Who will win promotion to the Championship? Who will make the play-offs? Who will suffer relegation to League Two? We look at all the key questions with our League One 2024-25 season predictions via the Opta supercomputer.
League One Season Predictions: The Quick Hits
Favourites for Automatic Promotion: Bolton Wanderers and Birmingham City
Top Six Dark Horses: Rotherham United and Wigan Athletic
Relegation Favourites: Burton Albion, Shrewsbury Town, Mansfield Town and Crawley Town
We probably say this every year, but it looks like a particularly strong lineup in League One this season.
The 2024-25 campaign in England’s third tier will feature eight former Premier League teams, including Birmingham City and Huddersfield Town after their relegation from the Championship last season.
Bolton Wanderers are still around following their play-off final defeat to Oxford United in May, while Peterborough United and Barnsley will also look to go again after their own play-offs heartache.
Hollywood favourites Wrexham have joined the party after their second successive promotion last season, with Stockport County, Mansfield Town and Crawley Town also arriving from League Two.
It promises to be another rollercoaster in League One, so we’ve asked the Opta supercomputer to make its predictions ahead of the first round of games on Saturday.
It is important to understand is these projections are based on what the Opta supercomputer knows at the moment. Essentially, if every game in League One was to be played today, this is how it sees the league finishing. Of course, these projections will change throughout the season, thousands of times, based on real-life data powering the seasonal simulations.
Nevertheless, these pre-season projections provide an early look at what certain teams might be realistically aiming to achieve in 2024-25. You’ll have seen various 1-24 predictions by publications this summer and you’ve probably made your own, too; see this as a more unique projection without opinion and instead powered by data..
Who Will Be Promoted from League One?
There are some big clubs in League One who will all be expecting to get promoted this season, but as ever, only two can do so automatically.
Despite Birmingham and Huddersfield’s presence, the supercomputer is backing Bolton to lead from the front as things stand. Ian Evatt’s side may be licking their wounds from their Wembley woe against Oxford, but they’ll be keen to right that wrong this time around.
Bolton haven’t been as active in the transfer market as some of their rivals but have acquired experience in the midfield in former Rangers man Scott Arfield, while Klaidi Lolos from Crawley is an interesting addition in attack.
Evatt’s men finished in the top two in almost half of the supercomputer’s 10,000 simulations (48.1%), securing top spot in 29.7%.
Birmingham have been far more involved on the transfer scene, having signed four players for reported seven-figure fees. That includes centre-back Christoph Klarer from Darmstadt and Willum Willumsson from Go Ahead Eagles, while prolific striker Alfie May has also arrived from Charlton Athletic.
Former Tottenham assistant Chris Davies is in charge at St. Andrews this season, and the supercomputer gives the team co-owned by NFL legend Tom Brady a 27.3% chance of going straight back up automatically.
Former Barnsley and Swansea City boss Michael Duff is now manager of Huddersfield, who will also be hoping they can make it just one season at this level of the EFL. The Yorkshire side have a 22.5% chance of automatic promotion.
Peterborough (20.6%), Lincoln (19.5%) and Blackpool (18.2%) aren’t too far behind, with the supercomputer believing it could be a supremely close race for the top two this season.
Those with outside hopes of a challenge include Rotherham United (10.0%), Wigan Athletic (9.0%), Wycombe Wanderers (8.0%), Barnsley (5.6%) and Reading (5.4%).
For anyone expecting Wrexham to make it another consecutive promotion, the Opta supercomputer isn’t so sure. In fact, the Welsh team owned by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney finished in the top two in just 0.02% of 10,000 simulations.
In terms of who will reach the play-offs, it’s no surprise that four of the first six teams mentioned are considered likeliest to take up those places at the season’s end.
Birmingham (40.7%), Huddersfield (39.1%), Blackpool (37.5%), Peterborough (37.4%) and Lincoln (37.1%) can barely be separated, while Bolton’s chance should they miss out on the top two is 34.3%.
There will be plenty of teams looking to defy those percentages though, with Rotherham among them following relegation last season. Steve Evans’ side reached the play-offs in 29.1% of season simulations, not far ahead of Wigan (27.7%) and Wycombe (26.8%).
Barnsley have the chance to put right their semi-final loss from last season in 22.7% of sims, while Reading are the only other team to have a greater than one-in-five chance of finishing in the play-off spots (22.0%).
