The ludicrous numbers in Championship promotion race – and what it means — The Athletic 8/12/23

The ludicrous numbers in Championship promotion race – and what it means

By Phil Hay

English football in 1905 was, surprisingly enough, a slightly different world.

Ipswich Town played as amateurs in those days, slogging it out in the South East Anglian League. Leeds United did not exist — instead, there was the precursor club known as Leeds City — and Leicester City went by the name Leicester Fosse. Southampton would not be elected to the Football League until 1920.

In short, the Championship’s current top four were relative footnotes in the game. But 1905-06 is the last time the country’s second division and its automatic promotion positions were as tightly held as they are now; the last time a team in second place accumulated more points after 19 games than Ipswich have at present. Manchester United boasted a superior record in 1905, and drawing a direct comparison between them and Ipswich requires an adjustment to calculate for three points a win. In the 118 years since, it has not happened again.

Ipswich’s form — 14 wins, three draws, two defeats and 45 points — is exceptional in isolation and grist to the mill for the argument that the impetus of one promotion can quickly lead to another. This time a year ago, they were well on the way to breaking out of League One. But as a whole, the pace at the upper end of the Championship has created a scenario rarely seen with a season close to its halfway stage. This year has the potential to break records while threatening to break so much of the field behind the top four.

A win for leaders Leicester at home to Plymouth Argyle on Saturday would leave them on the verge of 50 points after 20 matches, and the fixture list is advanced enough to start taking 46-game projections seriously. Theirs is the best start since Watford in 2008-09. At a rate of 2.42 points per outing, Leicester are on course to finish the season with 111, five better than Reading’s total of 106 in 2005-06, to date the highest Football League finish ever. Never mind the play-offs; City can already smell the total of 89 needed, on average, over the past 10 years to wrap up second place in the Championship.

The likelihood of 89 points being enough to go up automatically, though, is questionable. Ipswich, behind Leicester, have earned 2.36 points a game, equating to 108 over 46 matches. Leeds United, in third, are headed for a finishing total of 92 and Southampton, in fourth, exactly 90. It is fair to debate whether form will waver or if any of these sides will drop off in the months to come but equally reasonable to suspect that with December here, current patterns in the Championship are likely to continue.

The 1997-98 campaign was the last time before 2023-24 that the Championship saw all of the top four holding 37 points or more with 19 matches completed. Back then, Nottingham Forest, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United held first place jointly but with eight points fewer than Leicester have today, and seven fewer than Ipswich. Clubs outside the play-off zone are already starting to think that the division might soon leave a clutch of them competing for only two slots, fifth and sixth. The rate at which the top four are moving is expected to limit the appetite among the teams below them to invest in the January window. As one senior figure at a Championship club, requesting to speak anonymously, put it to The Athletic, spending next month might provide no better odds than buying a ticket to the lottery.

It is no coincidence that three of the leading four teams in the division were relegated from the Premier League in May. Rival executives have looked at the expenditure, wage bills, budgets and player retentions at Leicester, Leeds and Southampton and concluded that while competing is not impossible, the odds are heavily stacked against them. Ipswich are the only one of the top four who do not have the benefit of parachute payments but they kept much of their promotion squad together in the summer and recruited cleverly. All of these sides are in such good shape that there is no huge pressure on them to be wildly active in January either.

Agency sources spoken to by The Athletic say Ipswich are making very little noise about the forthcoming window, suggesting they are largely satisfied with the make-up of their dressing room. Leeds are more focused on retaining what they have already than dramatically adding to their squad. Southampton tried and failed to get a winger before the summer deadline and might look at that area again. Enzo Maresca at Leicester would like a left-sided defender and a central midfielder; perhaps another winger for competition too. But incredibly strong form and fairly settled line-ups mean the chances of regular minutes for new signings would not be high.

In the Premier League, there is a growing suspicion that recent rule changes have helped the most dominant teams to consolidate further. Specifically, the shift to allow the use of five substitutes and impose increased amounts of injury-time at the end of matches are giving the leading sides more scope to find a way and force the issue — like Declan Rice’s 97th-minute winner for Arsenal at Luton Town on Tuesday night.

Down in the Championship, it is not so clear whether those factors are as big in determining the make-up of the table. Leicester are particularly good at scoring late on — 15 of their 34 goals have come from the 75th minute onwards — but Ipswich have not relied on one injury-time winner this season. What appears to be most telling in the second tier is the simple disparity in budgets and squads, albeit with Ipswich as an outlier in the sense that they have no parachute payments to work with.

Speaking yesterday, Leeds’ manager, Daniel Farke, said: “For me, it’s one of the most competitive and strongest Championship seasons in the last decade. It’s also a long season and there are positive spells. It’s sometimes a coincidence when two or three teams are winning that many points. Over 46 games it can level in the end and if you are there with an average of two (points per game), like we are at the moment, then definitely happy days.

“Obviously money helps but it’s not always money. The teams who played a few months ago at Premier League level, often they have proper individual quality but if they’re in good positions, they’re doing something in the right way in terms of man-management and dealing with the hangover (of relegation).

“It’s a credit to a team if they do so but it’s never a guarantee. I remember my first three years in English football. Not one team who was relegated from the Premier League was in the top positions after relegation, with direct promotion. It’s quite exceptional that this season all three relegated sides are doing that well.

“But there are many other strong sides. It makes our life and the lives of teams who want to be successful hard and tough but it’s why we love the game so much, and this league. To be successful this season is even more difficult.”

So far, Leicester and Leeds have dropped just two points from winning positions. Ipswich have let five slip and while Southampton’s total of 11 is less impressive, there is a broad theme of the top sides retaining control of games once they get in front. Leeds and Ipswich have also gained the most points from losing positions, indicating a level of quality that is difficult to repel even in circumstances where the opposition take the lead. Moreover, the top four have so far lost a combined total of 12 matches. Five of those were games in which two of them faced each other. That reliability presents no serious chance for other clubs to reel them in.

Psychologically, a few things are happening here. For teams on the fringes of the play-offs, there is the depressing realisation that the bunfight to sneak in might be more fraught than ever. For those further down the league, there is the prospect of their seasons fizzling out earlier than usual. But for the top four, there is the real risk that outstanding campaigns which would typically unlock the door to the Premier League could result in no greater prize than the play-offs and, given their unpredictability, no promotion at all. As it stands, someone is destined to look back on 2023-24 and rue a freak of nature.