Thursday 16 November 2017 09:47, UK
At this stage of every season, the usual cliches are trotted out: 'The Championship is the most unpredictable league in the world', 'you don't win it in November', 'there's always one side that puts a run together'.
But the statistics tell a different story: 32 out of the last 39 sides promoted to the Premier League from the Championship have been in the top six after 17 games - a landmark we reach this weekend.
Wolves currently lead the way, with Sheffield United just two points behind, and history provides cause for optimism for Nuno Espirito Santo and Chris Wilder's respective sides.
Over the past five seasons, only one team (Norwich in 2014/15, via the play-offs) has gone up after being outside of the play-off positions at this stage. Traditionally not much importance is given to the state of tables until closer to spring but it stands to reason that there must be a point when the league settles down.
The Championship is now into its 14th campaign and the league's pattern of behaviour has started to take shape. Around the 15-game mark the positions start to stabilise, and by 17 the stats suggest the sides in the promotion race have largely been decided.
To use last season as an example, Newcastle found themselves top after 17 games, with Brighton in second and Huddersfield in fourth. Despite Brighton looking like they were going to win the title for spells, and Huddersfield slipping down a place on goal difference, that is where they finished.
Rather than being an exception, this has been the case in most Championship seasons, the teams in first and second at this stage tend to go up. To look at the past five years again as an example - just two out of 10 teams have failed to go up after being in either first or second.
What about Reading (2011/12) and Sunderland (2006/07)? The reason these two cases are brought up so often is that they're the exception rather than the norm, no other teams have been promoted after being in the bottom half after 17 games - two out of 39.
What these statistics suggest is that rather than being unpredictable and reliant on a good January transfer window, the Championship actually rewards a good start and consistency.
We can expect this rule of 17 to be put to the test this season.
Reading could mount another charge - not many would have picked Jaap Stam's men and Fulham, their fellow play-off contenders last year, to be struggling so deep into November, and neither can reach the top half with a win this weekend.
By the time the final whistle blows on May 5 we'll know whether either of them have managed to rip the rule apart or whether their season was actually over by mid-November as the numbers suggest.
