Here's everything you need to know about the English Championship Playoff ahead of Norwich City vs Leeds United and West Brom vs Southampton. Soccer expert BJ Cunningham is here to take you through the matches and offer up his best bets on the slate.
The first round is a two-leg tie with the winners meeting at Wembley for one match to decide who goes to the Premier League.
If you'd like to see our projections for the English Championship and a number of other leagues, you can find them here.
Here are our English Championship odds & predictions.
English Championship Playoffs Predictions
| Norwich City Odds | +225 |
| Leeds United Odds | +115 |
| Draw | +240 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -110 / -110 |
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I don’t think people realize just how good of a job Daniel Farke has done with Leeds, especially out of possession.
Leeds are best in the Championship in npxG allowed, shots allowed, final third entries allowed and final third to box entry conversion rate allowed. They also are fantastic at defending in wide areas, allowing the fewest crosses into the penalty area of anyone in the Championship, which is big against Norwich, who create a lot of their chances attacking from out wide.
Leeds have controlled a lot of possession and typically will build out of the back against lesser competition, but when they play better teams in the Championship they are perfectly fine conceding possession and playing very direct. They have 144 build up attacks compared to 88 direct attacks, and the DNA of Bielsa is still there because they are top five in high turnovers forced.
Norwich have drastically over-performed to get to the Championship playoffs. Overall for the season, they have a +14 goal differential, but a -0.4 xGD. The reason for that is their two forwards Gabriel and Jon Rowe, who have combined for 25 goals off of 11.5 expected.
Their defensive numbers have improved over the last few months, but the schedule was also very kind to them. From February until now they have only played two teams that finished above them in the table (Leicester & Ipswich).
Additionally, in the 10 matches they played against teams above them in the table they conceded 1.81 xG per 90 minutes.
Leeds beat Norwich in both meetings this season and held them to a combined 1.4 xG, while creating 3.0 xG themselves.
I have Leeds projected at -144, so I love the value on them at +115 here in this first leg.
Pick: Leeds United ML (+115 via bet365)
| Norwich City Odds | +225 |
| Leeds United Odds | +115 |
| Draw | +240 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -110 / -110 |
Southampton have been a possession-dominant teams under Russell Martin, primarily building out of the back and relying on short combination passes to play through the opponent's lines of pressure.
On average, the Saints have held 65.5% possession this season and have attempted the most short passes in the Championship. That has translated them to being the number one offense by non-penalty expected goals, averaging 1.65 per 90 minutes. So, essentially to beat them you have to try and press them effectively and win the ball because they are elite at breaking down low defensive blocks.
Even with that high amount of possession and short passes, Southampton are converting final third entries into box entries at a 32.8% rate, which is the fifth-best mark in the Championship.
Even though West Brom set up defensively to play counterattacking football, they actually prefer to hold possession and build through the opponent when they win the ball in their own final third. They have completed the eighth-most short passes and only have 43 direct attacks (third-lowest in the Championship) compared to 84 build up attacks, and they are holding 52.2% possession on average.
In the two meetings between these two, Southampton won both and pretty much dominated each match from the jump, especially the second meeting at West Brom.
I have Southampton projected as a +106 road favorite, so I like the value on them here.
Pick:Southampton – Draw No Bet (-115 via bet365)
