It’s exciting but is the Championship really any good?
I F we use the logic applied to our own, dear, Championship, the best league in the world is Algeria’s Championnat National de Premiere Division. With 26 rounds of matches played and four games to go it is mathematically possible for any one of its 16 teams to be crowned champions.
There are 11 points between leaders ES Setif and bottom placed NA Hussein Dey. No team has won more than 12 games or less than seven and, as expected, there has been an incredible number of draws.
The best goal difference is plus 10, the worst minus 7. The highest-scoring team MC El Eulma are in 11th place; the worst defence, ASM Oran, are placed sixth, four points off the top. It is, to use a technical term, nuts.
But is it any good? Now that is a difficult one. ES Setif are the reigning African champions, and now two points clear in the domestic competition, so they must be useful.
But are we to believe that there are 15 other cracking teams in Algeria, all potentially worthy of a place in the CAF Champions League next season; or is this league, in fact, pretty mediocre, with no team or elite group able to break clear of the pack?
For that is the fear with the Championship, too. That this season’s wonderfully compelling promotion race — soon to recommence in the play-offs — is more about a blanket finish of battlers than the pursuance of excellence.
Already we have seen one promoted team, Watford, who have been singularly unimpressive against the best in the division this season — with one win in matches against the top six — while Bournemouth are everyone’s favourite promoted club purely because their arrival in the Premier League is so unlikely.
Make no mistake, it is wonderful that Bournemouth will play in the top division next season; a testament to the hard work of manager Eddie Howe and his players. Yet Leicester City came up with 102 points last season and have struggled. Burnley recorded 93 and are rock bottom.
The most any Championship club can achieve this year is 91. This would still win promotion most seasons — 2013-14 was a particularly high-achieving year — but the gap above is widening, too. Financial Fair Play regulations in the Football League mean clubs are attempting a bigger step up than ever before.
It has made for fine competition in the Championship, but what lies beyond?
It is still possible that the three promoted a year ago will be relegated — and even if Leicester City survive, every new team has been fighting relegation from day one. It is hard to imagine how it will be vastly different next season.
LAST week, at Wembley, I was talking with Bolton Wanderers chairman Phil Gartside. His club are safe but haven’t had much of a season. They will be close to 30 points off the play- offs when the campaign ends, but little more than 10 from relegation. So he wasn’t bragging.
What he did say, though, was that he hasn’t seen a really good team in the Championship this year. A few decent ones, but none that stood out.
Bolton, season over, were no obstacle to Bournemouth on Monday, got their clock cleaned 4-1 at Derby in February and lost 3-0 to Watford on the first day of the season, but those games aside, a look through the fixture list suggests he’s right.
Bolton have a poor record against the seven teams that are promoted or in contention, but it is hardly a succession of hammerings. The odd goal in it both times home and away against Norwich and Middlesbrough, a win and a draw against Brentford, conceded one goal in two matches against Ipswich, lost 4-3 at home to Watford after Troy Deeney scored in the last minute.
Gartside’s explanation is worrying. The Football League, he says, are pushing Championship clubs towards becoming Bury and Rochdale, rather than emulating goings- on at major clubs. As the FFP rules bite, the race, if not to the bottom, is certainly to mediocrity.
Whereas many second-tier clubs were once full of ambition, now they are so focused on balancing the books they are ill-prepared for the demands of the Premier League. This, says Gartside, is why it has been so tight at the top for so long.
Many will disagree. They will look at Bolton’s debts or the financial state of Queens Park Rangers and argue that clubs need to be protected from taking grave financial risks. Yet not at the cost of ambition, surely?
Not if it means depriving them of the right to dream, or arrive in the Premier League with more than just survival in mind.
Would Jack Walker be allowed to drag Blackburn Rovers out of the morass these days? Would there have been any purpose to his involvement?
It cannot be right that Tony Fernandes is punished for having a go at QPR, but the Oyston regime at Blackpool attracts not so much as a murmur of disapproval from the League’s hierarchy. Is this what is preferred? Blackpool’s way is better? Seriously?
It was Gartside who came up with the idea of a Premier League II in 2008. He wanted to include Rangers and Celtic and abolish relegation. Franchise football, in other words. He was wrong, but not about all of it.
The reasoning behind Premier League II was that the gap between the top league and the tier below was becoming too great. And at least Gartside’s instinct was to encourage ambition — among the lucky 40 included — rather than limit it.
The Championship promotion race has provided wonderful entertainment, but what happens next may be a more uncomfortable watch.