Ranking the eight Championship promotion contenders we most want to see in the Premier League | OneFootball

After the double bill of the Easter weekend, the Championship is heading into the crunch period of the season with just five games left in the regular campaign.

Frank Lampard’s Coventry look the only team with their future decided, giving us eight teams in contention for promotion to the Premier League. But which of those do we most want to see go up?

We’ve taken the league’s top eight teams and ranked them on who we want to see in the Premier League next season…

8) Wrexham

Let’s be honest, the Sky Sports love-in for a potential Premier League Wrexham would be vomit-inducing, wouldn’t it?

You just know they’d be picked for the opening Friday night of the season, probably at home to Arsenal, and shots of Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds may well outweigh footage of the actual match.

To be fair, a team that theoretically secures four consecutive promotions to go from the National League to the Premier League is worthy of respect, but it does come with the added context that they have spent their way to success.

Only Southampton and Ipswich spent more this season, but those two had players to sell, meaning Wrexham have the highest net transfer spend of the whole division and while the Hollywood owners do have backing, it is a different level in the state-funded Premier League.

7) Derby County

Derby even battling for the play-offs is a success story in itself given where the club was just five years ago, but they currently look the weakest of the teams with a realistic chance of going up.

Should they get promoted, the Rams would need a Sunderland-esque overhaul of the squad and without that, they may even rival their own 11-point league low total.

6) Hull City

For those of a certain age, Hull City fit neatly into the category of semi-regular Premier League team but it’s been nine years since their relegation back in 2017.

In that time, they have had a spell in League One but after finishing 21st last year, are now right amongst it for playoff contention.

For a club not exactly near a footballing hotspot, the Tigers do have a recent history of helping nurture some of the Premier League’s best talent. Andy Robertson, Harry Maguire and Jarrod Bowen all played there while Jaden Philogene, now at Ipswich, looks a talent for the future.

In terms of the current squad, on-loan Leeds midfielder Joe Gelhardt and Oli McBurnie (yes, that one) are joint fourth top scorers in the league but they may struggle in the top flight to produce a similar output.

5) Ipswich Town

A few years ago, Ipswich would have been near the top of this list given the 20-plus-year absence for a team that has plenty of history, but a recent taste of the Tractor Boys in the Premier League means they are down in fifth.

There are reasons to think it may be different second time round though. Kieran McKenna remains in charge, making him the 11th longest serving manager in the country, and will have learnt from the experience of his first season coaching in the top flight.

Ipswich can also be a fun team going forward with the likes of Philogene providing some wonder goals over the course of the season but they struggled to score goals last time they were in the Premier League.

There will need to be some squad strengthening especially in the No 9 spot and if we are having a go at Wrexham for being Sky favourites, it is only fair to mention that Ed Sheeran seems contractually obliged to be mentioned any time broadcasters speak of Ipswich.

And then there’s the Nigel Farage thing.

4) Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough appeared to be part of the Premier League furniture back in the early 2000s but they have spent just one season in the top flight since 2009 and are due a return.

Boro are the kind of team that have been there or thereabouts in terms of the Championship with top-eight finishes in five of their last eight seasons but this year they did look ready to go that one step further.

A late-season crumble looks as if playoffs are likely but plenty of neutrals would be happy to see them back in the Premier League.

3) Southampton

If you had asked us just a few months ago if we wanted to see Southampton back in the top flight, the answer would have been an unbothered ‘meh’ but since Tonda Eckert arrived, the Saints have become one of the most exciting teams in the country.

While the Arsenal scalp in the FA Cup was the most newsworthy, it is their form in the Championship that has been most impressive with no teams having earned more points since the German took over.

He joined when the Saints were 21st and has them not only well in play-off contention but even with an outside chance of automatics.

Southampton, unlike their last Premier League iteration, now have a team that likes to score goals for fun and Tuesday’s 5-1 dispatching of Wrexham was testament to that.

2) Coventry City

Frank Lampard faced an uphill battle when he arrived in Coventry back in November 2024.

Mark Robins, the then longest serving manager in the Championship, had just been sacked, and with four Wembley trips, two promotions, an EFL Trophy win, and an FA Cup semi-final on his CV, Lampard had big shoes to fill.

He did so at a time when many wondered whether he was a very good manager after failure at Everton but Lampard has turned Coventry into runaway Championship winners when most tipped them for play-offs at best.

He has done that by making a team capable of scoring goals from anywhere. Coventry have hit 84 goals this year with three players into double digits and the Sky Blues going up will be a chance to see if Lampard really does have what it takes to be a Premier League boss.

1) Millwall

While Millwall fans are not as bad as some Premier League executives currently quivering over their pitta and hummus believe, having a team that does not fit the corporate world of the top flight would be a refreshing change.

The Den would be exactly the ‘kind of place big teams do not want to go’ and we can already see images of Mikel Arteta or Arne Slot looking furious as their teams trail 1-0 surrounded by fans singing ‘No one likes us.’

There are also plenty of derbies to look forward to and if Millwall do go up, their fans will be hoping that West Ham are there to meet them.