Or how much I was paid – although I do remember that at the time it was the most I had earned for a single piece of work. Landmarks stick in my mind, even if the details of them sometimes do not.

Three decades – or as near as makes no difference – have passed since then and now the playoffs seem to be universally accepted, even loved. There are fans of EFL clubs who have never known anything else. I wonder what they make of Sheffield Wednesday?

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