Additional outside shouts include Stevenage (12.8%), Leyton Orient (10.2%), Exeter City (8.1%), Charlton (7.2%) and Northampton Town (3.3%). No other team has a greater than 1% chance of reaching the play-offs.
Who Will be Relegated from League One?
We’ve already covered Wrexham’s promotion hopes, but could they go straight back down to League Two? The Opta supercomputer says no, but only just.
There are only four teams who were relegated more often in its simulations, with the Red Dragons going down 37.0% of the time.
Another promoted side, Stockport, are predicted to finish above Wrexham, as they did last season. The League Two champions’ most common finish in sims was 17th, with Dave Challinor’s side only going back down 30.9% of the time.
The other promoted teams, Mansfield and Crawley, might not be so lucky, though they did both stay up in more than half of the 10,000 simulations. Nigel Clough’s Mansfield secured automatic promotion last season, but went straight back down in 47.8% of the supercomputer’s simulations.
Despite being favourites for relegation from League Two last season with many, Scott Lindsey’s Crawley actually went up via the play-offs, thrashing MK Dons in the semi-finals before beating Crewe Alexandra in the final at Wembley. The Red Devils have lost a number of their stars from last season over the summer, though, so it’s anyone’s guess how well they do in their first League One season since 2014-15. Crawley go back down in 45.5% of sims.
There are two teams likelier for the drop than either Mansfield or Crawley, though.
Burton Albion have new owners, with long-time chairman Ben Robinson selling a majority stake to the Swedish-based Nordic Football Group, and they have signed a lot of players this summer. Though one Robinson is out, another is in as former AFC Wimbledon boss Mark Robinson was appointed head coach over the summer. Despite the fresh optimism, the supercomputer sees it being a tough campaign for Burton, suffering relegation in 63.3% of simulations.
Both Burton and Shrewsbury Town are likely paying the price for cutting it fine last season, finishing 20th and 19th in League One respectively. Paul Hurst’s Shrews fail to repeat the trick in 59.5% of 2024-25 sims.
Cambridge United only finished ahead of Shrewsbury on goal difference last season, but the supercomputer sees them relegated in just 36.3% of scenarios, less often than Bristol Rovers (36.6%) despite them finishing nine points above both in 2023-24.
Northampton are sucked into the bottom four in 16.0% of sims, with no other team going down in any more than 6.7%.
Charlton (6.7%), Exeter (5.8%), Leyton Orient (5.4%), Stevenage (3.6%), Reading (1.4%) and Barnsley (1.3%) are the only other teams who are relegated in more than 1% of simulations.
Opta-Simulated League One Table
After simulating the League One 2024-25 season 10,000 times, we’re able to average the points total of every club across those simulations and therefore rank teams positionally. Here’s the Opta supercomputer results from those simulations:
1st: Bolton Wanderers – 81.6 average points
2nd: Birmingham City – 77.4
3rd: Huddersfield Town – 76.0
4th: Peterborough United – 75.2
5th: Lincoln City – 75.1
6th: Blackpool – 74.9
7th: Rotherham United – 71.3
8th: Wigan Athletic – 70.5
9th: Wycombe Wanderers – 70.4
10th: Barnsley – 68.8
11th: Reading – 68.6
12th: Stevenage – 64.7
13th: Leyton Orient – 63.3
14th: Exeter City – 62.2
15th: Charlton Athletic – 61.6
16th: Northampton Town – 57.4
17th: Stockport County – 53.3
18th: Bristol Rovers – 52.0
19th: Cambridge United – 52.0
20th: Wrexham – 51.8
21st: Crawley Town – 50.2
22nd: Mansfield Town – 49.5
23rd: Shrewsbury Town – 47.3
24th: Burton Albion – 46.4
How Does the Opta Supercomputer Model Work?
• Opta’s League Prediction model estimates the likelihood of teams finishing in each position in the competition. We can therefore see how successful a team’s season is likely to be, whether it’s their relegation or title chances.
• The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) by using betting market odds and Opta Power Rankings. The odds and rankings are based on historical and recent team performances.
• The model considers the strength of opponents by using these match outcome probabilities and simulates the remaining fixtures in the competition thousands of times. By analysing the outcome of each of these simulations, the model can see how often teams finished in each league position to create our final predictions.
Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.