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 2026-27 season predictions from the Opta supercomputer.
The new League One season gets underway on Saturday, with three early kick-offs to start the ball rolling in 2026-27.
Leicester City were Premier League champions this time 10 years ago, and were in the top flight just over a year ago. However, after back-to-back relegations, they will begin their first season in the third tier since 2008-09 when they travel to newly-promoted Notts County, while Oxford United are also back in League One and host another promoted side in MK Dons.
The third 12.30 kick-off sees Reading face Luton Town.
The rest of the league get started at 3pm, and the possibilities for what will happen in England’s third tier this season almost do feel endless.
That’s certainly what the Opta supercomputer believes, anyway. It’s that time of year where we crank our trusty machine up and it spits out some numbers that get people debating/ranting on social media.
Across 10,000 simulations by the Opta supercomputer, every single team in League One went on to win the title at least 12 times, while each team finished bottom at least 26 times. It really does feel like an open division in 2026-27.
It is worth remembering that these projections reflect only what the Opta supercomputer knows today. In effect, if every game in League One was played today, this is how it sees the league finishing. Of course, these projections will change thousands of times throughout the season, based on real-life data powering the seasonal simulations.
Still, for now, they can at least offer a useful indication of what each club can realistically target.
Most other pre-season predictions are based almost entirely on opinion; see this as a projection without opinion and simply powered by data.
Who Will Be Promoted from League One?
Many might expect Leicester City to be heavy favourites to bounce straight back up, but that would be to somewhat underestimate League One. Cardiff City managed it last season, albeit settling for second behind a dominant Lincoln City, but Luton Town were another team who recently found themselves in the third tier just two seasons after being a Premier League side, and they were unable to get back up last year.
Russell Martin is in place now at the King Power Stadium, hoping to rebuild his own reputation as well as that of the club after a disappointing end to his time at Southampton and a short and unproductive stint at Rangers.
However, the supercomputer makes Leicester only fourth favourites to finish in one of the top two promotion spots this season. The Foxes won the title in just 8.1% of simulations, and finished in the top two in 15.5%.
Funnily enough, Luton are among the favourites this year. After a slightly rocky time after arriving in October, Jack Wilshere steadied the ship at Kenilworth Road last season, and they won eight of their last 10 league games (D2). They ultimately finished a point outside of the play-offs.
The Hatters have made some strong signings over the summer, though, and look well placed to mount a bigger promotion challenge this time. The supercomputer had them winning the title in 14.0% of sims, and securing a top-two finish in 24.9%.
Plymouth Argyle are also fancied by the model, and pretty much nothing separates them from Luton. Plymouth are another team who were relegated from the Championship in 2024-25, and perhaps needed a season to settle back into things in League One. They finished eighth last term, a point behind Luton, and are also managed by a former England midfielder in Tom Cleverley.
If their dramatic late win over rivals Exeter City in the League Cup on Monday is anything to go by, they should have the spirit to compete this season. The Pilgrims also finished first in 14.0% of simulations, and claimed a spot in the top two in 24.9%. Overall, Plymouth did win the league in very slightly more simulations than Luton, so technically are the current favourites.
Stockport County were denied promotion last season in the play-off final, losing 4-1 to Bolton Wanderers at Wembley, and they have since lost manager Dave Challinor. Former player Jimmy McNulty, who did an excellent job in getting Rochdale back in the EFL last season, is now in charge, and the supercomputer is backing him to do well.
Stockport avoided the play-offs and finished in the top two in 18.8% of simulations, winning the title 9.9% of the time.
As well as Leicester, the other two teams who came down from the Championship last season were Oxford United and Sheffield Wednesday. Oxford are under a transfer embargo due to non-compliance with the EFL’s Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) financial regulations, meaning manager Aaron Ramsey has his hands tied somewhat. He still has a strong squad to call on, though, and the U’s earned automatic promotion straight back to the second tier in 12.4% of sims (finished first in 6.1%).
Sheffield Wednesday had a turbulent time last season to say the least, but under new ownership, are looking to build on some rare optimism and look upwards again. Henrik Pedersen has Owls fans believing again, though the supercomputer needs to see a bit more from them before committing to similar enthusiasm. Wednesday only finished in the top two in 7.3% of simulations (title winners in 3.4%).
As mentioned, it is a tight-looking division this year. Half of the competing teams won the title in at least 3.0% of simulations (or 300 times out of 10,000).
Other notable percentages for automatic promotion are Wycombe Wanderers (12.2%), Huddersfield Town (12.0%), Mansfield Town (11.9%), Stevenage (9.4%) and Bradford City (8.5%).
Who is Most Likely to Be Relegated from League One?
It’s not the time of year to be thinking about relegation. Every club wants to be optimistic about their next nine months, but the fact of the matter is four teams will finish in the bottom four, and therefore head down to League Two for the following season.
Who does the Opta supercomputer think is likeliest to do so?
Apologies AFC Wimbledon fans, but your team are quite strong favourites to go down.
Johnnie Jackson’s men survived last season, finishing four points above the drop zone in 19th place, but they did go down this term in almost half of the supercomputer’s sims (47.8%). Now, the Wombles can still be glass-half-full about this. That means in more than half of simulations, they didn’t go down. It just happens theirs is a much higher percentage than any other team.
The next likeliest are Peterborough United, who finished level on points with Wimbledon last season. Luke Williams averaged 1.3 points per game after arriving last October (P33 W12 D7 L14), which would amount to around 60 points across a season. That’s certainly good enough to survive, but the supercomputer isn’t entirely convinced. The Posh were relegated in 31.4% of simulations.
Newly-promoted Bromley, playing in the third tier for the first time in their history, could be up against it too. Andy Woodman’s side impressively won the League Two title last season against the odds, but it is a big step up, and their Opta Power Ranking of 1,141st in the world is also counting against them (only Wimbledon are lower of League One teams). Bromley went back down in 31.3% of sims.
It’s likely to be very tight at the bottom, though. In fact, the supercomputer has assigned at least a 25% chance of relegation to as many as eight teams.
Daniel Stendel is back for a second spell at Barnsley, replacing Conor Hourihane, and though the Tykes were able to pull away from relegation last season to finish 15th, the supercomputer thinks this could be a difficult campaign, seeing them relegated in 28.9% of simulations.
This could be because looking at Opta’s expected points model, Barnsley supposedly won about six more points than they should have last season, and our expected points table had them finishing one place outside the drop zone.
As well as the four mentioned already, Notts County could be in trouble. They came up via the play-offs but despite the excellent job done by manager Martin Paterson to get them back into League One for the first time since 2014-15, the supercomputer saw them go back down in 28.5% of projections.
Other teams with a greater than one-in-four chance of going down are Cambridge United (26.8%), Leyton Orient (25.4%), and MK Dons (25.0%).
Out of interest, the supercomputer had Leicester suffering a third consecutive relegation in just 4.9% of sims.
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.*All prediction data is based on Opta supercomputer projections from Tuesday 11 August 2026.
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