Championship 2025/26 Season

[BKLFox]

1 hour ago, TheGoldenGod said:

I think it'd be a shocker of a decision to be honest! Imagine the team finishing 8th in a 46 game season gets promoted to the PL....they'd be nowhere near equipped to deal with that league. Many teams have almost accidently been promoted too early through the P-Os and it's shown in the PL.

 

I also think it'll encourage more clubs to spend outside their means and gamble to push for a play off spot as more clubs are being data driven and will see it as an opportunity.

Look no further than Luton, other teams will fit the slot also but Luton PO winners 22/23, relegated from Prem 23/24 then relegated from championship 24/25 currently sitting mid-table Lge 1 25/26 just 2 seasons later

[Lambert09]

2 hours ago, TheGoldenGod said:

I think it'd be a shocker of a decision to be honest! Imagine the team finishing 8th in a 46 game season gets promoted to the PL....they'd be nowhere near equipped to deal with that league. Many teams have almost accidently been promoted too early through the P-Os and it's shown in the PL.

 

I also think it'll encourage more clubs to spend outside their means and gamble to push for a play off spot as more clubs are being data driven and will see it as an opportunity.

In fairness, none of the teams that get promoted via playoffs are equipped for the premier league.  Drastic changes are almost always required with very few exceptions. Forest for example replaced a whole squad.  The only one who actually was worthy of the spot would have been Brentford, who actually should have gone up automatically but hit a rough patch. 
 

The difference from 8th to 3rd is very minimal in this league typically.  Probably good for us if we get stuck down here 

[fox_up_north]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

Yeah, the plan is to copy the national league 

Single game
5th v 8th - M1
6th v 7th - M2

 

Two legged play offs

 3rd v winner of M2

4th v winner of M1

If they do this along with making it 3 drop from League two as well then that'd be a good trade off.

Some big teams down in Conference these days. It's not like it was where the likes of Lincoln City, Notts County, Rochdale, etc were all effectively safe. They definitely want 3 teams up. 

[pmcla26]

10 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

Some big teams down in Conference these days. It's not like it was where the likes of Lincoln City, Notts County, Rochdale, etc were all effectively safe. They definitely want 3 teams up. 

It used to be too protect clubs going from losing their professional status, but now that pretty much every club every season in the national league is professional, I don’t see why it’s still only 2. 

[Number 6]

Surely a more fun play off mix up would be to include 17th in the Prem. Although that might ultimately lead to only 2 new teams in a season. Maybe 3 new plus a playoff.

[Dan]

11 hours ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Should be laughed out the room. Absolutely ridiculous idea - just designed to give us more quantity over quality which is the single most important reason for football's entertainment drop off.

 

Imagine if the team who came 8th spawned it up to the Premier League.

[Dan]

10 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Why does that mean the league is shite? Perhaps those three are just better than us/Southampton/Ipswich from the previous season. Burnley were always going to be interesting, given how few they conceded in the Championship, and Le Bris has proved himself to be a decent manager at Sunderland so in the long term it will be interesting to see how they go on too. I wouldn't call Wolves rolling over for Leeds either, Wolves are shit and if it wasn't for the bottom three being so shit last season then they'd have been in a genuine relegation battle (plus they lost two key players this summer).

There'll never be a worse promoted / eventually relegated trio than 2024/25. Absolutely confident in that. We are without any shadow of a doubt the worst team to ever finish as high as 18th - barely believable we did.

 

Sure I read somewhere that Leicester and Ipswich had the lowest points tallies of teams to finish 18th and 19th in the Premier League and Southampton obviously only beat Derby by 1. 40% of our points came against the other two while two of the wins were against already relegated sides which barely really count.

 

Was a real freak and anomaly. It's why the whole revisionism around Cooper keeping us up is a load of rabble. Tottenham in 17th were probably nearer ability wise to Forest in 7th than they were to us, no exaggeration.

 

I'm not surprised none of the three look convincing at Championship level as they are three awful teams. It's why I do think somebody a bit unexpected probably can do it this time around. Early days of course.

 

Put it this way Burnley who are probably the poorest of the three are quite obviously better than Leicester of last year who by some miracle ended up the least shit of the three. I'm glad they're doing well - would've been real talk of structural change if there had been another trio of total rabble. Sunderland really putting all of those who excused it in their place.

Edited 24 September 2025 by Dan

[Dan]

Sums up the EFL that this is a priority over doing 3 up / 3 down from League Two / National League. 8th would be comfortably out of their depth in the Premier League yet extremely few teams who go up to League Two are relegated. The case for the latter is miles clear.

[filbertway]

8 hours ago, Dan said:

There'll never be a worse promoted / eventually relegated trio than 2024/25. Absolutely confident in that. We are without any shadow of a doubt the worst team to ever finish as high as 18th - barely believable we did.

 

Sure I read somewhere that Leicester and Ipswich had the lowest points tallies of teams to finish 18th and 19th in the Premier League and Southampton obviously only beat Derby by 1. 40% of our points came against the other two while two of the wins were against already relegated sides which barely really count.

 

Was a real freak and anomaly. It's why the whole revisionism around Cooper keeping us up is a load of rabble. Tottenham in 17th were probably nearer ability wise to Forest in 7th than they were to us, no exaggeration.

 

I'm not surprised none of the three look convincing at Championship level as they are three awful teams. It's why I do think somebody a bit unexpected probably can do it this time around. Early days of course.

 

Put it this way Burnley who are probably the poorest of the three are quite obviously better than Leicester of last year who by some miracle ended up the least shit of the three. I'm glad they're doing well - would've been real talk of structural change if there had been another trio of total rabble. Sunderland really putting all of those who excused it in their place.

