Championship 2026-27: What have we learned so far?

After a gruelling 37-day slog the Championship has begun a near three-week break for international football.

What have we learned from the opening eight-game block of the marathon 46-game campaign?

It's tight at the top - but fast starts don't always help

Just seven points separate the top 15 sides in the Championship after eight games - though Wolves and Pompey have yet to play their game in hand which was postponed due to Carabao Cup clashes.

It already feels like it could be a fascinating season with no stand-out team as yet, and the table backs it up.

Swansea lead the way, QPR, Stoke, Bristol City and Charlton are in the chasing pack, and West Brom have swapped the bottom five last season for the top five this.

Interestingly, since the Championship adopted its current name in 2004, only once has a team topped the table after eight matches and had fewer than the 17 points the Swans have currently earned - indicating this is a wide-open league this year.

Brighton were top of the pile in 2012 with just 16 points but the Seagulls ended up finishing fourth and went on to lose in the play-offs.

Six other sides have been in first place with 17 points before the Swans, but only two of those - Leeds in 2019-20 and Sheffield United in 2022-23 - won promotion.

Sorry to break it to Swans fans, however, but three of the other four did not even finish in the top 10.

There have been 277 goals scored already in the Championship this season.

That's 36 more than at the same stage last season, with one fewer match having taken place, and the second most ever at this stage since the Championship rebrand in 2004-05.

What do we put it down to? Well the stats suggest it is due to more direct play and quality on the flanks.

Only once in the past nine seasons have more goals come from crosses than the 47 so far this campaign.

Also, 44 of those 47 have come from headers, the most at this stage by some distance over the past five seasons, while nine have come from throw-ins - the second most at this stage in the past 14 seasons, behind only last season's 12.

That suggests a real shift in the way the game has evolved in recent times, given that from 2013-14 to 2020-21, by this point of the campaign, just 14 goals across those eight seasons - an average of fewer than two - came from throw-ins.

Bristol City's on-loan Crystal Palace full-back Rio Cardines has six assists already, the most by any player in Europe's top leagues.

Burnley began this season aiming to do something which had never been done before - become a six-time yo-yo club.

Six of Sean Dyche's eight full seasons in charge of Burnley were in the Premier League, winning promotion in his first and third full campaigns, but since his departure in April 2022 and their subsequent relegation, they have not stayed still.

Under Vincent Kompany, they won the 2022-23 Championship title with 101 points - before being relegated with just 24 points the next year.

With Scott Parker they went up again with 100 points, only conceding 16 goals, but were relegated with four games remaining last season leading to Parker's exit.

Nicky Hayen was the man entrusted with trying to get the club back to the top tier, but it has been a tortuous start to life at Turf Moor.

After a summer of wholesale changes in the squad , Hayen was appointed just 29 days before the Clarets' first game - 75 days later, eight games, four points and no wins has the Clarets bottom of the Championship.

Fellow slow starters Preston, Cardiff and Derby - the Rams having rescued a last-gasp draw at Turf Moor on Saturday - are the only other sides to be averaging fewer than a point per game.

The bad news for Burnley fans is that no side has ever been promoted from the Championship having been without a win in their opening eight fixtures and of the past 10 occasions only one - Brentford in 2018 - went on to finish in the top half.

The slightly better news is that seven of them avoided relegation, including Portsmouth two years ago and Sheffield Wednesday the season before that.

Fresh from a summer adventure with World Cup co-hosts Canada, Saints striker Cyle Larin is setting a frightening pace in the race for the Golden Boot.

The 31-year-old has started every game this season having made his move from Mallorca permanent after scoring eight goals in 16 appearances on loan during the latter half of last season.

Larin's seven goals in eight games have come at an average of one every 85 minutes and have helped Saints overhaul their four-point penalty following 'Spygate'.

Middlesbrough's big-money signing from Tottenham, Will Lankshear, is one behind, with the 21-year-old one goal ahead of Norwich's Mo Toure, whose five goals have come from just 11 shots this season for one goal every 91 minutes on the pitch.

Tottenham fans may already be wondering if Lankshear might be the one who got away and you can be sure Premier League clubs will be keeping a close eye on proceedings in the second tier this season, given forwards are likely to prove better value and less risky than signings from other European leagues.

Toure, sadly, will not get chance to add to his tally any time soon - the Australia striker will be out for several months due to a shoulder injury sustained against Bolton on Sunday.

West Ham were the pre-season favourites for promotion, just ahead of Wolves and, ahem, Burnley.

The Hammers took a while to get going on their return to the second tier for the first time in 14 years and took two points from their opening three games, including a shock home defeat by Charlton.

They found their feet with four straight wins, culminating in a 6-0 demolition of Wrexham, before rolling up their sleeves to escape with a 2-2 draw in the derby at Millwall on Saturday, which left them in second place after Swansea's win later that day.

The Hammers' 22 goals across their opening eight league games is the most in 93 years and six of the past seven sides to score that many in the opening eight games have gone on to win the title.

Given the talent on the field and the depth of the squad there's nothing in the opening eight games to suggest the Hammers won't last the pace and make an immediate return to the top flight.

The same can be said of Wolves, who are just three points off the top, with that game against Portsmouth in hand.

Wanderers left it late to salvage a draw at home to Blackburn in the season opener but have found their feet and shrugged off a 4-2 defeat at West Ham to take seven points from their next three games, including the trip to Birmingham and the Black Country derby at home to West Bromwich Albion.

Given they won only three of their 38 league games and earned just 20 points in total last season, four wins and 14 points from seven matches with an overhauled squad is a fine start for new man Cesar Peixoto.

Who'd have had QPR among their promotion contenders after they finished last season with just two points from their final six matches?

The Hoops have the second best defensive record in the Championship with just seven goals conceded in their opening eight games and their only defeat came at home to Middlesbrough, in a game the R's might well have claimed a point or more.

Converting chances has been their biggest issue.

They have 261 touches in the opposition box, second most in the division, and won 55 corners, again second most, but their shot conversion rate of 7.3% is 20th of the 24 teams in the division.

After losing their first three games, Stoke have taken 13 points from the next five to sit just four points off the top.

Mark Robins was under immense pressure after taking one point from the final six games of last season to end up 17th, having been in the promotion race before Christmas, but things appear to be looking up for the Potters.

They are one point behind West Brom, who have swapped the bottom four last season for the top five this, 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 a bang.

Though they have the joint-lowest number of goals scored, the League One winners boast a division-best four clean sheets in eight games - along with Swansea - and their 11-point return from eight games has them just two points outside the top six, having widely been tipped to finish bottom.