My Championship PREDICTIONS 25/26!

My Championship PREDICTIONS 25/26!

It’s time. I have delayed as long as is humanly possible. The championship kicks off in just 4 days time. So, here we go with my most stressful piece of bloody content each and every year. It is my EFL Championship predictions for 2526. We are going 1 to 24 or more specifically, we’re going 24 to1. I’m going to reveal my table from bottom to top. How I imagine in my silly little brain how this season is going to play out with the information here on Monday the 4th of August 2025 that I have right now. I’ll be held to account for this. So I need you to get down there in the comments. There are two numbers down there. One is the number one and one is the number 24. I need you in the comments to write down 24 team names in order. Put your neck on the chopping block. You don’t get to come at me if you haven’t put your head above the parapit. There’s also the number one down there. If you only write down one team, the team you support, I’m going to be completely honest with you. You suck. grow a pair and get your one to 24s down there in the comments. Glass houses, stones, YouTube, I will say no more. I’m going all in and I’m starting right down at the bottom. Three teams are going to be relegated. Process that information. I will say it one more time. Three teams are definitely going to be relegated. It could be you. You have to have that possibility in your head. Even if you really, really don’t want it to be true. We’ll start with my first to drop right at the bottom. And I don’t know why I’m hyping it up because everybody in the known universe knows what I’m about to say. Sheffield Wednesday 24th. How could you not have Wednesday 24th? I don’t know. They’re the massive crisis club in the EFL Championship. It’s been a ridiculous summer, hasn’t it? With the um ownership of Mr. Chan Siri. Everything’s kind of on a knife edge there. Half the squad is gone. One quarter of the stadium is not going to be open. The manager’s gone. The players haven’t been paid on time for like each of the last three months. It’s a dreadful, dreadful situation which you would expect if nothing changes massively in the next month. And obviously there’s kind of reference to the the transfer window because could you get a takeover? Could something happen before the end of August? Probably not. If nothing changes, surely this is going to be an extremely long and painful relegation season for Sheffield Wednesday. It’s a fairly simple prediction that one to start us off. Um I hope things change for the better. There could be a situation where things do change for the better at Wednesday and they’re still relegated, but right now I can’t not have Wednesday at 24. And here comes my first grenade in and I’m throwing it up to the northwest it at Preston who I’m normally pretty terrible at. So I’d got to the point last season where I’m like nah Preston they always finish in the middle. So I just stuck him in the middle and then all of a sudden what do we have? It’s like one game. Ryan Low out, Paul Hecking Bottom in and lo and behold, Paul Heckin bottom got things going at Preston and they were right in the middle and doing rather well in the FA Cup as well. And then all of a sudden they completely tanked, didn’t they? Right down towards the bottom of the table. And I suppose I’m going general kind of gravitational pull on Preston that you’ve got this situation where the Hemings family just puts money in year on year on year and it’s hard to build any momentum. Yes, you can change from um Alex Neil, you know, and end up with Ryan Low or Paul Hecking Bottom. It’s hard to get things moving and now it does feel like the direction travel is downwards. Yes, I know Preston fans were pretty excited actually, particularly at the start of the window when they went bang bang bang with sort of four or five three transfers, but I’m not sure. Um, and I do wonder it would probably need Hecking Bottom to really be struggling and for Preston to pull the trigger during the season and make things worse for this to happen. But I’m going for the levy to break and for Preston who we think if the season had gone on about 3 weeks longer last year would have dropped. They finished 20th. I’ve got them going this season. owners relegate clubs. 22nd, Hull City. And this is a pure chaos pick basically. And we do have a situation in the Championship as well this year where we would normally be putting one or maybe two newly promoted League One clubs in our bottom three, but we ain’t got normal League One promoted clubs this season, have we, at all? So, I’m going to pop Hull in there purely on chaos. I mean, look, I’ll change my mind. If the chaos sorts itself out in a week and transfer embargos or soft fee restrictions, use whatever language um the EFL have used um and that changes then, you know, Mr. Ilari will then probably sign five players before the end of the window and have a bit of a gamble. I’m assuming that doesn’t happen and Sergey Yakirovic um is going to go in with what he’s got with negative negative momentum. Is that a contradiction in terms? You know what I mean, don’t you? Um, and he’s going to struggle. Mr. Ila Charlie’s probably going to pull the trigger, I don’t know, about November time. Then he’ll bring someone else in. He’ll sack them as well before the end of the season. And it’s going to be a big chaotic mess of a struggle for Hull that could see them drop down. So, those are my three to go down. Wednesday’s owners chaos. Preston is kind of long-term gravitational pull and it would need a bit of chaos as well. Hull again is owners and chaos. There we go. Get your thoughts in via the comments. 