Promoted Wrexham to start season at Southampton

Wrexham’s first second-tier match for 43 years will be at Southampton on Saturday, 9 August – a day after Birmingham City open the Championship season by hosting Ipswich Town.

Leicester City’s return to the second tier begins at home against Sheffield Wednesday on Sunday, 10 August.

League One play-off final winners Charlton Athletic mark their return to the Championship after a five-year absence with a home game against a Watford side now managed by Uruguayan Paulo Pezzolano.

Sheffield United, who were beaten by Sunderland in the Championship play-off final, start the campaign against the Bristol City side they beat in the semi-finals.

It was only 14 months ago that Leicester claimed the Championship title and promotion back to the Premier League at their first attempt.

But relegation after just one season back in the top flight means they will mark the 10-year anniversary of their Premier League title triumph with a final-day trip to Blackburn on 2 May, 2026.

Southampton, who have gone up and down the two divisions alongside Leicester in the past three seasons, will welcome Hollywood-owned Wrexham to St Mary’s in one of 10 fixtures on Saturday, 9 August.

Friday, 8 August

Birmingham City v Ipswich Town (20:00)

Saturday, 9 August

Charlton Athletic v Watford (12:30)

Coventry City v Hull City (12:30)

Southampton v Wrexham (12:30)

Middlesbrough v Swansea City (15:00)

Norwich City v Millwall (15:00)

Oxford United v Portsmouth (15:00)

Queens Park Rangers v Preston North End (15:00)

Stoke City v Derby County (15:00)

West Bromwich Albion v Blackburn Rovers (15:00)

Sheffield United v Bristol City 17:30 BST

Sunday, 10 August

Leicester City v Sheffield Wednesday (16:30)

Leicester City will be welcoming players back for pre-season in the coming days, but who will be in charge of the Foxes for their opening fixture against the Owls remains uncertain.

Dutchman Ruud van Nistelrooy has managed to hold on to his job for more than nine weeks since Leicester’s relegation from the Premier League was confirmed.

There was intense speculation about his future in the final weeks of the campaign, and that has not gone away since the season ended.

Uncertainty about the decorated former Manchester United, Real Madrid and Netherlands striker’s position has dragged on alongside off-field concerns about a potential points penalty for the club.

Leicester were charged in May for allegedly breaching the EFL’s financial rules when they won the Championship title and promotion just over a year ago.

If Van Nistelrooy is replaced, it means the club will have a third different permanent manager in the dugout since Enzo Maresca took them up in that 2023-24 season.

Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna is the only promotion-winning boss from that season to have survived the Premier League campaign.

A record-breaking campaign by Birmingham City saw them make an immediate return to the Championship by amassing an EFL record 111 points as League One title winners.

Blues chairman Tom Wagner has previously said that going on to reach the Premier League next season “is certainly the goal” of a club that has been transformed by an ownership group that includes seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady.

The profile boost the NFL legend has given them also means their rivalry with Wrexham, owned by Hollywood pair Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, will draw huge attention once again.

The Welsh club finished runners-up to Blues in League One last season, but set a record of their own as they became the first team in the top five divisions of English football to earn three consecutive promotions.

Getting Wrexham to the Premier League has been the aim from the outset for Reynolds and McElhenney, who have made the club’s meteoric rise of recent years into a global docuseries hit.

The first league meeting between Southampton and Portsmouth for more than 13 years will take place at St Mary’s over the weekend of 13/14 September.

Both South Coast derbies ended in draws when the two sides last played during the 2011-12 Championship campaign and the most recent meeting between them saw Saints thump Pompey 4-0 at Fratton Park in the EFL Cup in 2019.

Meanwhile, Ipswich’s return to the Championship means the East Anglian derby – also known as the Old Farm derby – against Norwich City is back on the schedule at Portman Road in early October and mid-April at Carrow Road.

And with Derby County avoiding relegation on the final day last term, they face East Midlands rivals Leicester City in the league for the first time in 11 years when they meet in early December at Pride Park before they face one another again three weeks later at the King Power Stadium.