I PRIDE myself on being able to work out newspaper reactions. I sort of know what the headlines will be most of the time. Frenchman calls for harmonisation of chocolate recipes across the Continent — bad headlines. Teacher saves five from drowning — good headlines. Book reveals secret — good headline in newspaper that paid for serialisation, bad headline in every other publication that bid for the rights but was pipped at the post.

But I was taken by surprise when the Football League changed the names of its divisions again a couple of years back and renamed the old second division the Championship. As soon as I heard it, I thought they were in for a pasting. And yet — almost nothing.

This is not because the Championship is, well, the championship. The Fink Tank uses goal and shots data from the past two seasons and weights them so that the most recent games count more heavily. Then cup matches are used to allow comparisons between wins in different divisions. Once this is complete, a 92-team league table, a real Championship, can be drawn up.

Last year, Reading rose up this table and at one point reached fifth. But this week, when Dr Henry Stott recalculated the data, there were no non-Premiership teams in the top ten. However, two Championship sides — Preston North End and Birmingham City — did appear in the top 20. Leeds United, let down by their defence, were 22nd.

What this means is that the division markers are basically in the right place. If they were not, we would see a much bigger mix in the top 20.

Once the ranking is produced, the Fink Tank is able to identify the probabilities of different outcomes in a match between any two teams in the professional leagues. The only remaining information required is the ground on which the game was played.

We then simulated a full Championship season many thousands of times. This allows us to see how, for instance, Burnley are likely to do, given the vast variety of results going on in matches all around them. Burnley’s chance of progressing up the table will be affected by a game between Derby County and Crystal Palace, so we need to take account of this. What statisticians call a Monte Carlo simulation makes this possible.

The end product is a grid such as the one you see on the opposite page, with the percentage chance of each team finishing in each position. Some adjustments have also been made to the data to take account of the fact that teams may be at a low ebb and that their ratings shift about a bit. So, as far as possible, short-term factors are eliminated.

The table also shows the expected finishing order at the end of the season. This is, to use a layman’s term, the average number of points all our different simulations see them acquiring. The outcome is striking. Birmingham have a 52 per cent chance of automatic promotion and Preston a 49 per cent chance.

Yet just as impressive is that ten Championship clubs have a more than 0.5 per cent chance of finishing the season in the top slot. This is true of only four Premiership sides. Only four Championship teams have a vanishingly small (virtually zero) chance of making the play-offs.

And I think this may be the real clue as to why the silence when the Championship took on that title. It is hard not to feel warm about a football competition that is so competitive.