11 Best Championship Teams of All Time!
Securing promotion from the Championship isn’t easy. English football’s second tier is way more competitive than the Premier League and clubs regularly outspend their resources in a scramble to escape the Championship and compete in the Big Time.
It doesn’t always work. The likes of Leeds, Sunderland, Blackburn, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Leicester have felt the affects of a bad financial strategy that ends in relegation.
However, there are also plenty of standout success stories in the Championship. As of the 203/24 season, 11 teams have secured promotion with 94 points or more.
Below, we look at the best Championship teams to ever compete in this division, and which defied the Championship odds along the way.
11 Best Championship Teams Ever
The EFL rebranded the First Division to the Championship for the 2004/05 season. Leeds beat Derby County 1-0 in the first match of the newly-named league. Neither club make our list of the greatest.
This list only concerns clubs from the Championship era, and includes a side from that inaugural season.
11. Sunderland (2004/05) – 94 points
Sunderland entered the new Championship era having missed out on promotion in the playoffs the previous season. They started the new campaign with just one win in six but soon got into their groove. Aided by Marcus Stewart's 16 goals, Sunderland had recovered the deficit by Christmas and then went on a remarkable charge, winning 11 of the last 13 games to finish seven points clear of second-placed Wigan.
Mick McCarthy's side actually lost more games (10) that season than Wigan and third-placed Ipswich (both 9). However, Sunderland's ability to avoid draws and hold to on three points on a regular basis earned them their 94-point haul.
10. Newcastle United (2016/17) – 94 points
Newcastle United are one of three clubs to feature twice on this list of the best teams in the Championship. They breached 100 points back in 2009/10 – more of that later in this article – and in 2016/17 again set the pace as they bounced straight back from relegation.
Newcastle beat Brighton by a point to win the Championship that season, despite losing one more game than the Seagulls. They endured a rocky patch in April to scare a few nervy fans but eventually got over the line with an end-of-season 3-0 victory over Barnsley.
The Magpies spent almost £60m on players that summer but managed to make a profit on player trading as the likes of Moussa Sissoko (£30m), Georginio Wijnaldum (£25m) and Andros Townsend (£13m) were sold. New arrivals DeAndre Yedlin and Matt Ritchie impressed, while £10m acquisition Dwight Gayle top scored with 23 goals.
Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle were 4/7 favourites to secure promotion that season.
9. Norwich City (2018/19) – 94 points
Daniel Farke's first promotion season with Norwich came in only his second campaign in the Championship. Norwich appeared to be going nowhere after failing to bounce back from relegation in 2016. Yet Farke breathed a new life into Carrow Road and achieved promotion in 2019 on a meagre budget.
Emiliano Buendia was the headline signing that summer at a cost of just £1.4m, while Teemu Pukki arrived on a free transfer from Danish side Brondby. Pukki bagged 29 goals in 43 games, while Buendia managed eight alongside a hoard of assists.
Norwich went undefeated from mid-February and even overcame a wobble of four straight draws to win the Championship. Their 94 points put them five ahead of second-placed Sheffield United as they lost just six games all season.
Norwich were the joint 19th favourites at 7/1 to go up that season.
8. Ipswich Town (2023/24) – 97 points
Ipswich are the only team on this list to claim a top-11 points haul in the Championship and not actually win the title that season. The Tractor Boys gained promotion back to English football's second tier in 2022/23 and set about solidifying their place. Yet the pace with which Kieran McKenna's side started the season meant they were in a title racer from the off.
Ipswich lost just one league game until late November and didn't seem interested in draws. Defensively they weren't perfect but could always be relied upon to score. They finished the campaign as top scorers with 92 goals and having lost just six times.
However, draws crept in during the second half of the campaign, which meant Leicester beat them to the title by a point. Ipswich's success came from spreading goals across the squad. Five players finished the campaign with seven or more goals. George Hirst and Jack Taylor were the only two summer signings that really made an impact as McKenna kept the bulk of his League 1 side together.
Ipswich were 9/2 outsiders to get promoted that season.
7. Leicester City (2023/24) – 97 points
One point ahead of Ipswich in 2023/24 was Leicester, a team with far greater resources, a stellar squad, and parachute payments. The Foxes, like Ipswich, lost just one game until November and proved near-impossible to get points off. Their first of only four draws came in the 18th game of the campaign. Leicester conceded just 41 goals thanks to their solid defensive figures including Wout Faes, Jannik Vestergaard, Conor Coady and Hamza Choudhury
Leicester sold James Maddison to Tottenham for £40m, while Harvey Barnes cost Newcastle roughly the same. This gave Enzo Maresca funds to rebuild slightly and keep the bulk of his Premier League squad.
Despite winning the league and setting the seventh-best Championship points tally of all time, Leicester fans weren't always enamoured by Maresca. The Foxes somewhat stumbled over the line but did record a remarkable 5-0 win over Southampton during the run-in.