24 teams, not one, but you can let me know your thoughts on my relegated three. And I reiterate, three teams will go down. Nobody ever wants to predict their team to go down. But I’m telling you, it could be you. Let’s go to the survivors. QPR 21st. I’m not very sure about this one. They’ve gone 20th, 18th, 15th. So, I’m going by the logic that Cuentes did a very good job and punched above weight and were into owners and chaos mode here. I know they’d retained a few decent players um hadn’t they and um Pokeu is a reasonably eye-catching signing as well but not masses has been done. Look, if the hire of um Stefan is as good as the hire of Cphuentes, then they won’t be 21st QP, will it? They’ll be fair bit higher in the team. You know, add on four or five places to that. But you just wonder, there’s a lot on the manager here. I feel if it doesn’t work out in a particularly positive way, I think QPR could be a little bit closer to the trap door. have actually got them minus six places from last season where they finished 15th hovering on the edge but staying in the division for another season. Uh 20th I’ve got Oxford and I’ve gone back and forth on this and uh there are iterations and drafts of my one to 24 where Oxford are relegated quite a few of them actually. um when you kind of do it based on probably size, scale, scope, probable budget, not that we get any of that information for another 18 months. Um as well as some really naff periods last year. Oxford, we’ve said many times, had that weird thing where they were either the worst team in the division last year or they’d do a block of six or eight games where they were like a playoff team or um when Row arrived like best in the best in the division for about seven games. So, there are viability issues. The reason I’ve got Oxford safe is the bloss whose name I just mentioned that I just think Gary Roulet is a guy who has been in the championship for hundreds of games now with Birmingham the first time. Let’s try and do all of Gary Rowit’s clubs. Where did he get? So he was at Burton. And then he went to Birmingham and then Derby and then Stoke and then Milwall and then Birmingham for five minutes for two games at the end of season 23 24 and then back in at Oxford. But I just think he’s super super experienced, knows how to set his side up to not lose. And in a 24 team league, if you do have a club, big or small, who adequately sets up to not lose and do it well, there’s normally a few other clubs who are just crazy or stupid or more bonkers that will finish below them. So that’s my feeling with Oxford. I think it’s down to Gary Row and his experience. Um they were 17th last season, but again for um any of you people whining because there’s a lot of minus numbers understandably in the in the bottom half, we don’t have normal League One teams where we’re expecting a couple of them to go in quite high up the table which obviously artificially then pushes everything below it down. There’s the first new League One club. Um I think Charlton well they’ve actually spent quite a lot now haven’t they? I think like 67 million um euros and they’ve not really sold anything. I know Small went early but that was free anyway. So they’ve kind of gone for it. They’ve kind of got good size and stature um over say the last two three decades having been in the in the Premier League. had problems obviously ownership dragging them into League One, but they’re back and they’re back with Nathan Jones and I do feel Nathan Jones not being wise after the event was a Championship level manager. He’s been in the Premier League obviously managing at league one level. He’s pulled them up and I think he will see Charlton comfortably safe. Got them in 19 kind of three above the drop. Um you could get something spectacular from Jones, couldn’t you? and Jelton. They could, you know, kind of be a bit higher than that. We’ll we’ll see. But I’m I’m being conservative with the fact that I’ve got them surviving and 19th is as comfortable as I’m far to go because I got plenty of other spaces to fill up throughout this video. Obviously 18th Watford. Haven’t got a clue. Honestly, genuinely have not got a clue. So if Watford were fifth, would I be surprised? No. Um, if Watford were 24th, well, I would be surprised because I don’t know what would have happened at Sheffield Wednesday then. Um, but no, I’ve got no idea what Watford are going to do. We kind of have every season, you know, a new manager to start the campaign. And um, I suppose with Cleverly last year there felt like more of a sense of stability because he’s just been at the club as a player for so long. But um, okay, Mr. Pelano came in, he’s had the whole preseason, hasn’t he? had been a few exciting signings actually there at at Watford but everything’s unknown quantity isn’t it in terms of um this manager at English football level um I suppose the pot’s not focusing massively on Ud is a is a positive is it I don’t know but the trend isn’t great 11th 15th 14th so last two seasons Watford have been a bottom half club so it wouldn’t take a lot uh for them to drop just a few more places into the bottom seven there. But again, I think stick your finger in the air with Watford and we’ll know after um a few games. I mean, look at last season. Look at Harland, Tim Valter, and Sunderland and Regis Lee. Where did Hull end up? And Sunderland are now prepping for the Premier League. You just often don’t know with these managers who are not known to English football how they’re going to cope. Um, can you be more LE than poor old Tim Valter who I’m holding up as um my example of a manager I’d never heard of who didn’t do um a terribly good job. Someone who has done a terribly good job is John Msinho. Um, again, I’m knocking them down a place. And you’ve just got to look at this in the calm, cold light of day that, you know, I still haven’t um named two promoted League One teams, um, which is kind of knocking the likes of Pompy um, down a place in this bottom half. Um, I think they did really well last season, didn’t they? Brilliant home form. um used used Fratton and the way they played as well, used Murphy well, used Bishop well. I think Msinho is just a smart I’ve always thought he’s a smart bloke every time um you’d hear him do the um PFA player um stuff back in the day. So yeah, I think he’s a good manager. I think they’ve got excellent stability, excellent continuity. As we said in the manager ranked video, there is only one manager who started last season in his championship job that’s also starting this season in that division in the same job and that is John Msin. So they definitely win on continuity Pompy and I’ll have them um build in stabilize and use whatever language