The number of points Rotherham United will need to secure promotion from League One

Rotherham United are edging closer to a third promotion under Paul Warne but how many more wins do they need to return to the Championship?

With Warne at the helm, the Millers went up via the play-offs in 2017-18 and were promoted as runners-up during the curtailed 2019-20 season. With Rotherham currently top of the table, they will be hoping to go up as champions this time around.

Their destiny is not in their own hands when it comes to the League One title with Wigan Athletic four points behind them having played two games fewer.

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When it comes to automatic promotion, Warne's side are seven points clear of MK Dons in third with both teams having played 38 games each. The equation is simple for Rotherham, they need to win a maximum of six of their remaining eight games to guarantee promotion.

Six wins and two defeats in the final weeks of the season would put them onto 98 points. That would represent an unusually-high return for automatic promotion so we took a look at how the last five seasons played out to see how many more victories it would take for Rotherham to secure a return to the Championship.

Last term, 81 points would have been enough to finish above third place while the season before the Millers went up with just 62 points after the 2019-20 League One campaign was curtailed by Covid-19. That represented a return of 1.77 points-per-game while last campaign a ratio of 1.76 points-per-game would have been enough to secure promotion.

In the 2018-19 season, 89 points would have been required to finish above third while 88 would have been needed the previous season. In 2016-17, an 83-point return would secured a finish above the play-off places.

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Recent history of the last four full seasons suggests that any return of 90 points or more will be enough for the Millers, which means they will likely only need to win half of their remaining eight games to make an immediate return to the Championship.

Data experts at FiveThirtyEight have predicted the final League One table with the Millers tipped to go up as champions on 95 points while Wigan are predicted to finish second on 93 points.

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