Fulham, Middlesbrough, Villa Or Derby? Our Expert Tipster Gives Us His Outright Betting Preview For The Championship Play-Offs

Fulham, Middlesbrough, Villa Or Derby? Our Expert Tipster Gives Us His Outright Betting Preview For The Championship Play-Offs
15:55, 10 May 2018

It's pretty conclusive heading into the Championship play-offs that Fulham are the strongest of the four teams involved. Their record over the last 23 matches - playing every other team second time around - reads W17 D5 L1 and they've beaten each of the top six in the process, in most cases convincingly. The hang-up for most punters is two-fold: the timing and the price.

Once a team drops below the 2/1 mark in the outright betting, perspectives change. Aren't the play-offs supposed to be a lottery? How can any team be so short? So many things can happen; injuries, red cards, contentious decisions. Well let's crunch a few numbers to see whether the 7/4 about Slavisa Jokanovic's men stacks up.

Over the past 28 years, there have been 84 play-off campaigns under the current format across the three divisions and the highest-placed team has been promoted 31 times. That's a 37 per cent chance, roughly 17/10 in fractional terms, and thus slightly more likely than the odds generally available on the Cottagers.

In the Championship, the overall success rate is lower (32.1 per cent) but third-placed finishers appear to have imposed themselves increasingly over time with eight winners in the last 20 years and five in the last 11. So, from that, we can reasonably conclude, in terms of baseline ability, that the price matches the probability.

However, the timing is also a problem because concerns over mentality have resurfaced. A great team in round-robin format doesn't make a great team in knockout football. The stakes are higher and there's much less margin for error, which makes the pressure more intense. And Fulham, of course, have previous for not coping well under those conditions.

They are a feminine team, unashamedly performance-driven. They adhere to a brand of football that is virtually unstoppable when executed well but is unrecognisable when teams find ways to disrupt their rhythm. And the trouble with being so fixated on the process, you leave yourself with little to fall back on whenever you're not in control.

Last season, the Cottagers choked at the semi-final stage against a markedly inferior Reading side. They didn't do themselves justice over those two games, so making heavy weather of big matches against Sunderland and Birmingham when automatic promotion was on the line over the final two weekends was not what punters wanted to see.

However, there have been signs in 2018 that the Cottagers are better equipped than 12 months ago. With Aleksandar Mitrovic adding a new dimension in attack, they've imposed themselves more often and lapses have been fewer. The recent 3-0 win at Millwall, in particular, felt like a breakthrough in their capacity to ride out a storm and emerge with flying colours.

The counter argument to the Sunderland and Birmingham results is that Fulham did what they had to do in the first instance and the second only mattered in the absence of a winning goal for Cardiff that more than likely would have materialised had it been required. If anything, low expectations at the start of the day were the problem.

Either way, Fulham get the nod here because there's not a lot to be excited about among the other three. Aston Villa, Middlesbrough and Derby might all be masculine teams to varying degrees but they all have their own shortcomings and give the impression of being a year short of a return to the Premier League in terms of their development.

That sounds like a damning indictment on Steve Bruce, having now completed full two seasons in charge at Villa Park. But he inherited a cultural shambles and his first year was essentially a write-off. Now he has established a team he is happy to call his own but it's one that isn't fine-tuned and still buckles on occasions.

Middlesbrough started the season from a similar base but never took to the methods of Garry Monk and hit the reset button in December. The incoming Tony Pulis is a master of short-term effectiveness, taking what he has and quickly assembling a whole that justifies the sum of its parts, but only four clean sheets in 17 games is not a fully-functioning Pulis machine.

Meanwhile, the mood at Derby is infinitely brighter than it was three weeks ago when fans had all but surrendered their hopes of a top-six finish after three straight defeats, so they're just happy to be involved. But the positivity that has suddenly envelops Pride Park isn't built on solid foundations. Results have picked up but not a lot has really changed.

Recommended bet:

1pt Fulham to win promotion at 7/4 (general)

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