we’re comfortable with but frankly minus one from last season. Blackburn. I’m normally at least eight places out with Blackburn and I was last season. I had them, in fact, I think I might have had them to get relegated. I think they might have been my Preston of last season where it’s like, right, come on. Who am I relegating here? Who are we going to just pick out of the crowd and drop down into the trapoor? Um, weirdly, Blackburn have gone seventh, 19th, seventh, cuz that’s sane and stable, isn’t it? Um, so normally the on paper stuff says Blackburn should struggle and Venkey’s ownership suggests Blackburn should struggle. Um, is the team weaker than last season? Possibly. Is Ishmail as good as Eustus? I liked Ishmael particularly in season one over at Barnsley, but is he as good as Eustus? No, I don’t I don’t think he is. But Blackburn do always confound me. So, we’ll go for the just up down up down to continue. I’ve got the minus nine places. Could have snuck in the playoffs at the end last season, which is ridiculous because I’m sure if you asked a majority of people who watched a lot of Championship to say who were your who were your best teams you enjoyed last year and I think Blackburn would have got many mentions, but um does the league table lie? I was going to try out. The league table doesn’t lie. Sometimes it’s not the best guide of, you know, what teams are doing and it does throw up strange things. Um, doesn’t it? Just tracks that one trend, that 146 game block. But hey, that’s what we’re predicting right here and right now. Blackburn 16th. Yeah, that’s a gamble, isn’t it? West Brom 15th. So, I’m not saying it’s not going to work for Ryan Mason. I’m suggesting do we have a transi trans I can’t speak trans transition season here for West Brom. It feels like the end of the parachute era is properly like done now. There’s no more Bilich. There’s no more Big Sam, Steve Bruce, um Carlos Corberon. That’s all done. Um those players have gradually dripped out. Even Semi Jai and Grady Dian Garner who were stars of the last promotion for West Brom. It’s all gone. The hot free agents Swift and Wallace. Well, Wallace is still there, but Swift is gone now, hasn’t he? And we’re moving on to Ryan Mason, who again we, you know, you can give your opinion, but you can’t tell me, you know, any more than me about Ryan Mason as a first team manager in a permanent job because he’s never managed a game. I know he did a couple of caretaker stints. So, we’re going to learn a lot about Ryan Mace and I just wonder whether um you know it might be trickyish new style of football. Obviously, they were quite tied to um Corbron’s low blocky um counterattacky, whatever you want to call it, pragmatic stuff, which is very worked very well, didn’t it, to have West Brom up in the playoffs two seasons ago. But ninth, fifth, ninth, and I’m gonna go for a drop into the bottom half. And I think Mason will be good if they keep him over a sort of two three year time horizon. But yeah, a bit of a gamble. I got West Brom. That’ll be their lowest finish in years that won’t it. So we will see how close I am. And from a lowest finish to talk about a team who had their highest finish in years, Bristol City. Um, so again, this is another gamble. I gambled on Bristol City and got laughed at last year and I was right. I think did I have them like seventh or did I even have them sixth? I think I had them way higher than everyone. Maybe I didn’t have them in the playoffs, but I was I was laughed at. Um Bristol City never going to even Bristol City fans were telling me Bristol City weren’t going to finish that high last year and they did and it had been a lovely run of progress, hadn’t it? Um I think like 19th, 17th, 14th, 11th, sixth, some something kind of like that, you know, gradual um moving up the table. The issue I’ve got is that Liam Manning has gone. So that’s a that’s a big thing because I do think it was a good managerial performance and I think Strooer is going to be quite different to Manning in respects of Manning was quite cautious and I think Stu is going to be quite aggressive which could be really really good fun couldn’t it but it could be problematic at the same time. So my feeling on Bristol City is you’re taking out a team that finished quite high up. You’re taking out the manager from that team. And let’s be honest, the door opened up and 68 points for sixth. You know, it would it it I mean, if they got promoted with that, it would have been a sensationally low total to be um going up with, wouldn’t it? Um so yeah, I I think there’s going to be a bit of a pull down on Bristol City. Look, it might not be as drastic as I’m going with, but um again, I’ve got those pesky couple of League One teams still to fit in as well. So, dropping Bristol City down eight places. Hope I’m wrong because I’d love to see someone be more Brenford and just gradually move up and up and up and get into the Premier League and stay there and kind of Bristol City your best bet for that at the moment, but I just wonder whether it was too high too soon and the manager going as a is too much of a problem. 13. unlucky for some. Middlesbrough. Do you know what? I’ve got some blooming big guns in my bottom half, haven’t I? Watford, West Brom, and Middlesborough all um well, Watford and West Brom in the Premier League far more recently than Middlesbrough. But I don’t know, right now it’s a bit of a muddle there. It feels like they wanted the Hayden Hackne deal to get done so they could do their summer business. Um and that hasn’t been done. I just wonder whether you get a situation now where Burough have got players lined up to come in and you know the business is all going to be a bit of a muddle and we don’t know what Rob Edwards is going to do. If you get Forest Green Rob Edwards if you get Luton season one Rob Edwards then Middlesbrough won’t be 13th. They’ll be up challenging for the playoffs. They’re in the playoffs won’t they? Um but I don’t know there’s a little too much unknown and there is slippage here from Burough. Fourth, eighth, 10th. They’ve gone down four places and then two places. What’s halfway between that? Three places. I’ve got them going down another three into