Could the Championship’s best clubs survive in next season’s Premier League? Why Leeds looks a likely bet

As the Premier League reaches its midway point, the siren song of the Championship can already be heard in Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton. Less than five months after their top flight tenures began, it already seems that the three newly promoted clubs will be heading straight back down to the second tier, much as they did last year.

At the time that rather seemed like a fluke, an ordinary clutch of sides coming up without much hope that they wouldn’t go straight back down. It is probably still fair to note that the Championship has not always sent its very best and brightest to the Premier League — see last season’s Leeds — and we are only two years removed from the triumvirate of Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest rising up. They are currently eighth, sixth and second. 

Then again, in the past five years you might argue it is only those three, Brentford and Aston Villa who have come up to the Premier League and really established themselves. Leeds and Sheffield United — more on whom later — have been there for a good time, not a long time. The world record for the longest yoyo spin was set by Simpson Wong Wai Sheuk in 2012. This could soon be broken by Burnley if they return to the Championship next season.

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Before we look at those who might come up, could any of the bottom three nullify the premise of this piece? Southampton? Nah. They gambled several hundred million pounds in potential revenue on Russell Martin’s possession system working when outmatched by nearly every opponent. It didn’t work but credit to the powers that be at St. Mary’s, they identified that at just the moment it became too late to fix it.

The Leicester that were promoted from the Championship might have had a fighting chance in the Premier League. They lost their best player and manager — Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Enzo Maresca — to Chelsea and admit it, you’d forgotten about the first of those. Their coaching choices since then probably haven’t helped much either, what is Ruud van Nistelrooy’s resume to coach in the English top flight beyond a couple of convincing wins over Leicester?

Ipswich, though, closed the gap on 17th placed Wolves to just a point with a win against Chelsea on Monday. Kieran McKenna’s side are well organized, give away as little as they can, and give it a good go at the other end. In other words, they’re a team where a not insignificant number of the players were in League One two years ago.

The gap is vast. Look at the goal difference. Wolves are on -11, West Ham on -12. The best of the promoted sides, Ipswich, are at -15. The non-penalty expected goal difference (npxGD) though? Yikes.

How the bottom five are faring

These teams are bad and they are probably goners. That means another year for the Premier League’s more longstanding members to improve their squads, move into their new stadia or, in West Ham’s case, hire coaches that can extract anything like the collective talent level of their squad.

The gap is growing bigger? Can any one of the four leading contenders for promotion this season bridge it? Well there’s one team you’d have to give a good chance to.

The best bet to survive: Leeds

The table might say otherwise, but the Championship leaders look like the best team in the division by a fair way. No team has scored as many as their 44, only two teams have conceded fewer and a goal difference of 29 is a fair wedge clear of second placed Burnley. On npxGD there’s a chasm, their 29.1 much more than twice clear of second-ranked Coventry.

That isn’t that much of a surprise when you look at Daniel Farke’s squad. There is still a fair wedge of the group that were unfortunate to go down from the Premier League in 2022-23, coupled with shrewd additions to midfield such as Ao Tanaka and Ethan Ampadu. Managed by Farke, a coach with plenty of experience in both the top tiers of English football, they look just about ready to go if they can hold off the challenge of their rivals.

If you were looking for areas to improve perhaps Leeds in the Premier League could do with a better striker than Joel Piroe — 0.44 npxG per 90 minutes — but even he has impressive moments lately, including a brace to carry the day at Stoke. Often teams get their hands on top tier money, look at their squad and conclude that even that wouldn’t go far enough to take them up to the required level. It would not need much for Leeds to improve their squad to a level where they could be really hopeful of survival.

The team of the future: Sunderland

Of the quartet within 10 points of the top, Sunderland have the most work to do to secure a top two berth. Their bright start to the season has tapered off and their 1-0 defeat at Stoke last time out left them with just three wins from their last 12 Championship games. Then again, such difficulties are perhaps to be expected as the miles clock up in the legs of one of the division’s youngest teams. Even in their recent slump they have retained a positive xG difference and their impressive manager Regis Le Bris has used the struggles to bring talents in from the cold, most notably Adil Aouchiche of late. Like Leeds, they need a high grade striker, they have since Ross Stewart left them. That aside though, there is a lot to like.

This is a young team, but not one short on battling spirit. Across five games in a row last month they battled back from an early deficit to draw or win. Jobe Bellingham is winning praise by the game. Young right back Trai Hume is one of the Championship’s most creative full backs. Though an injury threatens to slow his immediate progress, Chris Rigg has emerged as a 17-year-old capable of carrying the hopes of a city. 

Whether Sunderland go up or not you can expect plenty of their players to make a major impact in the coming years. If they can keep Le Bris’ squad together, get to the Premier League and put some veterans in the mix, they’d have a chance. You fear, however, that the last few years on the road back to the Premier League might be more pleasant than getting back to the big time.

Investment needed: Burnley

If the Clarets are going to celebrate a fifth promotion in the last 16 years, it is going to be their defense that carries them out of the Championship. Just nine goals conceded so far this season has earned Scott Parker’s side comparisons with some of the game’s best ever out of possession sides, Watford boss Tom Cleverley, deploying the Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea tag in a fashion that didn’t seem utterly wild. It helps no end that James Trafford’s development has not been set back by last season’s difficulties. With 5.87 goals prevented and outstanding qualities with the ball at his feet, it is easy to see why he is being linked to some of the Premier League’s biggest sides.

Equally, Burnley need to be so good defensively. Since the second round of fixtures, only two teams have scored fewer goals than their 21 from 22 games. The chances aren’t really coming with an average of 0.95 npxG per game. If you want a sense of how bad that number is, only Wayne Rooney is coaching a worse attack. We have already noted how many teams in the Championship would need a boost to their attack if they got out of the Championship. Burnley probably need one to get out of the Championship.

If they did, that would be the time to ask questions of Alan Pace and his investors, a group that includes J.J. Watt. Last time around what money Burnley did commit always seemed like it was made with half an eye on getting back to the Premier League in 2024-25. They might fancy the chances of Trafford, Maxime Esteve and CJ Egan-Riley to hold their own against top tier attacks, but without real investment on high grade attacking talent, this team would not survive.

New owners and Wilder offer hope: Sheffield United

They might be second in the table but for now it almost seems academic to talk about Sheffield United’s promotion prospects. Perhaps that will all change after they play Sunderland on New Year’s Day, but for now Chris Wilder will simply be concerned with getting the best team he can out onto the pitch. Harry Souttar has returned to Leicester after rupturing his Achilles. Oliver Arblaster, Vinicius Souza and Tyrese Campbell are among the other key figures currently sidelined from the promotion push, though with Gustavo Hamer in his current form there is certainly a chance of top two.

Achieve that and the question will be what COH Sports, led by American private equity investors Steve Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, want to commit to keeping the club up there. Not since the early 1990s have Sheffield United managed more than two seasons in the top flight but the new owners are making all the right noises about the club “competing in the top-flight of English football consistently, not just on a one-off basis.”

In Wilder, COH Sports have one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. What the 57-year-old has achieved in his second stint at his boyhood club is remarkable. United looked dead on their feet following the ritual humiliations that the Premier League inflicted on them last season, but with the new old boss at the helm they are revived, their achievements two points better than the table might say after the punishments inflicted on them for financial mismanagement. We have already seen in 2019-20 that Wilder can galvanise half a city and a team that doesn’t look like it should do much in the top flight. If COH Sports can give him the backing that Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud didn’t, then Sheffield United would have a chance in the Premier League.