Wayne Rooney’s woes at Plymouth Argyle were expected, but here are six things that have surprised us at the start of the 2024/25 Championship season…
Blackburn Rovers being The Entertainers
Birmingham City would arguably be carelessly free-spending their way to the Premier League had they not replaced John Eustace with Rooney. What a cock-up that was.
But Birmingham’s loss has been Blackburn’s gain as Rovers have made an unbeaten start to the new campaign.
Renowned for his pragmatism, Eustace over-delivered at Birmingham as he got the best out of a limited squad with a defence-first, attack-second approach.
His defensive-minded tactics also served a purpose last season as Blackburn avoided relegation from the Championship.
The saying goes, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ so Blackburn had been expected to look pretty ugly again this season, with Eustace making his side difficult to beat in search of the points required to keep them out of the relegation zone again.
But Eustace has instead decided to turn his Blackburn side into the entertainers, with his side scoring 16 goals in their six matches across all competitions.
Admittedly, these stats are skewed somewhat as 10 goals came in two games, but Blackburn have still been on the front foot more than previously under Eustace and so far, this is bearing fruit.
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Watford flying high
When constructing a list of Championship managers expected to leave this season, Watford’s boss would typically be as nailed-on a selection as Rooney exiting Plymouth. But their unexpectedly strong start to the new campaign under Tom Cleverley has raised the optimism at Vicarage Road.
The Pozzo family have gradually turned Watford into one of the poorest-run clubs in the Championship and heading into this campaign, it felt like it would only be a matter of time before novice boss Cleverley would be made a scapegoat and forced to walk the plank.
Given how trigger-happy the Pozzo family are when sacking managers, Cleverley’s potential exit this season still cannot be ruled out. But the ex-Manchester United midfielder – who made us all feel old when he stepped into management – has got off to a dream start.
Even with the left-field additions of Moussa Sissoko and Angelo Ogbonna, this Watford squad is a far cry from the sides expected to challenge for promotion in recent years, with the prospect of relegation even considered a bleak possibility before the season.
A lot can change until May, but Watford’s run of three wins before their narrow defeat to Sheffield United suggests they’ll be looking upwards rather than downwards this season. Should this prove to be the case, considering how badly the club is being run behind the scenes, Cleverley’s first full season in management would be a real success story.
Lowly Luton Town
The three relegated Premier League sides naturally dominated the pre-season promotion conversation amid the growing gulf in class between clubs in the top two divisions of English football.
But with immense uncertainty surrounding Burnley and Sheffield United heading into this campaign, I backed Luton to finish higher than their two former Premier League rivals as their apparent stability could have been a vital advantage.
Luton went about their shock promotion to the Premier League with one eye on their return to the Championship as they refrained from pursuing short-term gains by flaunting their new-found wealth.
The Hatters deserved praise for thinking long-term and were well-fancied to go straight back up, especially with their only notable summer sales being Ross Barkley and Chieodozie Ogbene to Aston Villa and Ipswich Town.
Despite this, Rob Edwards’ side have made a worrying winless start to the Championship season as one of the league’s most wasteful strikers (statistically speaking) has negatively impacted them.
Luton appeared to be building a Championship super-team last summer, but their recruitment this season has been far less encouraging and a big ask of a prolonged unbeaten run may eventually be required if they are to get their promotion push off the ground.
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Top scorer Josh Maja
An unsurprising takeaway from the start of this season is that West Brom boss Carlos Corberan is really good at his job as he continues to eke the maximum out of West Brom, a team clouded with uninspiring recruitment and damaging player exits.
The former Huddersfield boss has a serious case for being the best manager outside of the Premier League and it’s surely inevitable that a vulture from the division above will attempt a mid-season steal of the West Brom head coach.
This will become even more likely if West Brom remain around the play-offs and joint-top scorer Maja has been one of their early-season success stories.
The former Sunderland striker has channelled his inner Chuba Akpom as he’s come from nowhere to emerge as a contender for the Golden Boot, scoring four goals in four games.
Maja made only 12 Championship appearances last season as he was dogged by injury, but he’s still only 25 and he’ll be bound for the Premier League (with or without West Brom) if he continues to replicate the form he showed during his prolific season in 2018/19 with then-League One side Sunderland.
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Perfect Sunderland
Speaking of Sunderland, they have claimed the tag of promotion dark horse with both hands this season.
Sheffield Wednesday’s 4-0 opening day win against Plymouth Argyle got us over-excited and backing the concept of Danny Rohl’s side being a surprise contender for promotion. But this talk has since been shown to be premature as three straight defeats have seen them plummet down the league.
Sunderland’s 4-0 demolition of the Owls kickstarted their early downfall, while the Black Cats have made a perfect start to the Championship season.
Four wins – including a 1-0 home victory against Burnley – have been secured as they have scored 10 goals and conceded just once. This is even more impressive considering they haven’t had Ipswich newbie Jack Clarke in their squad since matchday two.
Sunderland were a shambles last season as the Michael Beale fiasco made their board look extremely foolish. Their prolonged search for his replacement rightly infuriated supporters but with new boss Regis Le Bris, their wait has paid off as his youthful team are causing a stir as the pace-setters in the Championship.
Lurking Leeds United
Daniel Farke’s side stumbled en route to producing a dire performance at Wembley to lose in the Championship play-off final as they missed out on that sweet prize money.
Matters got worse in the summer and supporters rightly became increasingly irate following the exits of Archie Gray, Crysencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter, while the board struggled to acquire suitable replacements.
Leeds acted late in the window to add to the squad, but the negativity spread to the pitch as they started the season with draws against Portsmouth and West Brom, while they were beaten 3-0 by Middlesbrough in the Carabao Cup.
I saw enough from Leeds’ concerning start to make a kneejerk prediction of more heartache for the West Yorkshire club this season. But Farke’s side have since made me and the rest of their doubters look pretty daft as they have bounced back with impressive clean sheet victories over Sheff Weds and Hull City.
After a slow start cost Leeds last season, off-field negativity was expected to lead to much of the same this term. But they are fourth after four games as they ominously lurk behind Sunderland and co. in the title picture.