the bottom half. If your team hasn’t been mentioned yet, more power to you. They are in the top half. And here we go. One that I really struggled to pop and I’ve gone for. I always quite like 12th as a kind of friendly place. Okay. I’m not sure, but I’ll put him in the top half. Rexom, Ryan, Rob, Disney, all of that good stuff. I’ve got no idea what Rexom are going to do. Utterly, utterly no idea. Obviously, if they were to get promoted, it would be National League, League 2, League One to Premier League in successive seasons. It would be the most astronomical rise in the history of the English football pyramid. I wonder whether that’s going to make things too difficult even with the um huge kind of infrastructure in the background and lots of money coming in commercially um in terms of you know worldwide frankly sponsorship. I just wonder whether there’s too big a bridge to gap against too big a gap to bridge bridge to gap too big a gap to bridge against a handful of the teams that I’m about to mention. Well, 11 of them if I’ve got Rex from 12. But I’m a bit unsure. I don’t see it being a big struggle. I know some people have got Phil Parkinson um not surviving the season and Rexom struggling sort of badly. I like the continuity of Parkinson, you know, going into next season. Frankly, um I still think there’ll be a bit more in the window. There’s still another, you know, 25 days or 27 days or whatever is remaining of the transfer window. So, we’ll know more when that’s all complete. So, I’ll go for Rexom to be in the top half. I know some people will stick them in their top six. Fine, each to your own. Again, down there in the comments, but I need 24 teams, not one. Um, but I’ll hedge my bets and stick Rexom in 12th. Should we stay in Wales? and put Swansea in 11th. Do you know what? I’m a bit annoyed about this. I wrote my league down. And I thought, I’m going to do this and then I’m going to do the research after. I’m going to do my hunch first and then I’m going to move teams around and change my mind based on data. And then right at the last minute, I put right where was Swansea last season? Oh, they were 11th. I thought they were lower than that. But obviously they finished really well under Alan Sheen. And so we got some momentum there. I think they went quite hard quite early in the transfer window. Um, a few in, but I’m kind of just going on the momentum and um, a little tiny bit of continuity. I guess I think 12 games as caretaker, one as permanent. And Swansea are one of, spoiler alert, just two teams I’ve got in exactly the same position that they finished last season. There you go. You’re trying to guess the other one now. I can tell you it’s not Derby County. Here comes another gamble. I’m getting I spent so many years taking this video so so seriously and I do want to have a bit of fun with it and there is a bit of fun because I think John Eustace is really good. I think he’s an excellent excellent championship manager and um if you watch my manager rankings video I kind of you know doubled down on that. So, I’m going to triple and quadruple down that with a plus nine positions for Derby, who finished 19th last season. I like the business, you know, spent a bit of money over for Maggie Mang from the um Merit, was it Charlotte or something, some MLS team? I can’t remember which one. Um and Carlton Morris as well. I think that could work out quite well. But again, if you have a manager who knows the league, who’s calm and calculated, who admittedly, in his own words, will set up his team to be hard to beat, and we have evidence that John Eustace, you take you take a club, you put him there, and they will move up the league. And wherever he leaves them tends to be, you know, Birmingham were on the edges of the playoffs when Rooney took it on. Um, Blackburn were on the edges of the playoffs when Ishmael took it on and Derby already a bit of a great escape last season and um, I’m quite excited to see is Eustus as good as I think he is and we’re now going to see a manager who starts building towards you know being a Premier League manager i.e. He’s either going to get a team promoted from the Championship or he’s going to do something like take Derby right towards the top of it, get a parachute job and then get a team promoted or someone could pick him off in the Premier League. We could get Derby promoted in the end. Who knows? Anyway, I’ve got a massive plus nine on Derby. I’m about to do something completely stupid and you’re all going to laugh at me and I don’t care. I’ve done this before and been made to look a buffoon before. I’m doing it. I’m going in on Stoke again. The amount of times we’ve done this since Stoke have been back down in the championship. Came back in 2018 and they’ve been rubbish, haven’t they? Stoke, I don’t know what their um someone actually I’ve got the last three seasons there. 16th, 17th, 18th. So the trend is very much not ninth where I’ve got them. But I mean part of it is that I just want to have a bit of fun with this. Part of it is that I think Mark Robbins is good and over the long term he will build. Part of it is that Stoke are underperforming, you know, in terms of what they are and what they should be as a club. They’ve just been terrible for um years and years. And it’s like hire manager, back manager doesn’t work. sack manager, hire manager, back manager doesn’t work, sack manager. I could do that another three times just to really illustrate my point. Um, so there’s that. And then part of me is just that just variability. It just has to happen at some point, doesn’t it? A club can’t just continually underperform. So, I’m going to have Stoke actually to have a good season. And it would be their first good season since they were finishing kind of halfway up the Premier League in um oh god must have been like Mark Hughes the manager possibly I can’t even remember um seems so long ago now it would have been mid2010s or early 2010s um after the glory days there of Tony Pulis but hey I’m sure we can all have a good laugh and say why did I do it and then I can put Stoke 16th again for the next three seasons but yeah ho h and here comes comes our first parachute team and it’s a year one