Although the race to earn automatic promotion out of this season’s EFL Championship has been a considerable talking point for quite some time, it is not the only narrative currently being crafted within English football’s second tier.
By Dan Tracey
As the top four looks to finish in the top two by the end of the season, 12 teams are praying in a bid to avoid the Championship’s relegation trapdoor. In a league usually labelled as a war of attrition, the battle from twelfth onwards could be the bloodiest of them all.
On the assumption that Rotherham are too far adrift to start any safety drill between now and the final day of the campaign, there are two relegation spots to League One that are still unclaimed, and even though both QPR and Sheffield Wednesday looked lost causes previously, there is hope yet.
Both the Loftus Road and Hillsborough outfits have rolled the managerial dice in a bid to improve their fortunes, and on the evidence of the results since their latest respective appointments, you would have to say each gamble is starting to pay dividends.
With Marti Cifuentes and Danny Röhl being appointed back in October 2023, the table at the end of that month saw QPR with just eight points and Wednesday with six after each playing 14 games of the season.
Six and eight points off the pace in terms of safety, lost causes in the eyes of many. However, the Championship is one of the best leagues in the world for good reason, and this is because fortunes can turn around rather quickly.
Fast forward to the middle of March, and the R’s under Cifuentes now find themselves out of the bottom three. By comparison, the Owls may be second-bottom at the time of writing but are only a point from safety and have the one vital commodity at this stage – momentum.
Four wins from their last five have bunched the relegation pack together, and from Sunderland in 12th to the blue and white half of Sheffield in 23rd, just nine points serve as the margin of error. A margin that may sound enough if you support the Black Cats, but a look at their form says otherwise.
If there is one thing you do not want to be when going into a relegation battle, it is cold in terms of results, and once you take Rotherham out of the equation, there is no colder team than the one that plies its trade at the Stadium of Light.
Undoubtedly, it has been a rather tumultuous season for the Wearside outfit. After sacking Tony Mowbray in December 2023, his replacement, Michael Beale, would only last a further two months himself.
With caretake Michael Dodds in charge, he has failed to break their unwanted streak of defeats that currently stands at six, and the longer Sunderland fails to find a return to winning ways, the more likely they could sleepwalk into the relegation zone.
If both Sunderland and Bristol City, on 47 points, are at one end of the relegation scale, then Huddersfield will find themselves at the other. Like their Yorkshire counterparts, Sheffield Wednesday, they are on 38 points. Unlike them, they are struggling when it comes to league form.
The Terriers may have picked up two wins from their last six, but they have also earned just a single point from the last nine on offer – a run that leaves them in the bottom three and with them facing Rotherham this weekend, this Yorkshire derby may be the perfect venue for some form of salvation.
Failure to win at the New York Stadium on Saturday and salvation may quickly turn into desperation for André Breitenreiter’s men. Last season saw Huddersfield complete a great escape under the watchful eye of Neil Warnock; they may have to start digging tunnels for their remaining nine games.
If they are to claw themselves out of the bottom three, then it will be bad news for one of the clubs above them and with John Eustace acting as the link between Blackburn and Birmingham, both outfits are struggling at the worst time.
Eustace’s old employers, Birmingham, played managerial bingo earlier in the season and appointed Wayne Rooney in an ill-fated spell, who in turn would pass the baton on to Tony Mowbray – who in turn has become ill and unable to take to the touchline.
This means the West Midlands outfit is now without a win in any of their last five league outings, and after picking up just one point from the last 15 on offer, they currently sit 21st in the table and just a point clear from safety.
Bad news for the team that Eustace formerly oversaw, not great news for the team that he is now in charge of and with Blackburn having drawn five of their last six league matches and lost the other, being solid rather than spectacular is not an approach that seems to be working at Ewood Park.
Blackburn sit in 18th on 41 points and three from safety, the same number of points as Stoke a position below and with recently installed manager Steven Schumacher already feeling the pressure at the Bet365 Stadium, the gamble to prise him from Plymouth may not pay off in the end.
While Plymouth have made their own gamble in appointing Ian Foster as their new manager. The Pilgrims are the third of three teams on 41 points, and if they were to stay up while Stoke went down, there would undoubtedly be schadenfreude in the direction of former boss Schumacher.
If the trio of Plymouth, Blackburn and Stoke are looking nervously over their shoulders, then the trio of Watford, Swansea and Millwall sitting above them will not be overly confident in their glances in the opposite direction.
They may be five, seven and seven points clear of the relegation zone, respectively, but now is not the time to rest on your laurels. Although there are several clubs between them and the bottom three, that same group will be ready to collect them if things take a considerable turn for the worse.
It is going to take a brave person to predict who will eventually go down from the Championship. It will take an even braver set of players to avoid the drop. If you are a supporter of one of these 12 clubs, get ready to have your nerves shredded between now and the final day.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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