What have we learned from the Championship so far?

The Halloween sweet stash has nearly run out and you can’t go five minutes without a Christmas ad on TV. It must be the mid-November international break.

We are 15 rounds into the Championship season and it’s shaping up to be one for the ages.

Coventry City are blazing a trail at the top of the pile, breaking records as they go, there are some surprising names clinging onto their coattails, while two of the teams parachuted down from the Premier League are nowhere to be seen… yet.

At the other end of the table, three former Premier League teams occupy the relegation places and there are seasonal postal workers feeling more secure in their jobs than some of the managers in the second tier.

Coventry have a five-point lead and are effectively six points ahead in the race for promotion after 15 games, such is their superior goal difference.

Teams have started fast and faded plenty of times, but this Sky Blues team feels different, with a blend of defensive stability, incredible attacking threat, and perseverance, which has seen them score the most goals, and boast the best goal difference, at this stage of the campaign on record.

It was 28 November, 2024, when Frank Lampard was named as Mark Robins’ successor as City manager, with the club 17th and just two points above the relegation zone.

Lampard has overseen 44 league matches since then, winning 26, drawing eight and losing 10, to earn 86 points.

The average points for teams securing promotion from the Championship to the Premier League is 89, although Hull City went up automatically in 2013 with 79 points.

A return of 1.95 points per game is by the far the best of Lampard’s managerial career at any club, and if they keep doing what they have been doing over the past 12 months the club will be on track for 94 points.

If they maintain their form since the start of this season they are on course for 104 points – just two shy of Reading’s Championship record set in 2005-06.

After 15 games Coventry have scored 40 goals and have a goal difference of +27 – both records since the Championship rebranded 21 years ago.

Goalkeeper Carl Rushworth’s seven clean sheets is the most in the division, while only Stoke and Charlton have conceded fewer than City’s 13.

Brandon Thomas-Asante has 10 goals, Haji Wright eight and Victor Torp six – that trio alone have more goals than 21 clubs in the division.

They have had seven other players on the scoresheet in the Championship too, one of whom, Ellis Simms, has quietly established himself as the premier impact sub in the division.

Two points to consider, though, which could quell some of the hype: of the current make-up of the division, they have only played four top-10 teams – beating Stoke, Millwall and Derby and drawing with Hull.

They have Middlesbrough, Charlton (twice), Ipswich (twice), Bristol City and Preston North End among the forthcoming block of 10 fixtures up to and including New Year’s Day, which should provide a greater insight into where this team is at.

Like them or not, the ‘fad’ of attacking long throws over the past 12 months is here to stay.

It’s been six months since Sunderland moved their advertising boards in to try and negate the threat of Milan van Ewijk’s missiles in the Championship play-off semi-final against Coventry.

While the Black Cats are now smiling down from the top four of the Premier League, another Van Ewijk throw dropped to Ephron Mason-Clark to acrobatically volley the only goal of the top-of-the-table clash at Stoke last Saturday to enhance Coventry’s hopes of joining them in the top tier.

Of the 447 goals scored in the opening 15 rounds of the Championship, 121 resulted from corners, free-kicks or long-throws.

That 27.1% ratio is the highest on record in the division over the 12 seasons in which Opta have monitored those stats.

It doesn’t include the 18 penalties already converted this season either.

Coventry and Derby lead the way with six headed goals apiece, while Sheffield United, despite having had the most corners in the league, with 119 – that’s 26 more than any other side – are the only club in the Championship yet to score a header.

The Blades are statistically the best team in the league at winning the ball back in the final third and have also had 425 touches in the opposition penalty area this season, second only to free-scoring leaders Coventry.

What do Norwich, Southampton and Ipswich have in common?

Sacked their manager? Nope. Slow starts? Well, yes, but that’s not what we’re after.

Since the 2004-05 Championship rebrand, they are the only three clubs to have gone from League One to the Premier League in successive seasons.

The Canaries did it between 2009-11, Saints from 2010-12 and the Tractor Boys between 2022-24.

But might we add another name to that list next May?

League One play-off winners Charlton have the second-best defence in the Championship, with 12 goals conceded, and are two points outside the play-offs after suffering just a fourth defeat of the campaign, at Wrexham last time out.

Addicks boss Nathan Jones has only made 24 changes to his starting XI across those 15 games, the fifth-lowest in the division (Bristol City have the fewest on 15), and less than half as many as QPR and Watford (53).

Birmingham, who finished 26 points ahead of Charlton last season, are two points and two places behind them and ahead of Wrexham on goal difference, having been 19 points clear of the Red Dragons in the third tier last term.

Blues have, however, played all of the top-eight sides, losing five, but have picked up 14 points from their other seven fixtures.

They also boast one of the best home records in the division, defeated only once at St Andrew’s, and are in the top three for chances created, with 39.

The only trouble for boss Chris Davies is that they have spurned 27 of those, second only to Ipswich for profligacy.

Wrexham are on the joint-longest unbeaten run in the division, taking 11 points from their past five games, inflicting a first defeat on Coventry along the way, have lost just one of their past 10 matches, and only five sides have scored more than their 20 goals so far.

The final day of last season – 3 May – was a day of high Championship drama, but at this rate it might have nothing on 2 May, 2026.

Luton’s loss at West Brom, coupled with the sides also in danger of going down avoiding defeat, meant Hull City stayed up on goal difference, finishing 21st, one place and a point below Preston, with Stoke a further point ahead in 18th.

Less than 200 days on, and those sides sit in the same order in the Championship table, just with the Potters in third, North End fourth and the Tigers fifth.

You would get long odds on the table staying this way until the final day of the season, but, there is precedent…

The Tigers were actually promoted in 2008 after finishing 21st the season before, while 13 teams have gone up to the Premier League having been in the bottom half the season before – most recently Sunderland, who were 16th in 2023-24 before winning the play-offs last season.

The Christmas decorations are not even out of the loft yet, but a quarter of Championship clubs have already changed manager.

Rob Edwards took the decision to depart Middlesbrough for Wolves on Wednesday and Alan Sheehan was relieved of his duties by Swansea the previous day, three days after Liam Manning was dismissed by Norwich, which was six days after Will Still was axed by Southampton.

The departures of Paulo Pezzolano from Watford and Ruben Selles from Sheffield United already seem a distant memory.

Even though five of those teams remain in the lower reaches of the table, with Boro sitting pretty in second, 31 games remain and anything could still happen.

Luton appointed Edwards three years ago this week, after Nathan Jones’ departure to Southampton, and he got the Hatters promoted to the Premier League six months later.

The previous year, Steve Cooper replaced Chris Hughton at Nottingham Forest and did the same.

Watford are renowned for making managerial changes, but, sometimes they work.

Xisco Munoz steered the Hornets to promotion in 2021 after replacing Vladimir Ivic, while Slavisa Jokanovic did likewise six years earlier, having replaced the unfortunate Billy McKinley, who took four points from his two games as head coach.