2026 / 27 EFL Championship

[Michael Morris]

[MOZZER2]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

some so called football experts saying this will be the most competitive championship ever

lot's on social media having us favourites to go down next season !

[Harry Paget Flashman]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

some so called football experts saying this will be the most competitive championship ever

lot's on social media having us favourites to go down next season !

Only Lincoln and Charlton have worse odds on staying up than us.

I'd take 4th from bottom and above.

[Trigger]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

They will usually have the promoted teams being one of the favourites to go down.

And even though we were at that level or above for 20 odd years that will be forgotten after a year in league 1. We will read a lot of "beating clubs like Cardiff".

I don't think it looks that bad a division. Could easily do quite well. Certainly based on my limited viewing of the championship this season, it was a bit meh.

[poc]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

some so called football experts saying this will be the most competitive championship ever

[Feedback]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

if we finish 8th we can make the playoffs.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

Wolves should be strong, West Ham, Southampton, it will be hard for anyone else to finish top two, after that a bit of a lottery, I think Lincoln and us will be fine and surprise a few, and let's see who we sign first.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

I know predictions for the new season count for nothing at this time of the year, but it’s very odd that I’ve seen Lincoln, who finished twelve points clear at the top, forecast to finish bottom and us, who finished fourteen clear of anyone else, tipped to finish there as well, yet Bolton (twenty eight behind Lincoln, sixteen behind us) have not been predicted to finish twenty fourth in any of the tables I’ve seen - seems a lot of people were more impressed by Bolton’s showing at Wembley on Sunday than anything Lincoln or us did in the regular season.

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

I know predictions for the new season count for nothing at this time of the year, but it’s very odd that I’ve seen Lincoln, who finished twelve points clear at the top, forecast to finish bottom and us, who finished fourteen clear of anyone else, tipped to finish there as well, yet Bolton (twenty eight behind Lincoln, sixteen behind us) have not been predicted to finish twenty fourth in any of the tables I’ve seen - seems a lot of people were more impressed by Bolton’s showing at Wembley on Sunday than anything Lincoln or us did in the regular season.

I find the whole prediction thing for next season a bit perplexing, it's certainly not as straightforward as some of our performances would suggest. We've literally played teams off the park at times, won 3-0 away with 10 men, and then get smashed by the likes of Plymouth [a]. I recall that as the Bolton [h] game approached I said I thought Bolton looked the best and most effective side in the league yet we had one our our easiest home games ! I have a nagging concern that come next season our lightweight central defence and midfield and weak attack are going to be exposed by stronger and quicker footballers - such as Bolton. Our last 2 seasons in the Championship were marked by a distinct lack of pace with slow ponderous build-up play in front of 10 man defences and I do wonder if we're heading back up to more of the same. Maybe the bookies think that Bolton can adapt better by adding a few decent footballers, compared to City, who may have to re-think their approach against tougher opponents.

[Trigger]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

I find the whole prediction thing for next season a bit perplexing, it's certainly not as straightforward as some of our performances would suggest. We've literally played teams off the park at times, won 3-0 away with 10 men, and then get smashed by the likes of Plymouth [a]. I recall that as the Bolton [h] game approached I said I thought Bolton looked the best and most effective side in the league yet we had one our our easiest home games ! I have a nagging concern that come next season our lightweight central defence and midfield and weak attack are going to be exposed by stronger and quicker footballers - such as Bolton. Our last 2 seasons in the Championship were marked by a distinct lack of pace with slow ponderous build-up play in front of 10 man defences and I do wonder if we're heading back up to more of the same. Maybe the bookies think that Bolton can adapt better by adding a few decent footballers, compared to City, who may have to re-think their approach against tougher opponents.

It's just size of club bias and predicted budgets. Bolton the bigger of the 3 to go up, Lincoln by far the smallest club.

I don't think any of our team were exposed during either match against Bolton. The first a poor match won at the end by us giving the ball away and then a great finish by someone I don't think is their player. The second match we comfortably outplayed them.

If Bolton are staying up then as it stands we will also be more than fine.

[The Lone Gunman]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

I know predictions for the new season count for nothing at this time of the year, but it’s very odd that I’ve seen Lincoln, who finished twelve points clear at the top, forecast to finish bottom and us, who finished fourteen clear of anyone else, tipped to finish there as well, yet Bolton (twenty eight behind Lincoln, sixteen behind us) have not been predicted to finish twenty fourth in any of the tables I’ve seen - seems a lot of people were more impressed by Bolton’s showing at Wembley on Sunday than anything Lincoln or us did in the regular season.