parachute team and I’ve got them all the way down in eighth. Now, there was an easy thing to do here and a hard thing to do here. The easy thing to do would have been to just put the number six next to Leicester and say we have no idea what’s going to be happen in terms of ownership stuff, chaos, EFL sanctions, points deductions, um transfer embargos, business plans, plus we’ve had a manager change, and we suspect um the two big names, Hermanson, El Canoose might well be sold before the end of the transfer window. So, there is so much we do not know about Leicester. So, I could have just put sixth and then if they’d been anywhere in the top six, I’d have I hadn’t been in the top six, didn’t I? Playoffs or whatever. Um, the gamble would be to either put Leicester in the top two or to put Leicester outside the top six. I don’t think they’re going to be in the top two. I do think there’ll be a sanction. I don’t know what that’s going to be. And I do think there’s this idea at Leicester that things are just being held up and held up and held up and decisions aren’t being made or communicated. And we saw that even coming out of the Premier League and how long it took them to change from Van Nistroy and then how long it took them to finally settle on and get Marty Suentes. So, um, if I’m not going to put them in the top two, then I’m going to go all in on them actually being outside the top six. Now, if it were a level playing field and it were just we’re judging the players and the manager, then Leicester are going to be right up there, aren’t they? But I just think the intangibles and whatever is going to happen from the EFL and whatever’s going to be happening down the road in terms of King Power and um you know if any more silly decisions are made by them then I think it’s actually a potentially a season of clearing the decks. We wonder what the numbers are going to be as well in terms of a possible second breach and a second I mean it wouldn’t be a second breach about the blooming fourth one now under um king power for Leicester but obviously we haven’t had a points deduction yet for reasons we’ve been through 10 million times on the channel already. So that is my reasoning for dropping Leicester just outside the playoff positions. I think it may well be a total of I don’t know around 70ish after a points deduction that might just see the foxes missing out on playoff football and just missing out on the playoffs. I have Milwall kind of one place above their spiritual home of eighth. I think I might have put Milwall seventh last season. can’t quite remember but they’re just very very very consistent mil and even when they had that bad season and um kind of Row went and then Harris had to come and rescue him after Joe Edwards thing did still get back up to 13th and actually nearly finished um in the top half didn’t they either side of that eighth place both times and I don’t know feels fairly ambitious Ivanovic is still there they’ve spent money on Coburn and Alex Neil is just a wise and very very experienced championship manager with years now um in terms of look Stoke is Stoke but got Norwich promoted didn’t he um some good years at Preston as well keeping them I say above their heads above water in the kind of top half of the table and I think he might have even been seventh um there so this would represent a high water mark for Milwwell they haven’t been that high in years and years and years but I just think I’ve Got six more teams coming in this video and it’s going to be a little bit too much for them to get in. As much as I would find it great fun if Milwall were in the playoffs. Are you ready for my top six? If your team hasn’t been mentioned yet, happy days. You might be in the playoffs. You might be in the top two. Coventry City in the playoffs again. Fifth, ninth, fifth. Obviously that first fifth was I mean well they were both very chasing in horrible endings to playoff campaigns because one was at Wembley losing on sudden death penalties in the final and last season we thought we were heading for penalties in the semi-final against Sunderland before that late late headed winner. I always line Coventry up here now as outside of the parachute teams, they’re now the kind of Brenford Brighton type one that’s built up a squad that can kind of challenge the parachute teams with some good trading over the years despite the fact that commentary have never had that extra TV money or been in the Premier League for the longest time. Um, I’ve got a bit of blowback. Um, and it’s not that I’ve turned on Frank Lampard because I’ve always been a big supporter of um, Franks and I’ve always been very defensive of the fact that um, people struggle so hard to have a sensible conversation about an England player who was a great player who then comes down to manager second tier level. People really get confused by that. They can’t seem to get the player out of their head and then just judge the manager for what the manager has done. What he has done is kind of in this very strange little tiny bandwidth of always being pretty good and close to par, but always being kind of just above the minimum you’d expect. So Derby in sixth, yes, hard year, yes, lots of challenges, but did still have lots of support and kind of, I don’t know, par or above the um lowest remaining baseline. and you know, Premier League jobs, whatever. We don’t necessarily need to talk about that on a Championship 1 to 24 video. But again, last season, yes, massive rise up the table for Coventry, but everyone expected him to kind of get things moving in the right direction, you know, if things needed a change after the Robins era ended. But again, this was a squad that had been built up, you know, a very good quality squad that was underperforming in the first half. Um, okay. I think they win like eight in a row at one point. Yeah, that’s that’s brilliant. But then you go, okay, well, gets him back challenging, gets him into playoffs, and then loses in the playoffs again. So, what I don’t want to see from Frank again, and I guess sixth would be around that bandwidth. Um, if he gets in sixth, he’s got to get to um he’s got to get to the Premier League, hasn’t he? For people to not