Ahead of their crunch clash next Monday, Middlesbrough have overtaken Coventry City in the Championship table. But can Kim Hellberg’s side stay there?
Middlesbrough took top spot in the Championship with a 2-1 victory at Sheffield United on Monday, overtaking a Coventry City side who had been in first place on every day since 18 October.
Middlesbrough overtaking Coventry comes at a perfect time for neutrals, as the two sides face off next Monday at the Coventry Building Society Arena. That fixture offers Boro a chance to extend their lead at the top to five points, but if Frank Lampard’s Coventry win, then they’d retake the lead with 14 matchdays remaining.
Back on 4 December, ahead of matchday 19, Coventry held a 10-point lead at the top of the table (43 points), with Middlesbrough sat in second place on 33 points.
Since that day, Coventry’s form has fallen off a cliff, with the Sky Blues collecting just 16 points from 13 games (W4 D4 L5) – 15 other Championship clubs have won more over that period. The same can’t be said for Middlesbrough, who top the table in that timeframe (28 points from 13 games), while Ipswich – hot on their tails in third place – have collected 26 points from one game fewer.
Middlesbrough have a chance to avenge their 4-2 defeat against Lampard’s side on 25 November, a match that was won with two goals in the final six minutes. Although Kim Hellberg was appointed as Boro manager the day before, he wasn’t in charge for that game, starting his reign with a 2-1 win over Derby on 29 November. Since that day, Boro have been the best-performing Championship club, winning a league-high 31 points.
The 2-1 victory at Bramall Lane on Monday means Boro have now won six successive Championship matches, which constitutes their best winning run in the league since October 2023. A seventh win in a row would mean this is their longest winning streak in the league since May 1987, put together en route to promotion from the third tier.
Coventry’s form, meanwhile, has taken a nosedive since the start of December. Following a five-game winning streak, they’ve since won less often (four wins) over a 13-game spell. But their unbelievable start, when they averaged 2.39 points per game, gave them a headstart on their rivals.
They have already ended 127 days top of the Championship table this season, but they could miss out on automatic promotion if their poor form continues.
Middlesbrough are guaranteed to be top of the Championship until at least 15 February now, but even including days between now and their fixture with Coventry on 16 February, they’ll have been top of the league for just 43 days.
Since the Championship rebrand in 2004-05, none of the 16 teams to spend more days top of the table than Coventry have this season (127) have failed to win automatic promotion to the Premier League.
In fact, in that time, only one team have topped the league table for 100 days or longer and then failed to win automatic promotion.
Leeds United ended 120 different days in first position in 2018-19 but were eventually pushed out to third place behind Norwich City and Sheffield United. To make matters worse for Marcelo Bielsa’s side, they were then knocked out of the play-offs at the semi-final stage by Derby County.
The most days a team have spent top of the Championship in a season since 2004-05 and failed to win the title was Southampton’s 187 days in 2011-12, when they finished as runners-up to Reading by a single point. They still won automatic promotion, though.
This season, the Opta supercomputer now has Middlesbrough as the favourites for a spot in the top two.
Based on the 10,000 simulations of the remainder of the 2025-26 season, Boro finished inside the top two places 78.3% of the time. Coventry, meanwhile, have fallen from a 97% chance (when leading by 10 points) to 66.7% now. This still gives Coventry a very good chance of becoming a Premier League club for the first time since 2001, but Ipswich are now only five points away with a game in hand, and Coventry’s numbers are plummeting.
The question now is whether the rot has set in at Coventry, and if Middlesbrough can take advantage on Monday to open an even bigger lead at the top of the Championship table.
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Middlesbrough Top as Coventry Drop: Is the Biggest Championship Choke of All Time on the Horizon? Opta Analyst.
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