Until my young sons began to take an interest in football, I was always prepared to accept this about the Fink Tank - it's a bit complicated.

But then I had to explain to Sam and Aron about the competitions in which Chelsea were taking part. Yes, that's right, they are in the Barclays Premier League and the Champions League. That means they used to be in the Premiership. But, no, they aren't in the Championship, that's different. The Championship is in the Football League, which the Premier League isn't. Well no, boys, the Champions League isn't in the Football League, either. In fact the Champions League isn't a league at all. It's more a cup, like the FA Cup. No, er, the FA Cup isn't given to the winner of the Premier League. That team are awarded the championship. And if you don't quite win the league and become champions you are given a place in the Champions League. Oh, just forget it.

I have now decided that if you can follow all that, you can follow the Fink Tank. Or just shut up.

This week Dr Henry Stott and Dr Ian Graham have been looking at the Coca-Cola Championship (capital C, run by the Football League, etc). The first thing to note is that the Championship is not shaped like the top tier. In the Premier League there are a few very good clubs and then the ratings fall off a cliff. In the Championship, the decline in standards is pretty gentle.

This does not mean that there are not any really good sides. Take West Bromwich Albion. The Fink Tank uses goals and shots on goal to create a team strength measure that allows us to produce a 92-team league table as if every club were playing in one big division. West Brom are tenth in this table. That is because of their extraordinary attack, which ranks sixth overall.

And West Brom are surprisingly close to clinching promotion. They have a 93 per cent chance of finishing in the top two. After that things become harder to calculate.

We make Stoke City narrowly the favourites to come second because Hull City have a tricky run-in. Stoke have a 48 per cent chance of automatic promotion and Hull a 41 per cent chance. The chances for Bristol City (12 per cent) and Watford (5 per cent) are smaller.

The graphic also shows the chances of various teams finishing in play-offs positions. Since the strength of Championship teams is so even, it is possible to make a rough calculation of the overall promotion chance. Simply take the chance of being in the play-offs, divide it by four and then add that to the chance of automatic promotion.

So Bristol City have an 87 per cent chance of making the play-offs. Divide by four to give roughly 22 per cent, then add that to their 12 per cent chance of automatic promotion and you get their overall promotion chance - 34 per cent. For Stoke, the overall chance is 61 per cent, for Hull 56 per cent, Watford 28 per cent, Crystal Palace 10 per cent and Ipswich Town 6 per cent.

At the other end? Leicester City are favourites to fill the last relegation place. They have a 29 per cent chance of relegation, competing with Coventry City (25 per cent), Sheffield Wednesday (23 per cent) and Southampton (12 per cent).