Opta has made a bold prediction about where Derby County will finish in their race for promotion out of League One this season.
Paul Warne’s side got their season back on track by putting Port Vale to the sword on Saturday afternoon.
Derby arrived into that fixture on the back of two straight defeats against Barnsley and Charlton Athletic but as Bolton Wanderers were defeated by Blackpool and Wigan Athletic, no ground was lost in the race for promotion.
The Rams are still in a strong position to win promotion to the Championship this term, although they are level on points with Bolton who have a game in hand while Barnsley are three points adrift with two games to make up.
As we enter the final 10 games of the campaign, the run-in for promotion truly heats up as Derby still have to play their promotion rivals Bolton and Portsmouth.
It’s those games that will determine the outcome of the top two with many pundits attempting to predict what the table will look like come the end of the season. Opta is just one site, and they have made a bold prediction about Derby’s chances of going up to the second tier.
Opta doesn’t rate Derby’s chances of winning promotion to the Championship
There is a cluster of five teams who have a realistic chance of winning promotion, from the Rams in second to Peterborough United in fifth.
It’s becoming impossible to predict who will finish in the top two places, although Pompey do look nailed on to return to the Championship after creating a seven-point gap between them and Derby.
The organisation stated in a recent article that Portsmouth have an 80.4% chance of finishing in one of the automatic promotion spots.
Whilst it isn’t a shock for the league leaders to be given that figure, the fact they’ve rated Derby’s chances of winning promotion lower than Barnsley’s and Bolton’s perhaps is.
Barnsley have been given a 41.15% chance of finishing in the top two with Bolton (34%) and the Rams just behind at 32.2% while Peterborough’s stands at 11.2%.
All still to play for
Opta’s prediction largely boils down to their rivals having games in hand over them, but if anything, that only adds further pressure.
Barnsley host Bolton in League One tonight in one of those rearranged fixtures and that will have a huge bearing on the race for promotion.
Ideally, Derby will want to see a draw in that fixture and watch both teams cancel each other out.
The above prediction may have been weighted in favour of their promotion rivals, but there is still everything to play for and as previously mentioned, it could boil down to the outcome of matches against Bolton and Portsmouth.