think, oh, well, the problem with um Lampard is he kind of does what it says on the tin and nothing more. Because in this era at the moment where Coventry every year are going to be against three powerful teams coming down from the Premier League, you’re going to have to go over and above. Um but going to be able to put out a very good first 11. I’m sure Vanic that will be done soon and we’re expecting him to leave. But they’ve traded brilliantly. Commentary. They’ve turned themselves into a top level championship team, haven’t they? Um, can he get them over the line now? Can a Coventry get over the line? And can Frank Lampard get over the line? I don’t need to talk about that. All I need to do is put a number six there and we can talk about um actual promotion picks and playoffs way way down the line. In fifth, Norwich. I don’t think many people will have Norwich as high as I’ve got them. I’m kind of um kind of confident about Norwich here. And the first reason is that I really like Liam Manning and I think the manager counts for a lot in these situations. And um as we were kind of saying about John Eustace, you know what happens to clubs when these guys go in? Well, MK that was a big rise from what Russ Martin’s doing up into third and unlucky to miss out with a high points total to Ainssworth’s Wickham. Um yeah, it all went south the next season, but go and go and look at the team that finished playoff semi-final second leg. Um and then all the players being sold and the the team that kind of then tanked the next season. Then Oxford as well struggling down at the bottom. Yes, similar thing we were just saying about Lampard, an underperforming squad that he took right up the league and left them um nice and high. And he’s just left Bristol City in sixth. Yes, with all the caveats I’ve said about low points totals and things of that nature and a possible drop off this season. So, if you take that and add that to the fact that Norwich are a powerful championship entity who have had two 13th place finishes in the past um three seasons. You know, they have been in the bottom half. There’s been issues there, but there has also been a change of owner at the club and a change of sporting director in that time. and I guess how many managers has there been? Dean Smith, David Thagner, um, and Johannes Hoff Torup. So, it feels like it’s been a bit tumultuous at Norwich over the past three seasons. And now I think Manning’s a good bet. I think he’s a seasoned championship manager who’s probably um peaking as a manager now, starting to really get into get into the groove a few years into the kind of profession. And I just like Norwich’s transfer business as well. It feels like they’ve built up a nice um squad, a nice first 11, particularly for Manning. Now, look, we do still expect Josh Sergeant to leave um but he’s still there. And I mean, what happens if you get the transfer window closing and Josh Sergeant has not been sold? Um I I still even if that happens, I’m still going to go with um Norwich to be up in the playoffs and Manning to be there again. So yeah, knit all of those things together, Manning, Norwich signings, uh transition over history, etc., etc. I’ve got them back up there in the playoffs behind Southampton and I’ve got Saints in fourth and we’re at the point now where probably we could put any of the remaining teams at first and I’m sure a lot of you will have a lot of these remaining teams in first that I don’t and it just depends really about will still, doesn’t it? because with all humility um we don’t know anything about Will Still’s capacity to manage a team in the EFL or rather we don’t have any evidence of Will Still’s capacity to manage a team in the EFL. Now if things stay nice and calm at Southampton i.e. um he’s been in there a while training is good um the dressing room is good and we don’t get some silly churn right at the end of the transfer window. I know Fernandez and Dibling are still there. Ramdale has gone. Um, Sullemana has gone as well. I So, I think they’ve done some business. I think the PSR position is fine from what I understand, especially after offloading Livermento and Lavier and Ward Prrow last time they came down. If all of that stays calm, in theory, if Will Still is good at managing a football team, then Southampton should be right up there. I do think there’s still a little bit of unknown about it, which was why I haven’t got them in the in the top two. Maybe there could be a a bedding in period. I don’t know. Maybe is it a struggle now with the headlines and the headlights and all of that shining on um Will still and the expectation I hate to say it that there that four that’s about as low as you can go with um a year one parachute team. I know I’ve got Leicester lower than that. There’s obviously big mitigating factors there with a potential points deduction but yeah that’s the expectation. So, you just wonder whether that can play into it with someone who hasn’t necessarily run this race before. But look at the squad. If he’s decent, they’ll be around there. If he’s good, they’ll be higher than that, won’t they? Um, Southampton. So, let’s drop our um second year one parachute team in fourth and we will go to a year two parachute team, Sheffield United. And I wonder, this is a bit of a gamble. I wonder whether people are sleeping slightly on Sheffield United. Now, the obvious thing to do would be to knock them down a couple of places, stick them in fifth, sixth, maybe have them miss in the playoffs because the manager has gone from last season. Um, Chris Wilder. Um, and because they go from a year one to a year two parachute team, they’ve changed owners and Vinnie Souza has gone. Armad Hodic still there. Hmer still there. I tell you what, if those two stay, that’s decent. Um, and here come the butts. And the first one is Sheffield United might actually be a bit more stable. I know they’ve changed manager than Southampton, Ipsswitch, and Leicester, especially if they keep Hmer and Arman Hodzic. And this will be a contentious view, but Ruben CZ v’s Chris Wilder, and I have the utmost respect for what Chris Wilder has done, particularly at Sheffield United. But right here, right now, regardless