The Championship has paused for a near three-week international break after a gruelling 37-day opening block, with eight of the campaign’s 46 games played. It has been a start short on a dominant team but long on goals, and it has left Burnley bottom of the table without a single victory.
Just seven points separate the top 15 sides after eight matches, and the picture is not yet complete: Wolves and Portsmouth have still to play a game in hand that was postponed because of Carabao Cup clashes. Swansea lead the way, with QPR, Stoke, Bristol City and Charlton in the chasing pack. West Brom have swapped last season’s bottom five for this season’s top five.
Swansea’s 17 points is a modest return for a league leader at this stage. Since the Championship adopted its current name in 2004, only one side has topped the table after eight matches with fewer points — Brighton in 2012 on 16, a team that finished fourth and lost in the play-offs. Six other clubs have led on 17 points before, and only two of those went on to win promotion: Leeds in 2019-20 and Sheffield United in 2022-23. Three of the other four did not even finish in the top 10.
The goals have flowed. There have been 277 already this season, 36 more than at the same stage last term with one fewer match played, and the second most at this point since the 2004-05 rebrand. The numbers point to more direct play and quality in wide areas: 47 goals have come from crosses, a figure bettered only once in the past nine seasons, and 44 of those 47 were headers — the most at this stage in the past five campaigns. Nine goals have come from throw-ins, the second most at this stage in the past 14 seasons behind only last season’s 12, a sharp shift given that across the eight seasons from 2013-14 to 2020-21 just 14 goals had been scored from throw-ins by this point in total.
Bristol City’s on-loan Crystal Palace full-back Rio Cardines has six assists, more than any other player in Europe’s top leagues.
For Burnley, the yo-yo has gone slack. Nicky Hayen was appointed just 29 days before the Clarets’ opening fixture, and 75 days later the club sits bottom of the Championship with four points and no wins from eight games, following a summer of wholesale squad changes. The recent pattern at Turf Moor has been relentless: Vincent Kompany won the 2022-23 Championship title with 101 points before relegation with 24 points the next year, and Scott Parker then went up with 100 points while conceding only 16 goals before relegation with four games remaining last season, which led to his exit. The warning signs are stark — no side has ever been promoted from the Championship after failing to win any of their opening eight fixtures, and of the past 10 teams to start that way only one, Brentford in 2018, finished in the top half. Seven of those 10 avoided relegation, including Portsmouth two years ago and Sheffield Wednesday the season before. Preston, Cardiff and Derby are the only other sides averaging fewer than a point per game, with Derby rescuing a last-gasp draw at Turf Moor on Saturday.
The race for the Golden Boot is being set by Southampton striker Cyle Larin. The 31-year-old, who made his move from Mallorca permanent after scoring eight goals in 16 appearances on loan in the second half of last season, has started every game and has seven goals in eight matches at an average of one every 85 minutes, helping Southampton overcome a four-point penalty following ‘Spygate’. Middlesbrough’s Will Lankshear, the 21-year-old signed from Tottenham, is one goal behind, while Norwich’s Mo Toure has five from just 11 shots, a goal every 91 minutes on the pitch. Toure will not add to that tally any time soon, however: the Australia striker is set for several months out with a shoulder injury sustained against Bolton on Sunday.
West Ham, the pre-season promotion favourites, took a while to settle on their return to the second tier after 14 years away, collecting two points from their opening three games including a shock home defeat by Charlton. They then won four in a row, culminating in a 6-0 demolition of Wrexham, and ground out a 2-2 draw in the derby at Millwall on Saturday that left them second after Swansea’s win later that day. Their 22 goals across eight league games are the most by a side at this stage in 93 years, and six of the past seven teams to score that many in the opening eight matches have gone on to win the title.
Wolves sit three points off the top with their game against Portsmouth in hand. Wanderers needed a late equaliser to salvage a draw at home to Blackburn in the season opener and then lost 4-2 at West Ham, but they took seven points from their next three games, including the trip to Birmingham and the Black Country derby at home to West Bromwich Albion. Four wins and 14 points from seven matches represents a fine start for new man Cesar Peixoto, given Wanderers won only three of their 38 league games and collected just 20 points last season with an overhauled squad.
QPR are the surprise contenders. They finished last season with two points from their final six matches, yet they now have the second-best defensive record in the division with seven goals conceded in eight games, their only defeat coming at home to Middlesbrough in a match they might have taken a point or more from. Converting chances has been the problem: they have 261 touches in the opposition box, second most in the Championship, and have won 55 corners, also second most, but their shot conversion rate of 7.3% ranks 20th of the 24 teams.
Stoke lost their first three games before taking 13 points from the next five to sit four points off the top. Mark Robins had been under immense pressure after one point from the final six games of last season left the Potters 17th, having been in the promotion race before Christmas, but their form is now looking up. They sit a point behind West Brom, who have moved from last season’s bottom four to this season’s top five despite losing to Wolves last time out.
Lincoln have returned to the second tier for the first time in 65 years with a new management team and have made an immediate impression. The League One winners have the joint-lowest number of goals scored, but their four clean sheets in eight games are matched only by Swansea at the top of the division, and their 11-point return leaves them two points outside the top six having been widely tipped to finish bottom.