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

Now that the Premier League has reached its halfway point, the siren song of the Championship is already sounding in Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton. Less than five months after their top-flight careers began, it already looks like the three promoted clubs will return straight to the second tier, just like last year.

At the time it seemed like quite a fluke, an ordinary group of parties that rose without much hope that they wouldn’t immediately go down again. It’s probably still fair to note that the Championship hasn’t always sent its very best and brightest to the Premier League – see last season’s Leeds – and that we’re just two years removed from the triumvirate of Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest that comes up. . Currently they are eighth, sixth and second.

On the other hand, you could say that in the last five years it has only been those three, Brentford and Aston Villa, who have come to the Premier League and really established themselves. Leeds and Sheffield United – more on whom later – have been around for a good while, not that long. The world record for the longest yo-yo spin was set in 2012 by Simpson Wong Wai Sheuk. This could soon be broken by Burnley if they return to the Championship next season.

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Before we look at those that could emerge, could any of the bottom three negate the premise of this piece? Southampton? No. They gambled hundreds of millions of pounds in potential revenue on Russell Martin’s possession system which worked when outscored by almost every opponent. It didn’t work, but thanks to the powers of St. Mary’s, they discovered that at just the moment it became too late to fix the problem.

Leicester, promoted from the Championship, might have had a chance in the Premier League. They lost their best player and manager – Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Enzo Maresca – to Chelsea and admit it, you forgot the first of those. Their coaching choices since then probably haven’t helped much either. What is Ruud van Nistelrooy’s CV for coaching in the English top flight after a pair of convincing wins over Leicester?

However, Ipswich closed the gap on 17th-placed Wolves to just one point with a win against Chelsea on Monday. Kieran McKenna’s side are well organised, giving away as little as possible and trying hard at the other end. In other words, they are a team that had a not insignificant number of players playing in League One two years ago.

The gap is enormous. Look at the goal difference. Wolves are at -11, West Ham at -12. The best promoted team, Ipswich, is at -15. But the non-penalty expected goal difference (npxGD)? Yes.

How the bottom five are doing

These teams are bad and they are probably gone. That means another year for the Premier League’s oldest members to improve their squads, move to their new stadiums or, in the case of West Ham, hire coaches who can extract something like the collective talent level of their squad.

Is the gap widening? Can one of the top four contenders for promotion this season overcome this? There is one team that you should give a good chance.

Best bet for survival: Leeds

The table might say otherwise, but the championship leaders honestly look like the best team in the division. No team has scored as many as their 44, only two teams have conceded fewer and a goal difference of 29 is a decent lead over second-placed Burnley. On npxGD there is a gap: their 29.1 is much more than twice ahead of Coventry, who are in second place.

That’s not such a big surprise when you look at Daniel Farke’s team. There is still a fair share of the group who have suffered the unfortunate loss of the Premier League in the 2022/2023 season, coupled with smart midfield additions such as Ao Tanaka and Ethan Ampadu. Led by Farke, a coach with extensive experience in both top tiers of English football, they look almost ready to go if they can hold off the challenge from their rivals.

If you’re looking for areas for improvement, Leeds could perhaps do with a better striker in the Premier League than Joel Piroe – 0.44 npxG per 90 minutes – but even he has had impressive moments of late, including a brace to carry the day at Stoke. Often times teams get their hands on top level money, look at their roster and conclude that even that wouldn’t go far enough to get them to the required level. It wouldn’t be necessary a lot of for Leeds to improve their squad to a level where they could really hope to survive.

The team of the future: Sunderland

Of the quartet with a ten-point lead at the top, Sunderland have the most work to do to secure a place in the top two. Their good start to the season has deteriorated and their 1-0 defeat at Stoke in the previous match left them with just three wins from their last twelve Championship games. Then again, perhaps such difficulties are to be expected as the miles pile up in the legs of one of the division’s youngest teams. Even in their recent slump, they have maintained a positive xG differential and their impressive manager Regis Le Bris has used the struggle to bring talents in from the cold, most notably Adil Aouchiche of late. Like Leeds, they have needed a high-quality striker since Ross Stewart left them. But apart from that, there’s a lot to like.

This is a young team, but it is not lacking in fighting spirit. Last month they fought back from an early deficit to draw or win five games in a row. Jobe Bellingham is getting praise from the game. Young right-back Trai Hume is one of the Championship’s most creative full-backs. Although an injury threatens to slow his immediate progress, Chris Rigg has blossomed into a 17-year-old capable of turning a city’s hopes into reality.

Whether Sunderland go up or not, you can expect many of their players to make a big impact in the coming years. If they can keep Le Bris’ squad together, get to the Premier League and throw some veterans into the mix, they have a chance. However, one fears that the final years on the road back to the Premier League will be more pleasant than a return to the big time.

Investment needed: Burnley

If the Clarets are to celebrate a fifth promotion in the last sixteen years, it will be their defense that takes them out of the Championship. Just nine goals conceded this season have earned Scott Parker’s side comparisons with some of the best ever without-possession sides, Watford boss Tom Cleverley using Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea tag in a way that didn’t seem completely wild. It doesn’t help that James Trafford’s development hasn’t been slowed by last season’s difficulties. With a 5.87 goals prevented rate and excellent qualities with the ball at his feet, it’s easy to see why he’s been linked with some of the Premier League’s biggest clubs.

Burnley must also be that good defensively. Since the second round, only two teams have scored fewer goals than their 21 from 22 matches. The odds aren’t really great with an average of 0.95 npxG per game. If you want to get an idea of ​​how bad that number is, only Wayne Rooney coaches a worse offense. We’ve already noted how many teams in the Championship would need a boost in their attack if they were to drop 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 also includes JJ Watt. Last time, the money Burnley made always looked like it was earned with a view to a return to the Premier League in 2024/25. They may be interested in Trafford, Maxime Esteve and CJ Egan-Riley’s chances of holding their own against top-level attacks, but without real investment in quality attacking talent this team would not survive.

New owners and Wilder offer hope: Sheffield United

They may be second in the table, but for now it seems almost academic to talk about Sheffield United’s promotion prospects. Maybe that will all change after they play Sunderland on New Year’s Day, but for now Chris Wilder will just be concerned with putting the best team he can on the pitch. Harry Souttar has returned to Leicester after rupturing his Achilles tendon. Oliver Arblaster, Vinicius Souza and Tyrese Campbell are among the other key figures currently sidelined by the promotion, although with Gustavo Hamer in his current form there is certainly a shot at the top two.

If we achieve that, the question will be what COH Sports, led by US private equity investors Steve Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, is willing to promise to keep the club in the top spot. Sheffield United haven’t managed more than two seasons in the top flight since the early 1990s, but the new owners are making all the right noises about the club “contesting consistently at the top flight of English football, and not just on a one-off basis .” .”

With Wilder, COH Sports has one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. What the 57-year-old has achieved in his second spell at his boyhood club is remarkable. United looked dead on their feet after the ritual humiliations the Premier League inflicted on them last season, but with the new old boss at the helm they have been revived. Their performance is two points better than the table might say after the penalties imposed on them. financial mismanagement. We’ve already seen in 2019-20 that Wilder can galvanize half a city and a team that doesn’t look like it should be doing much in the top flight. If COH Sports can give him the support that Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud did not receive, then Sheffield United could have a chance in the Premier League.