Luton – 3rd Or 4th Place Is The Preference Lads

With the Hatters sitting pretty in third place, in the EFL Championship, I thought I’d take a look, at the last three seasons, to take a gander at who went up via the Play-Off Final.

If we go back to the 2019/2020 season, we find that Fulham were promoted, via the Play-Off Final. The Cottagers had finished 4th in the table with 80 points, the same as 3rd placed Brentford.

Looking back at the 2020/2021 season, we find that another West London club, Brentford, were promoted via the Play-Off Final with the Bees finishing third on 87 points.

Returning to last season, a season where Luton Town were beaten by Huddersfield Town in the Play-Off semi-finals, we find that Nottingham Forest was promoted via the Play-Off Final with Forest finishing in 4th place, 2 points behind the team that finished 3rd, Huddersfield Town.

The above suggests that to earn promotion, if you finish outside the top two, you need to finish in 3rd or 4th place.

Further intrigued, I did some further research and found that the last team to be promoted, via the Play-Off Final who didn’t finish in the top four were Aston Villa who finished in 5th place, some 7 points behind 3rd placed Leeds United.

In summarising, although it isn’t impossible to win promotion via the Play-Off Final by finishing outside the top four, recent history shows that the glory normally falls in the laps of those that finished 3rd or 4th.

A point to remember as we race towards the final stages of the season!

COYH’s

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