Nottingham Forest remain on course to mount a serious challenge for promotion to the Premier League this season.
The Reds resume their Sky Bet Championship campaign on Monday night, with a trip to relegation-threatened Middlesbrough.
Boro are battling relegation, and are currently in 21st place and above the drop zone on goal difference – by the time Monday’s match arrives, Jonathan Woodgate could find his side in the bottom three.
Forest remain six points adrift of the automatic promotion places, with leaders West Bromwich Albion and second-placed Leeds United both claiming victories on Wednesday night.
Fulham, Brentford and Preston North End make up the rest of the play-off positions, while Bristol City and Blackburn Rovers are just outside the top six.
Respected statistics and analysis website FiveThirtyEight has forecast the final standings in the Championship this season, based on a complex model which takes into account a host of factors.
They have crunched the numbers and predicted that Forest will finish in fifth place at the end of the season, picking up 74 points with a goal difference of plus-13.
West Brom and Leeds are the two clubs tipped for automatic promotion, while Fulham are predicted to finish fourth and would be Forest’s opponents in the play-offs.
Brentford (third) and Preston (sixth) are the other clubs who would face each other in the play-offs, should the prediction come true.
The prediction also hands Forest a 73% chance of finishing in the play-offs, 15% chance of being promoted.
Here is the predicted Championship table from FiveThirtyEight in full.
- West Brom
- Leeds United
- Brentford
- Fulham
- Nottingham Forest
- Preston North End
- Blackburn Rovers
- Bristol City
- Millwall
- Swansea City
- Cardiff City
- QPR
- Sheffield Wednesday
- Birmingham City
- Derby County
- Reading
- Hull City
- Stoke City
- Huddersfield Town
- Middlesbrough
- Wigan Athletic
- Charlton Athletic
- Barnsley
- Luton Town
