All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely | OneFootball

All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely | OneFootball

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Football League World

·16 Oktober 2025

All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

With almost a fifth of the Championship season played, it's time to take a look at who's the most likely to get promoted come the end of the season.

As we head out the end of the second international break of the season, now is a good time to consider who's the most likely to get promoted from the Championship this season on the basis of what we've already seen.


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There's still a very long way to go, but the 2025-26 Championship league table is really starting to take shape now. With everybody (apart from Blackburn Rovers and Ipswich Town, who have to replay their rain-affected match from a couple of weeks ago) now having played nine games, almost 20% of the season has already played.

So, FLW have put together a list of all 24 Championship clubs, ranked by how likely they are to get promoted this season.

It's important to point out what this isn't. It's not a list of who's the most likely to relegated in reverse, and it's not a predicted final league table.

With that all in mind, let's see who the most and least likely to be celebrating hitting the Premier League jackpot, come next May.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

With a bare bones squad that's already second-from-bottom in the table, ongoing issues over paying their wages on time, a transfer embargo which will severely limit their ability to strengthen in the January transfer window, and the threat of a points deduction of currently indeterminate size, perhaps the biggest question facing Sheffield Wednesday this season is whether they'll finish the season, never mind whether they'll win promotion.

23 Oxford United

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Oxford's promotion from League One through the play-offs in 2024 was a big surprise. They'd finished 19th in the division a year earlier, just two points above the relegation places. Once up, they acquitted themselves well, and managed to finish in 17th place, but that doesn't make this season any easier, and their first aim will be to retain that Championship status again, come next May. Getting planning permission for their new stadium in August means that they may have had their biggest win of the season before summer even ended.

22 Charlton Athletic

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Charlton Athletic had been away from the Championship for five years when they were promoted back through the play-offs after beating Leyton Orient at Wembley. They've done well so far, and they're in 10th place in Championship as the teams head into the international break, but the eight goals they've scored so far is the joint-third lowest total in the division, and that could become a problem later in the season.

21 Derby County

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Derby County struggled last season, only avoiding relegation on the last day, and there hasn't been much improvement so far this season. They've won one and drawn five of their nine matches, and if those draws could be converted into wins, their position would be much, much better. But as things stand, they're in 20th place in the Championship table, and showing some of the same frailties as they did last season. The 15 goals they've conceded in their first nine games, for example, is far too high.

20 Blackburn Rovers

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Fourth from bottom in the table, Blackburn Rovers have been a bit of a yo-yo team in this division, in recent years. They finished last season in 7th place, and nearly managed to bag a place in the play-offs, but relations between the fans and the club's owners are usually in a state of uneasy detente, and that truce could easily end, should results not improve. Blackburn are probably too good to go down, but they certainly don't seem likely to go up, this season.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Although their start to the season has been okay (they're currently one of six clubs tied on twelve points in the middle of the table), Hull City remain under a fee restriction until the end of the next January transfer window, while the foibles of club owner Acun Ilicali give them a heightened propensity towards bad decision-making. They don't seem likely to trouble the top end of the table, this season.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

It has been an eventful last few months for Sheffield United, with heartbreaking defeat in the Championship play-off final, sacking Chris Wilder, hiring Ruben Selles, sacking Ruben Selles, and hiring Chris Wilder again. Wilder's back for a third bite at this particular cherry, and there has already been some degree of improvement in their performances since he returned.

But the team are bottom of the table, have just one win and eight defeats from their nine matches, and have only scored three goals. They have the players to be able to do much better, but even were they to reach their potential in terms of the quality of players at their disposal, they may well already have left it too late for this season.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

Another team in mid-table who did just enough to avoid the drop last time around, Portsmouth don't seem likely to unduly trouble either end of the Championship table. As with Charlton - who they are below in the current table by one goal on goal difference - goals are the issue. Like Charlton, they've only scored eight in their first nine matches. But unlike Charlton, this is their second season back at Championship level, so they're higher up the list on account of that experience.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

It should, in all honesty, be working better than this. On paper, it sounds perfect. A head coach born in the city and started his academy career at Carrow Road who took a team unexpectedly into the play-offs last season has money showered on a complete revamp of the first-team squad.

But things haven't worked out anything like they hoped. Norwich City are 19th in the table and without a win in their last five matches, having lost all four of their home Championship matches. Liam Manning may already be living on borrowed time. With players such as Josh Sargent, one of the most highly-rated forwards in the division, they should be doing much better than they are in the League, but a return to the Premier League is already starting to look like a bit of a pipe dream for the Canaries.

Gambar artikel:All 24 EFL Championship clubs ranked by their potential to win promotion from most least to most likely

We're now more than a third of the way through, so we're getting into the realms of mid-table clubs now. Swansea City are back in mid-table in the Championship this season, and it'll have been five years since they did any different, by the end of this season. In case you were wondering how tight the middle of the Championship is this season, Swansea are one of three clubs to have won, lost and drawn three games far this season, with a goal difference of zero, alongside Charlton and...

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