of any emotional attachment and loyalty now that Wilder is gone, and yeah, probably I wouldn’t have changed him. Yeah. So, I’m not contradicting myself. I’m saying that now he is gone. Long term is Cellers a better bet. Have they traded up in terms of manager? So you take a team that on pitch scored 92 points last season. Yes. You know there’s some mitigating factors there. Souza’s gone and yeah sometimes it was a bit gambly and a bit onegoal win and you know like how they how are they doing this? But um I think if there’s a bit more of a squeeze and the points totals drop a little bit and it’s a bit more competitive and we don’t just have four teams beating the entire division and then everyone else then I don’t know maybe Sheffield United can can challenge and they do challenge at this level and look second championship Premier League relegation third championship and obviously um before then it would have been like fifth I think they finished with Yukanovich and then Heckin Bottom, Premier League, Premier League and then before that it would have been second Championship again. So, this is generally a club that um hasn’t dropped below playoff positions and I wonder if they could be in there again and I wonder I think Cers is good and he now has been in English football with Reading and he’s been in the Championship with Hull and I think he’s going to be ready to go and I just wonder whether Sheffield United might be a few places higher than people imagine they will which is why I’ve got them in third. automatic promotion and all summer all I have heard is hype for Birmingham City. So, have I been brainwashed? Well, yes, looking at this and look, I might sit here in November with Birmingham nowhere near automatic promotion and go, “Yeah, look, it was a quiet summer and the off- pitch stuff is all we had to listen to.” And the excitement and the fervor and the narrative around Birmingham. I drank the Kool-Aid and I got drunk on it and I had them too high. We might say that. That might be the case. and Birmingham might not be anywhere near the hype, but I quite like the hype. I like the transfer business. Um I mean we talk always we talk about money and we talk about parachute payments and financial power and Rexom on the one hand and Birmingham particularly are bridging that gap and really really pushing for it and it’s not been a careful approach by Birmingham and I when I say it’s not been careful I’m not saying it’s careless but what I’m saying they’ve done is they’ve not gone right let’s be very pragmatic and build for a three a fivey year run in the championship and then end up in the Premier League. No, they’ve literally gone, you know, bang. I don’t know, Deari Gray, the um two Japanese lads, um Asai Samuel, Tommy Doyle, um built a whole team, haven’t they? Beedle, etc., etc. And now, I mean, it’s Akom this week, a guy who’s been the top scorer in the division before. It does feel like they want to do it this season and yeah, could they fall flat on their faces Birmingham? Of course they could. Do you remember Stoke City in 20189? Gary Row went there. They took a manager who just been in the playoffs with Derby on an upward trend. They had the parachute payments. They spent loads of money. They bought about nine players, built a new team and they sucked and it all went wrong. But that’s a comparison. It’s probably a false equivalence. Birmingham scored 111 points last season. They’ve got an established pattern of play and I do think intangible momentum and feeling around a club and just a pull towards the Premier League can be a thing. Yes, I am contradicting myself. I said for well the longest time after Ipsswitch’s promotion, when will this be done again? When will someone go back to back? And don’t get me wrong, if Birmingham go back to back, that won’t be what Ipsich did. What did was absolutely extraordinary in terms of it was pretty much most of the League One team that went straight through. If Birmingham go back to back, they’re powering their way through and they’re building a championship team to do it. So, yeah, it would be spectacular if they did it, but I’m just addressing my no one will do that for um another decade or whatever comment. Birmingham are doing it in a slightly different way. I did say on a few Birmingham podcasts actually when I spoke to people or they don’t want to do too much in terms of you know just ride out your team from last year that knows how to win. Add three or four then go again in January and see where you are around that top six, top four, whatever if that’s the case. But if you were going to go this was how to do it was just build a new team, build a spectacular team. And that appears to be what Birmingham have done. So, I’m going to stick them in second position. Um, look, if the parachute teams, particularly Southampton, are good and are at par, they’ll finish above Birmingham, won’t they? Um, if things are not online at Birmingham and the hype has been the hype has been a lot, we know that, and the hype is too much, then of course Birmingham will be lower. But, I do think they’re going to be very, very competitive. And I’m very excited to see what happens after Friday night when I would like them very much to lose to Ipsswitch on opening day. And ladies and gentlemen, speaking of Ipsswitch, oh my god, this has been so bloody hard. You have no idea when you’re doing YouTube. And I’m very flattered to be known as quite a reasonable thinking guy who doesn’t go down the whole we was robbed. you’re our manager’s the best in Europe or whatever. I try and be very reasonable and call it as it is. