Breaking down the 2024-25 EFL fixtures
Where are the tough and easy runs in each team's schedule?
As I did for the Premier League last week (here), I’ve taken the newly-released fixtures for the three EFL divisions and combined them with an aggregation of the leading bookmakers’ odds.
This allows me to highlight where each club’s tough and easy matches appear to be. Each row in the matrix below lists a club’s league matches in chronological order, colour-coded based on opposition strength. The clubs themselves are sorted and numbered by where the odds imply they’ll finish in the table.
I’ve coloured the strongest-looking clubs (based purely on the odds) in red and the weakest-looking in blue, but you can use the numbers down the side to identify which fixtures are which.
Championship
Portsmouth have been handed a horrible start to life back at this level, with six of their first seven games against teams expected to challenge for promotion. While they could be mired in the relegation zone by October, a much easier stretch should allow them to climb.
Bristol City on the other hand could start well, with five of their first nine opponents expected to finish in the lower third of the table.
Plymouth are predicted to struggle and if they don’t have a decent safety margin by the start of April they could be in trouble, as five of their last seven games are against likely promotion candidates.
Sheffield United could finish strongly as they face five probable relegation candidates in their last seven games, although if these clubs are fighting for survival then that this may not be as straightforward as it seems.
League One
Title favourites Birmingham have a tricky start, with five promotion rivals to deal with in their opening 10 games and only one “easy” fixture in that sequence. However they will then face only one more “tough” opponent from mid-March onwards so should be capable of finishing the season strongly.
Reading, Exeter and Leyton Orient could all make slow starts to their campaign given how tough their opening fixtures are. The Royals play five promotion contenders in their first eight, while Exeter and Orient face four each in their initial five.
League Two
Don’t be surprised if Salford are languishing in the lower reaches of the table early on, as their opening four games are all tough and they don’t face a likely relegation candidate until October. Tranmere and Grimsby also have tricky starts.
Crewe have the chance to build some early momentum: apart from title favourites Chesterfield, all of their first eight opponents are expected to finish in the bottom half of the table. The flipside of this is that their run-in from mid-February onwards is among the trickiest, so they could find themselves dropping down the table.
If the odds shift significantly before the start of the season, which can happen as a result of transfers, injuries etc, then I will re-run these grids shortly before the opening round of games.
