The Myth of the Unassailable Lead in the Championship

It’s always been a futile pastime to predict which teams might earn promotion to the Premier League when there are still leaves on the trees.

However, the start that Leicester City and Ipswich Town have had to the 2023/2024 Championship season has encouraged people to throw caution to the wind by declaring that it will be a two-horse race to promotion until spring.

The odds point to one outcome

This overriding opinion is also reflected in the latest football bet odds as far as promotion from the Championship goes with the Foxes at 1/9 to go up while the Tractor Boys are at just 4/6.

Tellingly, the latest football betting tips mirror the latest promotion odds by suggesting that the Championship’s chasing pack will have a mountain to climb if they are to haul in either Leicester or Ipswich following their barnstorming start.

While it might seem like promotion to the Premier League is a foregone conclusion for these pacesetters, the irrefutable truth is that there is no such thing as an unassailable lead in the Championship; just ask Leeds United, the club most likely to catch either Leicester or Ipswich this season.

Leeds’ winter woes

Indeed, the Whites have first-hand experience of the trauma attached to losing a seemingly uncatchable lead after entering a catastrophic nosedive during the 2019/2020 season.

On that occasion, Leeds had built up an 11-point lead over the third place going into December. Coincidentally, 11 points is the same advantage that Leicester currently hold over the Whites after 15 matches in this current season.

Much like the Foxes, it had been an invigorating start to life in the Championship for Marcelo Bielsa’s men who were priced at extraordinary odds of 1/12 to go up before households around England began putting up their Christmas trees.

However, the festive season did not bring tidings of comfort and joy for the Whites as they endured a horror run of form that saw Bielsa’s side record just two wins in ten games.

This barren run stretched into the new year and eventually reached breaking point at the City Ground on the 8th of February when fellow promotion chasers Nottingham Forest beat Leeds 2-0.

This defeat on the banks of the River Trent meant that only three points separated the top five in the Championship table; Leeds stayed in second place by virtue of goal difference. Their 11-point buffer was long gone, Leeds were exposed and the vultures began to circle on a freezing winter night. As ever, the Championship found a way of reminding the world why it is the most unpredictable league on the planet.

While Leeds would still go on to win the Championship that season after rallying spectacularly, it might have been the same old familiar tale of heartache for the Whites if Bielsa wasn’t in charge during those winter storms; doubling down on his uncompromising philosophy eventually saw Leeds snap out of it.

Winter is coming to the Championship

The wider point, however, is that commanding leads have a tendency to disappear in what seems like the blink of an eye in the Championship. While Leicester and Ipswich are thoroughly deserving of their early points totals, the reality is that Winter is coming, and with it, the unforeseeable twists and turns that only the Championship can provide.