Who will win promotion to the Championship? Which clubs are likeliest to be relegated to League Two? We answer all the key questions with our League One 2025-26 season predictions via the Opta supercomputer.
A new season of English Football League action kicks off this weekend, and it looks like another strong lineup in League One this time around.
The 2025-26 campaign in England’s third tier will feature as many as eight clubs who have played Premier League football this century, including Luton Town, who were playing in the top flight just two seasons ago before back-to-back relegations.
Leyton Orient are still around following their narrow play-off final defeat to Charlton Athletic in May, while Stockport County and Wycombe Wanderers will also look to go again after their own play-off heartache in 2024-25.
Doncaster Rovers have joined the party after winning the League Two title last season, with Port Vale, Bradford City and play-off winners AFC Wimbledon joining them in League One following promotion.
It promises to be yet another rollercoaster campaign in League One, so we’ve asked the Opta supercomputer to make its predictions ahead of the first round of games this weekend.
Showing the strength of the competition this season, every single club finished bottom of the league at least 10 times across the 10,000 pre-season supercomputer simulations, while all 24 teams won the title in 30+ scenarios. Of course, some clubs won League One far more often than this, and some were relegated a lot more than others.
It is important to understand these projections are based on what the Opta supercomputer knows now. Essentially, if every game in League One 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 certain teams might be realistically aiming to achieve in 2025-26. You’ll have seen various 1-24 predictions by publications this summer and you’ve probably made your own, too; see this as a more unique projection without opinion and instead powered by data…
Who Will Be Promoted from League One?
Stockport County came very close to achieving back-to-back promotions from League Two to the Championship last season but eventually lost out to Wrexham for second place by five points before losing to Leyton Orient in the play-off semi-finals on penalties.
Not since 2001-02 have Stockport played as high as the second tier, but the Opta supercomputer thinks that run may finally end this time around.
Dave Challinor’s side are the supercomputer’s pre-season favourites for automatic promotion from League One, with the Hatters finishing in the top two places at the end of the season in 33.9% of the latest 10,000 simulations.
Stockport are followed in the supercomputer projections by their conquerors in last season’s play-offs, Leyton Orient.
Orient lost to London rivals Charlton Athletic in the 2024-25 League One play-off final at Wembley two months ago, but much of their success last season came via loanee Charlie Kelman.
The forward was the top scorer in League One with 23 goals but will be playing Championship football with Charlton in 2024-25. Despite his absence, Orient won automatic promotion in just over a quarter (25.7%) of the supercomputer’s season sims.
Blackpool are also fancied by the supercomputer this season, despite finishing in ninth last time out. Steve Bruce has experience of success in the EFL, winning promotion on four occasions over spells at Birmingham and Hull City, so it’s not out of the question that he could add a fifth in 2025-26.
After a shaky start, Blackpool did well under Bruce last season, accumulating 50 points across their last 30 games (1.67 per game) – sustain that over a full season, then Blackpool should be in with a great chance of a top-six finish this time around.
Now, you might be wondering why we’ve not covered any of the sides relegated from the Championship last season yet. Luton Town, Plymouth Argyle and Cardiff City should be strong contenders for promotion and are all placed within the top 10 for likelihood of going up automatically.
Winning promotion straight back to the Championship after being relegated to League One the season before is not an easy task, though. Just five of the last 21 teams to drop to the third tier have bounced back at the first time of asking, with none of the past seven seasons seeing more than one team go straight back up.
The last League One campaign to see all three relegated sides earn promotion back to the Championship at the first attempt was 2017-18, when Wigan Athletic (first), Blackburn Rovers (second) and Rotherham United (play-offs) did so.
Luton are deemed the likeliest (10.8% chance of automatic promotion), and in Matt Bloomfield they have a coach who did well in this league last season. Before moving to the Bedfordshire club from fellow Three Counties side Wycombe Wanderers on 14 January, Wycombe were second in League One and just two points off leaders Birmingham.
Tom Cleverley has taken over at Plymouth, and despite criticism of the Watford board following his sacking at the Hertfordshire side this summer, the Hornets were the worst Championship team in 2025, accumulating just 20 points in 23 games. Plymouth fans will hope he can find a winning formula early on in his new job.
Who Will be Relegated from League One?
AFC Wimbledon fans would have been ecstatic back in May when they saw their side prevail in the 2024-25 League Two play-off final against Walsall. It’ll be a hard task for them this time around, however, as they look to avoid going straight back down.
The Opta supercomputer isn’t hot on their chances, seeing the Dons relegated in 32.7% of pre-season simulations, more than any other club in League One before their campaign begins on Friday against Luton at Kenilworth Road.
Four of the last six League Two play-off winners have been relegated from League One the following season. But AFC Wimbledon do have some successful history in this regard, surviving in 2016-17 after a League Two play-off promotion the campaign before, finishing 15th.
The other three promoted sides – Doncaster Rovers, Port Vale and Bradford City – are predicted to fare better than Wimbledon but are still among the seven likeliest sides to suffer relegation from League One in 2025-26.
Northampton Town are the second favourites (32.3%) to go down, while Mansfield Town follow them in the pre-season relegation projections (30.9%).
Opta-Simulated League One Table
After simulating every match of the 2025-26 League One 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: Stockport County – 79.7 average points2nd: Leyton Orient – 76.23rd: Blackpool – 74.44th: Wycombe Wanderers – 74.15th: Reading – 69.96th: Luton Town – 68.27th: Bolton Wanderers – 67.08th: Lincoln City – 66.19th: Plymouth Argyle – 66.110th: Cardiff City – 65.411th: Wigan Athletic – 63.712th: Barnsley – 62.913th: Rotherham United – 61.314th: Peterborough United – 60.315th: Stevenage – 59.316th: Huddersfield Town – 58.617th: Exeter City – 57.018th: Doncaster Rovers – 56.319th: Burton Albion – 55.120th: Bradford City – 54.621st: Mansfield Town – 54.622nd: Port Vale – 54.623rd: Northampton Town – 54.324th: AFC Wimbledon – 54.1
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.
League One Predictions 2025-26: The Opta Supercomputer Projections Opta Analyst.
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