There are obviously many factors involved, but at this stage, the bookies' prices for the Championship will be based mainly around the size of the clubs and/or their potential budgets rather than anything else.

SkyBet currently have the bottom five priced as follows:

66/1 - Bolton
66/1 - Cardiff
66/1 - Preston
80/1 - Charlton
150/1 - Lincoln

Those prices (and those for the rest of the division) will obviously fluctuate as the summer and the transfer window progresses.

As for any actual predictions (and I presume we're talking about the seemingly endless stream of podcasters), those are clearly just nonsense right now.

I was looking at Bolton's record earlier. They were a strange side last season. Bolton were one of only two clubs Lincoln failed to beat (the other was Huddersfield). Both games between Lincoln and Bolton ended in 1-1 draws.

Bolton lost the same amount of games as us (9). Their problem was a ridiculous amount of draws (18, no less, compared to 10 for us).

A mini-league involving only the results of the three promoted sides against each other looked like this:

Lincoln - P 4, W 2, D 2, L 0, Pts 8
Bolton - P 4, W 1, D 2, L 1, Pts 5
Cardiff - P 4, W 1, D 0, L3, Pts 3

Food for thought. City were generally very proficient at beating the weaker sides in the League One last season, but not quite so clever when we came up against the better ones. That will have been noticed by anyone trying to price up next season's Championship.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: 2026 / 27 EFL Championship

There are obviously many factors involved, but at this stage, the bookies' prices for the Championship will be based mainly around the size of the clubs and/or their potential budgets rather than anything else.

SkyBet currently have the bottom five priced as follows:

66/1 - Bolton
66/1 - Cardiff
66/1 - Preston
80/1 - Charlton
150/1 - Lincoln

Those prices (and those for the rest of the division) will obviously fluctuate as the summer and the transfer window progresses.

As for any actual predictions (and I presume we're talking about the seemingly endless stream of podcasters), those are clearly just nonsense right now.

I was looking at Bolton's record earlier. They were a strange side last season. Bolton were one of only two clubs Lincoln failed to beat (the other was Huddersfield). Both games between Lincoln and Bolton ended in 1-1 draws.

Bolton lost the same amount of games as us (9). Their problem was a ridiculous amount of draws (18, no less, compared to 10 for us).

A mini-league involving only the results of the three promoted sides against each other looked like this:

Lincoln - P 4, W 2, D 2, L 0, Pts 8
Bolton - P 4, W 1, D 2, L 1, Pts 5
Cardiff - P 4, W 1, D 0, L3, Pts 3

Food for thought. City were generally very proficient at beating the weaker sides in the League One last season, but not quite so clever when we came up against the better ones. That will have been noticed by anyone trying to price up next season's Championship.

Heaven forbid, but if football matches were ever decided by xg, I read something a couple of weeks ago saying it would have been Lincoln and Bolton going up automatically and I think it turned out that Bolton would have been Champions. I’m reminded of the 12/13 season in which we won the Championship title comfortably, yet Crystal Palace who, from memory, finished seventeen points below us in sixth place, stayed up pretty comfortably (as did runners up Hull) and have been in the Premier League ever since.

You mention podcasts, well the Second Tier is one of the biggest ones on the Championship around and one of the presenters (the smug one I don’t like” but he knows his stuff) was of the opinion that the three sides promoted to the Premier League this season were the weakest trio he could remember to go up with Hull very probably the worst side ever to be promoted since the change from the old First Division (apparently, xg had Hull nearer to the bottom of the league than the top). However, he thought that,despite the relative weakness of the promoted teams, the overall quality of the Championship in terms of strength in depth was fairly high. He concluded that the teams coming down would strengthen the Championship, but Burnley and Wolves were relegated with far less points than we managed in our two PremierLeague seasons and the West Ham writer at the Athletic was talking of his real worries about a second straight relegation!

I think the above shows the pointlessness of trying to predict what the table will look like in a year’s time today and yet I was a bit taken aback by how highly Bolton seem to be rated - I thought they were good on Sunday, but they were so reliant on late goals, particularly at home, as the season went on.