EFL Championship Betting Tips: History hints who to back for promotion, including a 13/2 shot | OneFootball

The Championship is one of the best leagues in the world unless you happen to be in it.

Across nine grueling months and 46 soul-sapping games, teams of relatively equal stature - certainly in comparison to the polarized Premier League - are tested to the extreme. It is as much a challenge of endurance as a measure of ability.

What's more, it is often a closely run affair. With ten fixtures remaining last time out nine teams were still in contention for the play-offs while only ten points separated 12th spot from 23rd.

Naturally then, when looking ahead to another extended slug-fest decided by fine margins it makes sense to study the obvious details. Who has had a successful transfer window? Whose manager has previous for taking a side up? How did each promotion contender fare in the latter half of 2023/24?

And history too plays a part, especially when it concerns a league as unique as this one.

Indeed, revisiting the last 25 Championship campaigns brings up patterns and trends that are compelling.

Sunderland can close top-six gap

With all three relegated sides dominating the promotion landscape last season, ultimately finishing first, third and fourth, the usual concerns about parachute payments were voiced. Teams that drop into the second tier not only boast top-flight infrastructure but are rewarded with a financial advantage too.

And yet, when going all the way back to the start of this century we find that the art of yo-yoing is on the decline, even if there is typically one team that immediately recovers from dropping and comes back stronger.

Elsewhere, there are countless examples of teams failing to find any bounce-backability and pertinently the 75 relegated sides since 2000 have averaged a league placing of eighth a league below.

So what of the Championship residents who come good? It is tempting to believe that sides who knocked at the door a few months before should be strongly fancied, and there is certainly evidence to back this theory up.

Of the 53 established second-tier sides who achieved promotion in the last 25 years, 21 of them finished their preceding campaign sixth or better.But again, umpteen examples go against the grain. In May, Ipswich became the fourth club since the Millennium to experience back-to-back promotions. In 2017 Huddersfield made a quantum jump from skirting relegation to play-off winners. Derby, Hull and Watford did likewise in the mid to late 2000s.

Meanwhile, mid-table finishers going up 12 months later has been a common occurrence.

Sunderland are tipped to repeat this trend. The Mackems underwhelmed last season but have a plethora of exciting kids who could ignite under new boss Regis Le Bris.

Can Burnley lead the relegated trio?

Still, as stated above, we should never discount the distinct possibility of a team coming down only to promptly return with a bang.Relegated sides have topped the table the following May in each of the last four seasons and that trend can be extended further. In the last 25 years, 40% of Championship champions were in the Premier League twelve months prior.

Burnley were one such club, shrugging off the doom and gloom of relegation to boss the second tier in style in 2022/23. Can the Clarets pull off the same feat again?

For sure, they should be most fancied of the relegated trio, retaining a nucleus of players who excelled at this level two years back. Moreover, in Scott Parker they have a manager who has two promotions on his C.V. via two different teams.

Should there be a question mark however over a team's capacity to rack up 90+ points under new management? As we'll discover, that is no hindrance at all.

Norwich look to new-boy Johannes

This is an odd one, a phenomena that is difficult to explain, but to ignore it would be folly.

Between 1999/00 and 2016/17 - 18 seasons all told - 18.5% of promoted sides had new managers, either coming in over the summer or arriving as late as January.

That is a wholly unexceptional figure, one that makes sense. After all, it typically takes time for an incoming coach to get his ideas across. It takes even longer for him to forge a squad that he's happy to go into battle with.Less than one in five times, when assessing promoted sides, this has not been the case and things have gelled from the off. That's fine. We can live with that.

Except that in recent seasons that figure has mushroomed.

In the last seven years 52.3% of promoted sides have been overseen by a newly appointed gaffer.

Norwich are on many people's radar anyway, a cracking collective bolstered by lots of experience and elevated by game-changers such as Gabriel Sara. Arguably, David Wagner failed to get the best out of what he had at Carrow Road.

Might that change under Johannes Hoff Thorup, whose innovative set-up promises much?

Leeds United: the play-off losers

In 2006, Leeds United lost a Play-Off final to Watford. Twelve months later they finished rock bottom of the Championship.

Nobody of course is suggesting a similar fate awaits them this term, after losing a tight and tense final at Wembley last May. The Yorkshire giants are in decent shape under Daniel Farke and in possession of Crysencio Summerville, last year's Championship Player of the Season. Their points tally in 2023/24 would have seen them automatically promoted more times than not.

Even so, the long-standing belief that Play-Off losers endure a hangover across their subsequent campaign has substance to it.In the last 25 years only three Play-Off final losers have gone on to finish top three. The overall average league placing post-heartbreak is ninth.

Regardless of how they ultimately fare it can understandably take some time for the melancholy to lift. Only four Play-Off losers have won their subsequent opening fixture in the last decade.

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