The 2023-24 season of the EFL Championship has finally come to an end and it has delivered on drama and talking points just like the league always does. You know what? Let’s do a quick review of the league season.
First of all, congratulations to Leicester City who came down from the Premier League in 2023 and went ahead to dominate the Championship just like everyone thought they would. The team, led by Jamie Vardy, was brilliant for the most part; they stumbled for a bit, but they were able to get the job done at the end.
They officially won the Championship trophy after an emphatic 3-nil win against Preston and the one-time Premier League winners will be back playing in the English top flight in the 2024-25 season.
You know who else will also be playing Premier League football next season? Ipswich Town. and this is a beautiful story because they just gained promotion to the Championship in the 2022-23 season and here they are, heading to the Premier League for the first time in 22 years.
There’s one more team who will be joining these two in the Premier League, though. But that will be determined via playoff games between Leeds United, Southampton, Norwich City, and West Brom. All familiar names when it comes to recent Premier League football, so that’ll be a spicy one to keep an eye on.
But it’s not all smiles, you know. Every season, the EFL Championship promotes teams to the Premier League, and at the same time, it demotes teams to League One.
Rotterdam United had a really poor season this time around and were relegated long before the season was officially over. But for the other two teams, it went down to the wire. It was a battle between Blackburn Rovers, Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth Argyle, Birmingham City, and Huddersfield Town, but on the last day, we saw Huddersfield Town and Birmingham City get dragged down to League One.
Coventry City, who had a very interesting FA Cup run, nearly making it to the final after dragging Man United to extra-time, had a pretty unadventurous Championship season. They did not gain promotion to the top flight but they were never at risk of relegation at any point.
Now, of course, there were goals, the Championship always delivers on that. But here’s something interesting for you:
Sammie Szmodics, who finished as the league’s top scorer was in a relegation battle for a large portion of the season. Can you imagine that? And it’s not only him, you know. Morgan Whittaker, who finished third on the goalscoring charts, only survived relegation on the last day of the season by one point. In the EFL Championship, the goals can come from absolutely anybody.
Now, although it was Leicester who dominated and won the league, it was Leeds United who cleared the individual awards. Crysencio Summerville was named Player of the Season, Ilan Meslier finished with the most clean sheets, while Archie Gray won the awards for Young Player of the Season and Apprentice of the Season.