Championship Relegation: Double Tip

In a Championship that looks as competitive as ever, two teams stand out as unlikely to make the grade - Peterborough United and Doncaster Rovers. Backing the pair of them to get relegated looks like a great value double at 10/1 with VictorChandler. I’ll leave it up to others to decide which third team will drop down with them; it really could be any one of many.

So why do these two look so doomed? Let’s first analyse Peterborough, promoted via the play-offs having finished fourth in League One. It would be impossible to suggest that Posh were anything special even by the standards of the lower league they were in. By the end they were 16 points worse than Brighton, 13 worse than Southampton and even 8 worse than Huddersfield Town who stayed down after finishing third. That’s the rub that comes with the play-off system.

In one department though Ferguson’s side were special. Goals. 106 league goals is a breathtaking total and far better than anyone else in the division. The problem is that the primary source of that return has since made a summer move to Brighton. Craig Mackail-Smith bagged 35 in all competitions and his loss is surely irreplaceable.

The shrewder readers will have already deduced that if United racked up that many goals and still finished well off the pace in fourth then there must have been some serious problems at the other end. Absolutely. Remarkably, the ‘against’ column of the league table read 75, worse than the goal totals conceded by either of League One’s bottom two, Swindon and Plymouth. Indeed, only Bristol Rovers conceded more and they are now bound for League 2.

It’s simply impossible to imagine that a defence torn to shreds at a lower level will stand a chance against the many quality Championship strikers. For that conclusion alone, they will surely go down. For similar reasons, Doncaster look likely to toil having picked the ball out of their own net 81 times last season. Again, only one team in the league had a worse defensive record and Scunthorpe finished rock bottom. Rovers came home in 21st and they did not finish strongly.

Normally when a side is languishing in the lower echelons of the table fans console themselves with the thought that if they just had a goalscorer, they would be fine. The bad news for Donny is that Billy Sharp already fits the bill, and yet they still struggle. The former Sheffield Utd striker has notched 15 league goals in each of the last two seasons and the vultures are circling the Keepmoat Stadium. Even if he stays put for now, and the signs are good on that front, the only conclusion to reach is that Sharp is just about keeping a bottom three side above the dotted line. History suggests that this pattern won’t last; he will either see the goals dry up, or he will get injured, or sold.

The Championship is a division crammed full of sides with Premiership history, resources and money. Doncaster (9/4) and Peterborough (5/2) can’t really compete at this level in the long term. Together, sadly, they make a likely relegation pairing at best odds of 10/1 with Victor.