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to put the team that I support first in a one to 24. And I’ve tried, I’ve done the dance, I’ve thought, am I being emotionally reactive towards Ipswich? And then I always get accused then by the IPS fans of overcorrecting. And I always say at this point, both of you are talking crap. I’m trying my absolute best to call this down the middle. And if I didn’t support Ipsswitch, I think I would have Ipsswitch first. And first place is quite predictable in the Championship. And I can say that with some authority because I got it right with Leads in 2020. I got it right with Norwich in 2021. I got it right with Fulham in 2022. I got it right with Leicester. in 2024. I got it right with leads in 2025 as well. It’s normally predictable and most of those, in fact, all of those I predicted except for leads were year one parachute teams. Leadeds the first time with um BLA weren’t. They still had a gigantic spend on wages and whatnot. So, Ipsswitch, well, let’s make the comparisons to the other year one parachute teams. They don’t have a new manager. Leicester have Cphuentes. Southampton have still. Okay. So, I think that’s a tick in Ipsswich’s box putting them over and above those teams. Leicester also we think have EFL sanctions. Ipsswitch don’t have that as well. Everyone very patronizingly and clangingly said during last summer Ipsswich are building a team for the championship next season. We cannot have it both ways here. We cannot say this is a team being built for the championship and that’s the reason that they’re going to fail in the Premier League and then say, you know, then flip it on its head. Well, okay, is it a Championship All-Star team or is it not? Cuz here we are in the Championship right now. Look, they could have bought the wrong players. It could fail. Um, Ipsric could have been losing for too long last year. Uh, McKenna could have just been on one of those golden momentum runs for two years and now the toothpaste is out of the tube and it’s going to be a struggle this season. That could all be true, but I’m going with the money. Money talks in football. They’re a year one parachute team, Ipsric. They’ve got a manager who’s been promoted out of this league before. There’s only four remaining. We normally have more than that. Check out the manager rankings video for more opinion on that and players there in the squad where you would think I know you can do this for Southampton and Leicester as well but particularly in terms of the championship allstar things people like Jack Clark who was the star player at um Sunderland Filigina Hull Smodics was the top scorer for Blackburn Hurst has been there done it matter was coming for you know 10 million euros or whatever it is O’Shea Greavves on and on we go And I suspect there will be a bit more business done there. So, as much as it’s been a difficult moral maze and logic game to put the team I support first, I hope we don’t get the normal idiot comments about me being biased um and understand why I’ve done it. And if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. And if I’m right, I won’t get any credit. But that’s just the way this works. Oh, we are there. Man, you don’t know how stressful it is doing these 1 to 24 videos. This is always um wellwatched, well viewed, well commented upon thing. And I want to do a good job. It’s nothing to do with ego. You just don’t want to look like a numpty. You know, I people like write news articles about what I say and what when I’m particularly when I’m talking with Sam and you just don’t want to look like an idiot. And yes, we’re predicting the future and nobody knows what could happen. So you you have to have a certain amount of empathy when you’re judging somebody from um predictions made say in August in February next year. But guys, empathy and football conversation and YouTube comments normally quite far apart, aren’t they? Get down there in the comments. And again, there are two numbers there. One is the number 24 and one is the number one. If you only mention one team in your comments, I think you suck. I think you need to try harder. I think you need to do better and look at the big picture and I think you need to grow a pair and do what I’ve done and put your one to 24. Get the whole list in there. It’s the easiest thing in the world. Any you don’t even need to have watched the video to say I think team you support will be higher. Low information, low effort. Do better. Get your one to 24s in the um chat. And again, please help people out. There will be people who are emotionally triggered, who will lose their minds over what I’ve said in this video. Please, I’m not going to do it. I can’t be bothered. It’s a lost cause as far as I’m concerned. But if you want to try and help these guys, point them to the end of this video where I’m talking directly to the people who are screaming and yelling and being abusive to me and getting really, really upset. A, I don’t want anyone to get relegated. Three teams are going down. B, I’ve literally just drawn up the data, made some notes, and tried to do it as best I can. If you think I have an agenda against the team that you support, then this is binary, you’re done. That’s on you, not me. I don’t. And you need to try and work harder in these situations to try and cope with someone having an opinion that you don’t like. And that can be very, very difficult. Okay? But I’m just trying to help out try and improve the discourse in the comments and see I want everyone to enjoy the 2526 season. I know people they work hard. Life is tough. We’ve got bills to pay. We’ve got jobs to do. Some people don’t like their jobs. Some people are in bad situations in life and family. And their escape is the football. And it can be very emotionally triggering when someone suggests that your escape might not be that much of an escape and that you’d find it far more fun if your team didn’t finish where I suggested they were going to finish. So, I get it. I get it. You feel like someone’s taking the hope away from your favorite hobby, your pastime. You love your team. I promise I’m not. I’m literally just putting 24 teams in the order. I think they’re going to finish. Oh, there we go. Let’s put it out to the world now. Get down there in the comments. I need 24 teams in there from you guys. Oh, this will be played back all the way through the season. I’m ready to hit stop. What I’ll do, I’ll link last season and the season before’s videos up and you can see how I’ve got on before. And now that’s done, we can let the carnage begin. The EFL Championship kicks off this Friday.

Benjamin Bloom predicts the EFL Championship table for 25/26

#EFLChampionship

0:00 – Intro
2:07 – Relegated
21:19 – Top Half
32:23 – Top Six
43:53 – Top Two
52:10 – Outro