Battle building for the play-offs

Could it be League One Leeds again?

The only things we know with any certainty now are that Leicester will be playing Premier League football next season and that Burnley are guaranteed, no matter what happens, a top four finish.

A top four finish! We'd have taken that back in August but I'm sure it will be much, much better than that very soon. However, there is a real battle for those four places to contest the end of season tournament.

Any of the clubs in the top half of the table right now will believe they have more than a realistic chance of making the top six. Watford are currently 12th with 56 points but they do have a game in hand which would bring them level with Forest and Blackburn who in turn are two points behind Brighton, Ipswich and Bournemouth.

A further two points takes you to Reading who are currently holding the sixth place, behind Derby, QPR and Wigan.

Bournemouth are the form team, no doubt about that. They followed up the win against QPR with an even more important victory against Reading. A defeat would have probably ended their hopes and it is that result, above all others, that's opened it up for the other teams.

Likewise, results at the bottom of the league have opened things up again. Both Charlton and Millwall won on Tuesday' the Belgians beat bottom club Yeovil and Millwall scored a victory against a weakened Wigan team at the Concrete Jungle.

What that has done is pull such as Birmingham, Doncaster and Blackpool ever closer to a relegation battle. We'll know if Blackpool are officially in such a battle because their inspirational chairman Karl Oyston as said, should it happen, they will then appoint a new manager to replace the long since gone Paul Ince.

I reckon it leaves only about five clubs with nothing to play for. Middlesbrough, Bolton, Sheff Wednesday, Leeds and Huddersfield are the ones in the middle who seem too far away to mount a play-off challenge but have too many points to be dragged in to the scrap at the bottom.

Mind you, one win and two draws from the last twelve games for Leeds could still see them involved. Brian McDermott has his hands well and truly tied up his back as he tries to manage them, and the Italian, who has just sacked another Cagliari manager, is about to sail in on his non-taxable yacht.

Surely it isn't going to be League One Leeds (LOL) again is it?

All the midweek results and stats are below along with the league's leading goalscorers, the disciplinary records, the highest and lowest attendances and this weekend's fixtures.