Leeds United currently occupy a top two spot having played level games for the first team this season.
The Whites have won eight matches in a row which has propelled them into second place, having been sat in fourth and nine points adrift on New Years’ Day.
In any other season, Leeds’ tally of 69 points from 33 matches would’ve been enough to sit comfortably in the top two, but with four sides having set a standard at the top that has never been seen before, this year is different.
Southampton boss Russell Martin is predicting the race to go right down to the wire, which would make for an incredible last day of the season as his side make the trip to Elland Road.
The Athletic have this morning published a piece in partnership with Opta’s predicted table, which uses a ‘team’s remaining fixtures based on the strength of the respective sides‘, before ‘simulating each of those games thousands of times to calculate an average of their forecasted finishes‘.
Opta predicts automatic promotion race
Those calculations show Leeds with a 59 per cent chance of securing automatic promotion come the end of the season. Ipswich Town are at 25 per cent, with Southampton further behind at 18 per cent.
Of course, Southampton still have to travel to all three of the sides currently in the top four, which would suggest they have the hardest remaining fixtures.
Despite defeat last week, Leicester City are way ahead of the rest with a 98 per cent chance of the top two. They are also highly likely to win the league at 88 per cent.
Leeds are said to have a nine per cent chance of pipping Leicester to top spot, though that is likely to change heavily one way or another, depending on the result of tomorrow’s clash.
With all that said, you never know what is going to happen in football and those predictions will almost certainly change several times between now and the end of the season, but it does give a good idea as to who are favourites.
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