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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
Sport
Jamie Kemble

Study suggests great news for Nottingham Forest ahead of Championship restart - but shows big danger

Nottingham Forest will be back in action in just two weeks.

Providing the second tier's weekly tests continue to return largely negative results, Championship football will resume on June 20.

That means Forest can continue their playoff charge, Sabri Lamouchi's men currently fifth and five points ahead of Bristol City in seventh.

The Reds know they will need to hit the ground running with a big chasing pack behind them, even given their advantage.

But just how likely are they to finish in the top six?

Data guru Ben Mayhew has conducted a study for Sky Sports predicting where each Championship club is likely to finish, along with their highest and lowest possible finish.

And there is good news for the Reds, who - although deemed extremely unlikely to reach the top two - are given an 82% chance of making the playoffs.

That will be music to the ears of Forest fans, but there is a warning in the form of the Reds' lowest possible finish.

The study has pointed out that Lamouchi's men can still finish in the bottom three.

Each team's possible final position. (Sky Sports)

That, of course, is not going to happen, but it should serve as a reminder of just how easy it could be to fall out of the playoffs and even out of the race for the top six.

Thankfully, based on what we have seen so far this season from Forest, it seems likely they will book their place in the post-season, and the study very much agrees.

There may be plenty of room to fall, but the Reds will very much be looking up when action finally resumes.

How the study works

Each teams attacking and defensive strengths were rated using an expected goals model, which measured the quality of chances they create and allow.

Those ratings were then used to simulate the rest of the season 10,000 times to measure the probability of each club finishing in each league position.

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