The Championship: Dave Tindall's 10 year trends predict the 2026/27 winner

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Dave Tindall's Championship Trends - How it works...

The trends feature branched out from golf to football over the summer with previews for both the World Cup winner and Golden Boot.

Both performed well. The tip of a France v Argentina final at 25/126.00 fell just short as the French went out in the last four while top-ranked Erling Haaland landed the 12/113.00 each-way top scorer money by scoring seven times - a tally that would won the Golden Boot in 10 of the previous 12 World Cups.

Winners Spain were ranked second in the outright trends, while top scorer Kylian Mbappe was joint-second in the Golden Boot trends, so we were definitely on the right lines.

I'll have a Premier League trends preview coming soon, but with the Championship kicking off on Friday night, let's first take a look at the second tier of English football.

There's a slight problem in that we're often comparing apples with oranges. How do you equate how a title winner performed in their previous campaign in the Championship with one that had struggled badly and been relegated from the Premier League?

It's tricky but here are five trends that might help us cut to the chase when it comes to this season's Championship race.

What does history tell us when looking at the last 10 champions?

I've used the following categories to try and find out: Last Season's Finish, Parachute Payments, Manager Experience, Odds, Second-Half Of Season Points

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Last Season's Finish - where and how high?

Let's use the opening category to remind ourselves how the trends points scoring system works. The key is frequency and points tallies are awarded based on where each of the last 10 Championship winners had played their football the previous season.

The facts are this: five of the last 10 Championship winners had come down from the Premier League so this season's freshly relegated teams - West Ham, Burnley and Wolves - all score 5pts.

Three of the last 10 winners had made the Championship Playoffs in the previous campaign while two others hadn't.

Therefore, the allocation is this:

Played in Premier League last season = 5pts
Made the Championship Playoffs last season = 3pts
Didn't make Championship Playoffs last season = 2pts

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Parachute Payments - huge advantage

Another way of seeing how relegated teams perform is judging the impact of parachute payments.

Payments are highest (around £45-50m) in the first season of relegation and are reduced in year two (around £35-40m) before there's a sharp drop in year three (£15m).

Therefore, it pays to get out quick while the money is still there. Teams who linger in the Championship will find it much harder to climb out. That's the theory so does it play out?

Six teams in the last 10 years went back up when the payments were highest (Years 1 and 2), Norwich returned in the final year of payments while three others (Wolves, Leeds 2019/20 and Coventry) were promoted with no financial leg up.

Teams in Years 1 or 2 of Parachute payments = 6pts
Teams in Year 3 of Parachute payments = 3pts
Teams with no Parachute payments = 2pts

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Manager Experience - how much does it help?

The churn of Championship managers is extremely high but some we associate as being experts at getting teams up.

Daniel Farke managed the feat with both Norwich (twice) and Leeds while Frank Lampard leaned into his previous Championship experience to help Coventry go up as champions last season.

However, although it was worth asking the question, we can't call this a trend as in the last 10 seasons, five times the triumphant manager had experience of the division while five times he didn't.

Previous Championship experience = 5pts
No previous Championship experience = 5pts

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Odds - how accurate is the market?

It's a common refrain that anyone can beat anyone on any given day in the Championship. But over a season, does the market ultimately prove itself correct?

Often it does. Six of the last 10 pre-season favourites won the title which is good news for this year's market leaders West Ham.

One quirk is that the other four title winners were fifth favourites or longer - Wolves (2017/18), Norwich (2018/19), Burnley (2022/23) and Coventry last season. Lampard's men were 9/110.00.

The scoring is this:

Title favourites = 6pts
Second, third and fourth favourites = 0pts
Fifth favourites or longer = 4pts

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Second-Half-Of-Season Points - can momentum help?

Did Coventry's title win last season come completely out of the blue? Perhaps not when looking at how they'd finished the previous campaign.

Although the Sky Blues only managed 27 points in the first half of the season (Match Day 1-23), they racked up 42 from MD 24-46 (third best in the division).

That's quite the contrast and the most extreme example but, overall, teams who scored more second-half-of-the-season points do better than those who started fast and slowed (just three of 10).

This applies to whichever division they were playing in.

The scoring is this:

Scored more/same points in second-half of last season = 7pts
Scored more points in first-half of last season = 3pts

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The Top Points Scorers

The scores are in and this is how the top 10 in the betting rank.

29 West Ham
25 Southampton
23 Wolves
21 Sheffield United
21 Millwall
20 Birmingham
20 Norwich
20 Wrexham
19 Burnley
13 Middlesbrough

It's West Ham!

Hardly a shock but the trends support the commonly held view that the Hammers will bounce straight back up.

They score the maximum points on offer in every category i.e. played in the Premier League last season, are in Yr 1 of parachute payments, have a manager in Nuno Espirito Santo with Championship experience, are the favourites in the betting and scored more points in the second half of last season (+11) than the first.

Simple then, a win only bet on Nuno's men.

If it seems a long wait to land a 7/42.75 shot, Southampton could offer some interest and intrigue at 12s.

The fall out of 'Spygate' means they start on minus four points but that's baked into the price.

Tonda Eckert is still there and he did an amazing job in the second half of the season. If they can turn the hostility and terrace chants to help forge a siege mentality, Saints have the manager and squad to really push again.

One other option would be to back Southampton to be promoted at 4/15.00.

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Now you've read Dave's Trends get stuck into our 1-24 league predictions for...

The Championship
League One
League Two

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