The Lottery of the Play Offs?
The Play Offs are nothing more than a lottery. That’s what the pundits roll out year in-year out, without taking too much time to investigate the numbers behind them to quantify their statements. So we thought we’d have a little delve through the history books and see whether they really are, or whether we could apply any logic to actually understand the profile of a play-off winner.
The first thing to look at logically would be where a team has finished in the division. Some would argue the unfairness of a team finishing 3rd in the division after a full season of games, only to be beaten to promotion by a side who were sixth.
So our opening question asks:
Do sides who finish in 3rd (or 4th in the case of League Two) have an advantage?
[For all of the coming data, we looked at the last 22 years’ results across the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier of English Football]
Let’s open with the Championship. Of the 22 clubs who have been promoted in our sample period, eight finished in 3rd place. Interestingly, only three finished in 4th, while six finished in 5th and five in 6th. So there may be a slight advantage, but certainly nothing statistically reliable. To increase the sample, it is worth considering the proportion of sides who reached the final at least, and on that count it certainly appears that finishing 3rd is a distinct advantage.
15 times in the last 22 years, the 3rd place side has defeated the 6th place team to head to Wembley (or Cardiff for a few years).
In the 4th v 5th, honours have been more closely shared, with 10 finalists ending up in 4th, and 11 coming from 5th. Only eight have been provided by the side finishing 6th.
Conclusion
It’s clear to see that finishing higher up the table has a significant advantage in all three divisions. Overall, it would be reasonable to see the “average” 3rd place finisher priced up at around the 13/8 mark typically to win the play-offs, and around 4/7 to qualify for the final.
Things are tighter for sides finishing 4th/5th and there is a more modest advantage for sides finishing in the 4th place – they should be around 8/11 (on average) to qualify for the final).
The samples are small, but it’s interesting to see that despite 6th place only providing 24 of the 132 final spots, 16 of those sides went on to win. Is there an angle there if the bookies make the 4th/5th place qualifier a big favourite against a 6th place finisher?
So if we know finishing 3rd is an advantage, what about finishing the season strongly?
Is finishing the season strongly an advantage?
[Our sample looks at the past 22 years of Football League play-offs, and considers the final six regular season league matches as our indicator of form, rated purely on pts gained. Where sides tied on pts, they are considered to have finished joint 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the rankings. We’ve collated all three divisions into one sample group]
The results were surprising to say the least. You would expect the team entering the play-offs in the best form to have an advantage. This is coming from a sample of 264 teams after all.
Teams who finished 1st or joint first (there were 73) due to joint points, managed to reach the final 33 times. That’s a hit rate of 45% for those sides.
Drop down, and the sides finishing 2nd or joint 2nd made the final 32 times (from 74 runners) at a hit rate of 43%. Then things got interesting! – A massive 45 of the 62 sides finishing 3rd or joint 3rd reached the final – 72.5%! At the foot, sides in the worst form reached the final 22 times from 55 runners (40%).
It looks like nothing more than statistical noise – when it came to going on and winning promotion, the numbers normalised a little to 34.2%, 20.3%, 24.2% and 20%.
Conclusion
There is a little noise in the results, but the absence of any clear correlation suggests we shouldn’t be too swayed by the form of sides entering the play-offs. The sample should be big enough to iron out any bias of some sides playing lower calibre opposition or more matches at home.
And what about Goal Difference?
Logic might reason that focusing on teams with the best goal difference over the duration of the teams might be a worthwhile strategy. A better GD column suggests the side have been more dominant, more often through the course of the season surely?
We see a very similar correlation (if slightly weaker) as we get with the League Position methodology. Both showing around 60% of top ranked sides qualifying for the final, and into the mid 30%s for providing the winners.
Combining the Trends?
Before we leave you, we wanted to have a little look at whether combining the trends might help to produce a winner. Putting all three together, and multiplying the ranking of each team on the League Finish, League Form and GD gives a number between 1 and 64 (1*1*1 up to 4*4*4).
Banding these together found the following results.
It’s worth noting, of the 16 sides in the last 22 years who have finished the season as the form-side, in 3rd place and with the best goal difference, 9 have gone on to win the play-offs – a strike rate of 56%, or in old money, an 8/11 shot.
Well that's it. Hope you found that interesting and that it helps you consider who you want to be backing come the play-offs! Most importantly, we've proved they are certainly not an entire lottery. Rod - if you've got this far, you'll also be pleased that we've largely disproved the theory of momentum......