How are Middlesbrough's promotion chances looking according to the Opta supercomputer?

The battle for Premier League promotion is getting heated, and Middlesbrough have just six games to go to confirm their place in the top two.

Boro fell to a damaging 1-0 defeat at home to Charlton Athletic on Wednesday, a day after Millwall beat Derby County by the same scoreline to close the gap on second to just a single point. However, Ipswich Town throwing away the lead to draw 3-3 in the final moments against Stoke City made the loss at the Riverside Stadium a little easier to swallow.

Up next is a must-win clash at home with Bristol City, while Boro still have to play Millwall and Ipswich before the campaign is out. With that in mind, trying to predict whether or not Kim Hellberg’s men will seal automatic promotion or have to run the play-off gauntlet is anyone’s guess.

Middlesbrough’s next five fixtures:

14/03/26: Bristol City (H)
21/03/26: Blackburn (A)
03/04/26: Millwall (H)
06/04/26: Swansea (A)
11/04/26: Portsmouth (H)

To that end, we’ve turned to Opta’s supercomputer to see where the stat gurus predict Middlesbrough to end up.

Opta predicts final Championship table: Where will Middlesbrough finish?

1 - Coventry - 99.46% 2 - Middlesbrough - 47.26% 3 - Ipswich - 26.92% 4 - Millwall - 25.12% 5 - Hull - 1.12% 6 - Wrexham - 0.10% 7 - Southampton - 0.02%

Despite recent blips, Middlesbrough are still given a 47.26% chance of sealing automatic promotion by Opta. That pales in comparison to Coventry City’s 99.46% probability, but they are now eight points clear of Boro and nine points ahead of third-place Millwall. Even so, Boro’s probability is far higher than Ipswich Town, who have been given a 26.92% chance of getting into the top two, despite currently trailing Millwall by three points - though they have a game in hand. The Lions have a 25.12% probability.

After that, there is a sharp drop off, with Hull City the last side with a probability higher than 1% (1.12%), while Wrexham and Southampton are the last two sides given any sort of chance at 0.10% and 0.02%, respectively. Boro have an expected points value of 83.93 according to Opta, which would leave them around 10 behind Coventry, but 1-2 ahead of both Millwall and Ipswich, thus sealing their return to the Premier League for the first time since 2017.

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