Leeds should go up but can someone 'do an Ipswich'?

Richard Jolly previews the Championship contenders

- Richard Jolly

There is a case for arguing that Ipswich Town rode to the rescue of the Football League and English football’s pyramid system last season. The three clubs relegated from the Premier League were the trio who had been promoted the previous year. Three of the top four in the Championship had been relegated from the top flight 12 months earlier.

The interlopers, the exceptions, were Ipswich – marooned in League One, they then surged through the Championship at the first time of asking. As the Football League starts again tomorrow evening, it is with Ipswich as the role models. The cliché is that anyone can beat anyone but if the Championship used to be renowned for its unpredictability, the danger is that, aided by parachute payments, the second tier has become too predictable.

If the standards were high at the top – 87 points only secured Southampton fourth place – there was a gulf between the best and the rest – and yet the rest were sufficiently bunched that Birmingham were relegated with 50 points. That it was, in part, due to a disastrous decision to appoint Wayne Rooney, who has now taken over at Plymouth, adds another dimension to the 2024-25 Championship.

That Leeds were the odd ones out in last season’s top four, beaten in the play-off final by Southampton after a 90-point campaign, helps render them favourites now. So, too, the sense that Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United do not necessarily come down with the same power that Leeds, Southampton and Leicester did the previous year.

Now, Leeds look the strongest even with the loss of the outstanding footballer in the division last season, Crysencio Summerville, and the homegrown prodigy, Archie Gray. There are common-sense additions: Joe Rodon, after a fine loan, Jayden Bogle and the borrowed Joe Rothwell, albeit not players of such potential.