Who will win promotion to the Premier League? Which clubs are likeliest to be relegated to League One? We answer all the key questions with our Championship 2025-26 season predictions via the Opta supercomputer.
With League One and League Two under way for the 2025-26 season, we now look ahead to the Championship, which kicks off on Friday night when Birmingham City host Ipswich Town.
Leicester City, Ipswich and Southampton are back after a year in the top flight, as are Birmingham after their brief stint in League One, while Wrexham and Charlton Athletic also join them from the third tier.
That means a lot of familiar faces are back to try again, but given the notorious unpredictability of the Championship, that doesn’t mean it’ll be more of the same.
Despite that unpredictability, we’ve turned to our trusty Opta supercomputer to make its predictions for what we can expect to see between now and May 2026 in England’s second tier.
We can confirm that each of the 24 clubs finished bottom of the league at least 12 times across the 10,000 pre-season supercomputer simulations, while every team won the title in a minimum of 104 scenarios.
It is important to understand these projections are based on what the Opta supercomputer knows now. Essentially, if every game in the Championship was to be played today, this is how it sees the league finishing. Of course, these projections will change throughout the season, thousands of times, based on real-life data powering the seasonal simulations.
Nevertheless, these pre-season projections provide an early look at what each team might be realistically aiming to achieve in 2025-26. Most other pre-season predictions are based almost entirely on opinion; see this as a projection without opinion and instead powered by data…
Who Will Be Promoted from the Championship?
It is every EFL team’s dream to make their way to the riches and the glamour of the Premier League, so who will be the three to make it in 2025-26?
Last season, Leeds United and Burnley were two of the top three favourites to go up according to the supercomputer, though admittedly it also suggested Sunderland would finish 21st, so everyone should have some hope.
The favourites for the 2025-26 Championship season? Sheffield United.
They suffered defeat to Sunderland in the play-off final at Wembley a couple of months ago, but the Blades could consider themselves unlucky not to have finished in the top two in the regular season. They were just the third side in the history of England’s second tier to win as many as 90 points yet still fail to get automatically promoted.
Whether they can achieve a similar points total or better this season will depend on how well Rubén Sellés takes to the managerial role at Bramall Lane, with the former Reading and Hull City boss replacing Chris Wilder over the summer. The supercomputer is backing them, anyway, giving Sheffield United a 41.1% chance of going up this season.
Other than that, it’s incredibly tight for all other teams, with no-one else getting promoted in more than one-in-six simulations.
Leicester were unable to stay in the Premier League despite their impressive promotion campaign in 2023-24, and they’ll be looking to bounce back at the first time of asking under new boss Martí Cifuentes, who has replaced Ruud van Nistelrooy. The Foxes have lost legendary striker Jamie Vardy as well, but they are still second favourites for promotion according to the supercomputer at 16.0%.
Kieran McKenna remains at Ipswich despite them also coming straight back down, and that continuity could help the Tractor Boys, who get back into the top flight in 15.2% of simulations. McKenna’s Ipswich were promoted automatically with 96 points in the 2023-24 campaign, and a lot of those players remain at the club.
The third of the relegated teams, Southampton, do have a new manager in Will Still, who arrives after making quite the name for himself in France. Saints had a torrid time in the Premier League last season, though, finishing just one point ahead of Derby County’s record-low total of 11 in 2006-07, but the supercomputer thinks they’ll fair a lot better back in the Championship. Southampton go straight back up in 11.2% of sims, though there is another club who are more fancied than that.
Frank Lampard’s Coventry City nearly made it last season, with a late surge towards the end of the campaign seeing them sneak into the play-offs, only to be denied by Sunderland in the semi-finals with a late goal in extra-time in the second leg. The Sky Blues will hope to take that momentum from the end of the regular season into this one, and the supercomputer makes them fourth favourites for promotion at 14.4%.
Middlesbrough were the supercomputer’s second favourites last season, but despite a promising start, fell away to finish 10th. They are another team to change manager over the summer, with Rob Edwards replacing Michael Carrick. ‘Boro go up in 9.4% of sims this time, as do Ryan Mason’s West Brom.
