The Championship is often branded as the most competitive and unpredictable league in world football. Except that’s not always the case.
Parachute payments have skewed the odds in favour of the clubs relegated from the Premier League – in each of the past six seasons, at least one of the automatic promotion places have been filled by a team who spent the previous campaign in the top flight.
That trend could continue this term but it doesn’t feel like a foregone conclusion, while the play-off and relegation pictures are equally exciting. Ladies and gentlemen, this could be the most on-brand Championship season for some time.
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Goals, shocks and wild scorelines: This could be a Championship season for the ages
Last season’s Championship was a tough act to follow. Coventry City lifted the title to return to the Premier League after 25 years away, Hull City won the play-offs despite starting the campaign as one of the favourites to go down, and Leicester City suffered a shock second relegation in a row.
Furthermore, the teams who came down from the Premier League were not as dominant as in previous years. Ipswich Town were the only member of that trio to gain promotion, finishing second behind Coventry, and their total of 84 points ended a run of five seasons where one of the three relegated clubs reached 90 points or more in their first campaign back in the Championship.
Meanwhile, the three teams promoted from League One – Birmingham City, Wrexham and Charlton Athletic – all stayed up, the third year in a row in which that has happened. Despite all of that, this season is shaping up to be even better.
If it’s goals you want, there have already been lots of them. The league average of 2.89 goals per game ahead of Wednesday night’s fixtures is higher than the average across a 46-match campaign in any of the past 20 years, on account of there being several teams who are great at scoring goals but not so good at keeping them out. More on that later.
Meanwhile, the old adage that anyone can beat anyone in the Championship appears truer than ever. Some teams’ results have fluctuated wildly, including Charlton winning at West Ham United but losing 4-0 at Stoke City, Blackburn Rovers stunning Middlesbrough only to fall to defeat at previously pointless Preston North End, and Millwall beating Bristol City, Norwich City and Bolton Wanderers by a combined score of 9-0, but losing to Southampton and Wrexham 8-1 on aggregate.
The league is unpredictable wherever you look. Starting from the top, none of the front-runners have stood out above the rest in the first four weeks of the campaign.
That includes the trio who were relegated from the Premier League last season. West Ham and Wolves will surely compete for automatic promotion, but they don’t yet look like they will run away with the title in the way that Coventry did last term.
The Hammers failed to win any of their first three games before scoring 10 goals in successive victories over Wolves, Derby County and Bolton, but they had to fight back from 2-1 down to beat one of the supposed weaker sides in the division in the latter fixture. Wolves’ first five matches featured 23 goals, 10 of them going in at the wrong end.
Then there is Burnley. The Clarets reached 100 points in their previous two campaigns at this level but sit second-bottom of the table after failing to win any of their first six matches. They will surely improve, and the signing of Jamie Vardy adds intrigue, but they are currently way off the level required to win promotion.
That has opened the door to other teams. Of the three clubs who lost in the play-offs last term, Middlesbrough look best-placed to challenge. After letting so many points slip through their grasp last season due to poor finishing, they have found a goalscorer in Will Lankshear, while their strong underlying numbers had them top of the Expected Points table (calculated by measuring Expected Goals for and against) after five games. If xG/xPTS isn’t your thing, they were also second in the real table.
Last term’s play-off semi-finalists, Millwall and Southampton, have also made strong starts and should compete for promotion again, despite the Lions’ chaotic set of scorelines.
Several dark horses are also emerging. Swansea City topped the table after five matches, and it was no fluke: since head coach Vitor Matos arrived last November, they have picked up 1.61 points per game – play-off form over a 46-match season.
Queens Park Rangers, Bristol City, West Bromwich Albion and Charlton are among the other early pace-setters and it is the ideal time for an outsider to mount a promotion bid, thanks to one of the most controversial talking points of the Championship in 2026/27.
This season, the play-offs have been expanded from four to six teams, which means the club finishing eighth will qualify for the end-of-term shoot-out. The change has not been universally popular, but it means more teams will have a chance of reaching the play-offs in the final weeks of the campaign, reducing the number of dead rubbers.
With the way the Championship table often concertinas as the season goes on, it is possible that the team in 15th with five games remaining could realistically still go up or down. That brings us to the battle at the bottom.
Lincoln City were widely tipped to go straight back down after their shock League One title triumph but have adapted well to the level, taking five points from their past three games and running Middlesbrough close on the opening day.
There is arguably greater concern about the teams they came up with, Cardiff City and Bolton, but while all three are likely to be in a relegation battle, they have shown enough so far to suggest they won’t be cut adrift.
Of course, everything can change, but if the season continues in this vein we’ll be treated to a proper title race, surprise promotion candidates, a congested play-off battle and a nail-biting survival fight.
If that all comes to pass, it really will be one of the greatest Championship seasons of all time.