I sent subscribers to the newsletter service my first outright preview of the 2016-17 English football season last week and it was 4,000 word look at the Championship, which is the league which I go and watch live games from most often, around 40 per year. I cannot share any of the final analysis with you here, but can reproduce some of the basic notes and stats around it and still feel that will be of interest to some of you ..........

Championship 2016-17:

I feel that the following notes contain some solid information and that they will help you if you have any interest in the Championship this season, or in any league in terms of what is required to reach a specific target.

If we take a look at the last ten years of the Championship, 75 points would have earned you a top six finish and playoff spot on nine occasions, only time that would have been insufficient was in 2014-15 and that was a very odd season with a lot of strong and weak teams and few in the middle. That season, 17 points also separated the team in 8th and the club who finished 12th and in the other nine campaigns, the difference between those two spots has always been between 4-8 points, numbers were very skewed in that campaign, so we can largely forget it in terms of points required, therefore, we can be pretty certain that 75 will secure a top six place and possibly 2-3 less might get the job done.

That is a good starting point in what is always a very competitive division.

Newcastle United started out as a strong favourite in all lists and have been backed down still further to circa 2.75 , they have a world class manager, huge support ( 40,000 season tickets look likely to be sold) , have strengthened in the summer, will have parachute payment funds and will likely get a further massive windfall with the sale of Moussa Sissoko. I have no issue with them as favourites, but this is a hugely competitive division, of which Rafa has limited knowledge, they will face a cup final every week, with teams very motivated to beat them, have a lot of midweek games that many players will not be used to and massive support will not help you much at a couple of grounds, where away ticket allocation is severely limited . They are too short in the betting for me, but this has pushed up the odds for everyone else and I/we have to be happy with that !

We have already discussed points needed, now we can take a look at where teams who can get them, are most likely to come from. Over the last four seasons the 24 top six teams have been made up of five relegated teams, four who made the playoffs the previous season, one promoted team ( the mighty Bees), two who finished outside the top 13 and a whopping 12 who finished between 8th and 13th. All the teams who finished 7th missed out and they have not made the post season for six years.

What does that mean ? You have to be an exceptional team to make the jump from L1 to the Championship nowadays and Brentford were a VERY good third tier team. Making the playoffs back to back is getting increasingly difficult (only Boro have managed it in the last two seasons), that is easy to see why, with disappointment and a shortened pre season to deal with and despite the parachute money, it has been tough for relegated teams to come to terms with life at this level since 2011-12. Teams who finish 7th will have been hugely disappointed to have come so close over 46 games and that clearly takes some adjustment. So, whilst I accept it is a relatively small sample, the trend is clear and as a group (that is important) ,the six teams who were relegated/missed out on the playoffs have significantly less chance of making the post season next time round, than those who finished 8th-13th.

The reasons are kind of obvious in as much as they were so close to that desired tally of circa 75 points, have something solid to build on and the respective boards will be prepared to gamble to make the next leap forward and they are not really living with the disappointment of the previous campaign. The teams who filled those spots last season were Cardiff City, Brentford, Birmingham, Preston North End, QPR and Leeds United, I have doubts about a couple of those, but would not be totally surprised if any finished top six.....................

They only extend to 700 words, so about 17.5% of what was written, but it is a "help" and more importantly, give you some idea of how we are looking to approach certain markets. Also, the notes above are free and long term subscribers have had to pay a whopping 0.4 € ,0.44$ or 34p to read the full 4,000 word preview and yes, I am being sarcastic !

Good Luck.