Bristol City were comfortably beaten in the play-offs last season by Sheffield United, and the supercomputer doesn’t currently see them finishing in the top six this time. The Robins go up in 9.0% of sims, with a predicted finish of ninth.
Like Coventry, Millwall made a late run for the top six last season, but narrowly missed out, along with Blackburn Rovers on the final day. The Lions have a 9.1% chance of promotion this time, though, ahead of Blackburn’s 6.6%.
Who Will Be Relegated from the Championship?
Looking back at last year’s effort, the supercomputer successfully predicted that Cardiff City and Plymouth Argyle would go down.
The third prediction for relegation was Oxford United, freshly promoted from League One. They had an impressive return to the second tier, though, finishing 17th.
The supercomputer is sticking by its guns, though, and has made Oxford the favourites to go down this season. Of course, that’s not out of bitterness (we don’t think, a sentient supercomputer certainly wouldn’t be ideal) but the U’s are relegated in 21.7% of simulations.
It should be noted that for relegation favourites, that is a very low number. The relegation fight promises to be even less predictable than usual this season, as indicated by the fact that even the favourites to go down only do so in around one in five sims. Last season there were four teams given a higher chance of relegation by the supercomputer prior to the first matchday, and one of those was Sunderland, who were ultimately promoted.
Very narrowly lower in percentage are Watford, which may be a surprise to some. The Hornets didn’t end last season particularly well, winning the fewest points in the second half of the season (20 from 23 games), which led to Tom Cleverley being dismissed as manager, but they did still finish 14th. Their latest manager Paulo Pezzolano is new to English football and will be looking to prove the supercomputer wrong, though it must be pointed out that Watford have more chance of finishing in the top nine (22.8%) than they do of being relegated (21.7%), which also shows how tight the projections are.
Much focus, as ever, will be on Wrexham ahead of their first season back in the second tier since the 1981-82 season. Hollywood’s elite will be keeping an eye on things as Phil Parkinson’s side look for a fourth successive promotion, though the supercomputer is setting its sights on the other end of the table. Wrexham go down in 20.2% of sims, slightly more often than fellow promoted side Charlton Athletic (20.1%).
Preston North End survived on the final day of last season but were unable to repeat the trick in 19.6% of simulations, as did Stoke City, who go down in 19.1%.
We should also mention Sheffield Wednesday, who are going through some stuff right now to say the least. The club have struggled to pay their players, some of whom have voided their contracts to go elsewhere, while manager Danny Rohl left last week to be replaced by former assistant Henrik Pedersen. Things don’t look great at Hillsborough as we approach the new season, but the supercomputer obviously can’t factor any of that into its data-led projections, so take their predicted finish of 14th with a pinch of salt.
Opta-Simulated Championship Table
After simulating every match of the 2025-26 Championship season 10,000 times, we’re able to average the points total of every club across those simulations and rank teams positionally. Here are the Opta supercomputer results from those sims:
1st: Sheffield United – 80.7 average points2nd: Leicester City – 70.43rd: Ipswich Town– 70.44th: Coventry City – 68.75th: Southampton– 67.26th: West Brom – 65.97th: Millwall – 65.48th: Middlesbrough– 65.49th: Bristol City – 65.310th: Blackburn Rovers – 63.411th: Swansea City – 62.612th: Norwich City– 62.013th: Birmingham City – 61.514th: Sheffield Wednesday – 61.315th: Portsmouth – 60.716th: QPR – 59.717th: Hull City – 59.618th: Derby County – 58.619th: Preston North End – 57.820th: Stoke City – 57.621st: Wrexham – 57.422nd: Charlton Athletic – 57.223rd: Watford – 56.924th: Oxford United – 56.3
How Does the Opta Supercomputer Model Work?
Opta’s League Prediction model estimates the likelihood of teams finishing in each position in the competition. We can therefore see how successful a team’s season is likely to be, whether it’s their relegation or title chances. The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) by using betting market odds and Opta Power Rankings. The odds and rankings are based on historical and recent team performances. The model considers the strength of opponents by using these match outcome probabilities and simulates the remaining fixtures in the competition thousands of times. By analysing the outcome of each of these simulations, the model can see how often teams finished in each league position to create our final predictions.Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Championship Predictions 2025-26: The Opta Supercomputer Projections Opta Analyst.
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