I think the difference between the teams that went up this year and ours was that these teams actually accept that they're lower quality and aren't trying to play better teams at their own game. Makes a massive difference when you don't have your team noncing around with the ball in their own third against much better teams.

 

It also helps if you don't have one player trying to play right back and right wing by themself 

 

Edited 24 September 2025 by filbertway

[Dan]

39 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I think the difference between the teams that went up this year and ours was that these teams actually accept that they're lower quality and aren't trying to play better teams at their own game. Makes a massive difference when you don't have your team noncing around with the ball in their own third against much better teams.

 

It also helps if you don't have one player trying to play right back and right wing by themself 

 

I'm glad it's happening because it makes those who tried to excuse it look silly and it also means it's not a completely closed shop either.

 

The level of 17th was relatively high last year. We really did go down in one of the worst possible ever years.

[murphy]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

I think the difference between the teams that went up this year and ours was that these teams actually accept that they're lower quality and aren't trying to play better teams at their own game. Makes a massive difference when you don't have your team noncing around with the ball in their own third against much better teams.

 

It also helps if you don't have one player trying to play right back and right wing by themself 

 

Spot on. 

 

After Enzo left, I would have expected a new manager to take one look at our squad, buy pace and decide that our best chance was to play on the counter.   Scarcely believable that we bought plodders like Ayew and BDCR instead. 

 

 

Edited 24 September 2025 by murphy

[murphy]

9 hours ago, Dan said:

There'll never be a worse promoted / eventually relegated trio than 2024/25. Absolutely confident in that. We are without any shadow of a doubt the worst team to ever finish as high as 18th - barely believable we did.

 

Sure I read somewhere that Leicester and Ipswich had the lowest points tallies of teams to finish 18th and 19th in the Premier League and Southampton obviously only beat Derby by 1. 40% of our points came against the other two while two of the wins were against already relegated sides which barely really count.

 

Was a real freak and anomaly. It's why the whole revisionism around Cooper keeping us up is a load of rabble. Tottenham in 17th were probably nearer ability wise to Forest in 7th than they were to us, no exaggeration.

 

I'm not surprised none of the three look convincing at Championship level as they are three awful teams. It's why I do think somebody a bit unexpected probably can do it this time around. Early days of course.

 

Put it this way Burnley who are probably the poorest of the three are quite obviously better than Leicester of last year who by some miracle ended up the least shit of the three. I'm glad they're doing well - would've been real talk of structural change if there had been another trio of total rabble. Sunderland really putting all of those who excused it in their place.

I think you're right.  Luton were the worst 18th place finish with 26 points, beating Fulham's 28 and then we came along with 25.

 

The worst bottom three were Luton, Burnley, Sheff Utd with a combined 66 points (previous worst 76 points).  Ourselves, Ipswich and Southampton comfortably beat that with 59.

[Super_horns]

Sounds like Bristol City might be getting some Saudi investment coming their way .

[Foxin_Mad]

23 hours ago, Fox92 said:

Why does that mean the league is shite? Perhaps those three are just better than us/Southampton/Ipswich from the previous season. Burnley were always going to be interesting, given how few they conceded in the Championship, and Le Bris has proved himself to be a decent manager at Sunderland so in the long term it will be interesting to see how they go on too. I wouldn't call Wolves rolling over for Leeds either, Wolves are shit and if it wasn't for the bottom three being so shit last season then they'd have been in a genuine relegation battle (plus they lost two key players this summer).

 

22 hours ago, MancFox24 said:

I think the big difference is that some of those mid table teams like Wolves, Brentford and West Ham are alot worse this year and that gives you a genuine chance of survival. We were obviously shite last year but we also got a bit unlucky that those mid table teams were pretty strong 

This is it teams were stronger in mid table, united and Spurs were giving points out. A lot of the middle teams sound weaker.

[Dan]

5 hours ago, murphy said:

I think you're right.  Luton were the worst 18th place finish with 26 points, beating Fulham's 28 and then we came along with 25.

 

The worst bottom three were Luton, Burnley, Sheff Utd with a combined 66 points (previous worst 76 points).  Ourselves, Ipswich and Southampton comfortably beat that with 59.

59 points - less combined than 8 teams in the league got last season.

 

Of those 59, 15 of them were against each other as well.

 

You'll never see anything like it again. For one team to be that bad, maybe, but all three really is mad.

Edited 24 September 2025 by Dan

[FrankieADZ]

Alan Nixon on X: "Blackburn v Ipswich to replay full 90 https://t.co/5vxgh7UGMB" / X

 

yeah game has well and truly gone

as incredibly bad decisions go, this is one of the worst if true, 

 

and if people question Ipswich's luck in the championship every again too

Edited 25 September 2025 by FrankieADZ

[FrankieADZ]

 

IpSwIcH aReNt LuCkY

Edited 25 September 2025 by FrankieADZ

[Leicester_Loyal]

That's ridiculous 

[AKCJ]

Ipswich should at least give Blackburn a goal in the same way we did for Forest when we replayed the game after Clive Clarke collapsed but there's no way this wasn't going to happen.

[FrankieADZ]

3 minutes ago, AKCJ said:

Ipswich should at least give Blackburn a goal in the same way we did for Forest when we replayed the game after Clive Clarke collapsed but there's no way this wasn't going to happen.

basically what nixon said, but we know they wont do any of that

[TheGoldenGod]

If Ipswich lose again they should be deducted 3 points instead

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Who's had more luck in the last few years, Ipswich or Notts Forest?

[Aleksz]

Ipswich should let Blackburn go 1-0 up for sure, still a ridiculous decision. 

[Dan]

Absolutely utterly scandalous.

[FrankieADZ]

EFL Statement: Blackburn Rovers v Ipswich Town - The English Football League
confirmed now