Leicester were 11/2 favourites to achieve promotion that season
6. Norwich City (2020/21) – 97 points
Norwich became a yo-yo club under Farke. They were immediately relegated back to the Championship a year on from their 94-point haul in 2018/19. The solution: go back up and do it even better. Their 97 points earned in the 2020/21 campaign featured just seven defeats – the same as third-placed Brentford. The difference was Norwich's 29 league wins.
They beat second-placed Watford by six points and outscored the Hornets with 75 goals over the season. Farke had to sell Jamal Lewis and Ben Godfrey and didn't have too much success with his new arrives. Loan signing Oliver Skipp, though, was the standout performer amongst the likes of Pukki and Buendia who had been in this situation before.
Norwich won just one of their opening four games in 2020/21 but a hot streak in February and March put them in control of their fate. They rounded off the season with a 2-2 draw at Barnsley, with the title already sewn up.
Norwich were 9/4 second favourites to secure promotion that season
5. Wolverhampton Wanderers (2017/18) – 99 points
Wolves have now gone six seasons in the Premier League since coming within a point of the 100 mark when winning the 2017/18 Championship title. They never really had a big winning streak – their longest being six games – but they lost just once between late October and late February.
Nuno Espírito Santo took over a side that finished 15th in the Championship the previous season and cost Walter Zenga and Paul Lambert their jobs. The 2017/18 campaign was very different. Nuno signed 20 players in the summer transfer window alone, including £15.8m arrival Ruben Neves. Diogo Jota also arrived from Atletico Madrid on loan.
It didn't take long for the team to gel and Nuno's rigid system worked perfectly in the Championship. Nine players started 29 games or more that season – an indication of the consistency that ran through the team.
Wolves were 100/30 to go up to the Premier League that season
4. Burnley (2022/23) – 101 points
There wasn't much to shout about at Turf Moor when Burnley – without Sean Dyche – were relegated from the Premier League in the spring of 2022. The club needed a big culture revamp and Vincent Kompany was a bit of a gamble. Yet Kompany was smart with his transfer budget, sold Nick Pope, Nathan Collins, Dwight McNeil and Max Cornet for a combined £68m, and began to rebuild.
Burnley won their season-opener 1-0 at Huddersfield before going on a four-game winless streak. They then lost just once until April as Company's dynamic style of football bamboozled lesser opponents. A 4-0 victory over Swansea in October 2022 saw them move top of the Championship and they barely looked back.
They broke the 100-point barrier and finished 10 points ahead of second-placed Sheffield United.
Burnley were 9/4 second favourites to achieve promotion that season
3. Leicester City (2013/14) – 102 points
Leicester's road to winning the Premier League in 2016 started when Nigel Pearson took over as manager for the second time in 2011. Pearson had already lost his job after guiding Leicester out of League 1 but was back at the King Power under owner Vichai Raksriaksorn, having succeeded Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Pearson delivered a sixth-place finish in his first full season back in charge, only for the Foxes to fall in the semi-finals. He kept striker David Nugent, though, and was rewarded with 22 goals as Leicester secured the title a year later.
This was the season Riyad Mahrez made his entrance to English football, while Jamie Vardy bagged 16 goals. Leicester didn't have a great start and lost five of their first 16 league games. They then went unbeaten from 21 December to early April, and lost just once more as they cantered to the title.
2. Newcastle United (2009/10) – 102 points
Newcastle were in crisis on the two occasions they fell out of the Premier League, yet bounced back straight away on both occasions. The 2009/10 campaign was fraught with difficulties.
Caretaker boss Chris Hughton was only made permanent manager in the autumn of that season. Sir Bobby Robson died that summer, Kevin Keegan ruled out a return to St James' Park, and there was uncertainty over owner Mike Ashley's intentions to sell up.
Yet the Magpies bounced back spectacularly, losing just four games all season. They went on a 15-game unbeaten run between October and February, and then went 17 without defeat to the end of the campaign. Alan Smith, Danny Guthrie, and Jonas Gutierrez played pivotal roles in getting the Toon back into the big time.
1. Reading (2005/06) – 106 points
Reading set the pace in 2005/06 and no team has come within a win of beating their record Championship points haul of 106. The Royals had never won the second-tier title. They've only been promoted from the Second Division four years prior.
Boss Steve Coppell had endured the frustration of losing their last three games at the end of the 2004/05 season to crash out of the playoff spots and finish seventh. He signed a string of talent, including Kevin Doyle and Shane Long from Cork City. They, along with Dave Kitson and new signings Leroy Lita, Stephen Hunt and John Oster, would help propel Reading to the title.
They lost just two games all season. The first was a 2-1 defeat at home to Plymouth on the opening day, the other a 3-2 reversal at Luton in deepest, darkest February.