How many points will be required to make the expanded Championship playoffs?

A new season of second-tier football is now upon us, with the expansion of the playoffs from four to six teams meaning that an eighth-place finish will now keep you firmly in the promotion shake-up.

This got us to wondering just how many points are likely to be required to secure that coveted final spot in the end-of-season spectacular, so we took a look back through the archives in a quest to find some accurate Championship predictions for you.

THE HIGH-BAR SEASONS

Since the formation of the Premier League back in 1992/93, nine of the 34 seasons of Championship football have seen the team finishing in eighth place pick up 70 points or more:

Derby County set the bar highest, securing 77 points back in the 2014/15 campaign as they finished just one point behind fifth-placed Brentford. The Rams went one point and three places better the following season, missing out in the playoff semi-finals this time.

Interestingly, Huddersfield Town were relegated the season after securing 74 points, whilst Stoke City followed up their 73-point haul in 2006/07 by securing automatic promotion next time around.

THE LOW-BAR SEASONS

There have only been four occasions over the course of the last 34 seasons in which 65 points or fewer have proven enough to secure eighth place in the second tier:

What is significant about this quartet of clubs is that each has suffered a dip in the following campaign, with Sheffield United being relegated to League One in 2010/11. It could therefore be argued that they would have been woefully out of their depth had they somehow navigated their way through an expanded playoff format to reach the Premier League.

THE AVERAGE TALLY

Taking into account the high-bar and low-bar seasons, as well as the remaining 21 campaigns, it takes an average of 68.56 points to finish in eighth place in the final Championship standings.

In fact, this has proven to be a particularly accurate marker in recent years, with six of the last seven teams to have finished in this position securing either 68 or 69 points:

THE TEAMS TO TARGET

If you are looking for unusual football betting tips for the Championship and can find a bookmaker offering position-specific finishing odds, then history suggests that you could do worse than targeting Derby County, Millwall or Sheffield United for eighth place.

Between them, this trio have secured 12 such finishes, with all four of the Lions’ efforts arriving in the last nine campaigns:

Alternatively, most bookies will offer the ‘To Finish in Top 8’ market, where you can currently get football odds today of around 18/1 on all three teams achieving this goal.

WILL EIGHTH PLACE BE ENOUGH?

It is all very well finishing eighth I hear you cry, but under the old playoff format, how often has the team finishing in the final qualifying position (i.e. 6th) ended up being promoted?

Well, putting to one side the 1994/95 season in which the playoffs were contested between teams finishing second to fifth (won by third-placed Bolton Wanderers), here is a breakdown of which positions have provided the playoff winners:

As you can see, only five sixth-place finishers have ended up being promoted. These were Crystal Palace in 1996/97 and 2003/04, West Ham United in 2004/05, Blackpool in 2009/10 and Hull City in 2025/26.

More pertinently, perhaps, since the adoption of a similar playoff format in the National League back in 2017/18, no team finishing in the final qualifying position has gone up.

SUMMARY

When it comes to football predictions for the Championship, it is worth noting that a tally of 69 points would have been enough to secure a top-eight finish in around three-quarters (73.53%) of the previous 34 campaigns, which would be good enough for a place in the playoffs next term.

Sheffield United (5), Millwall (4) and Derby County (3) have all shown a propensity for occupying this eighth spot, so any football accumulator tips that feature each of them in the playoff picture are well worth considering.

That said, the team finishing in the final qualifying position rarely goes up through the playoffs, with such a scenario becoming even less likely under the new format.