7 August 2026

Sunderland and Leeds broke the pattern last season, but staying in the Premier League remains a huge challenge for promoted clubs.

Coventry City, Ipswich Town and Hull City are back in the top flight, and bookmakers were quick to install all three as favourites for relegation.

With the financial gulf between the Premier League and the Championship continuing to widen, and with the recent pattern of all three promoted teams dropping straight back to the second tier, the question is obvious: are this season’s promoted trio already destined for the drop?

Hull did not make much sense last season.

Only two sides in the whole division let in more goals, and their return against expected goals was exactly the sort of thing that leads sceptics to argue that the data cannot be trusted.

It is no exaggeration to say Hull’s promotion was something of a minor miracle. They were led by Sergej Jakirovic, who had no previous experience in English football before taking the job, and they had been tipped for relegation. He did not fulfil his pledge to keep them in the division, but their play-off triumph came with the significant caveat that Southampton — the strongest and most in-form side — had been knocked out because of the Spygate affair. Hull supporters, of course, will not care about that.

Even so, the squad looked thin by Championship standards, let alone Premier League ones. Oli McBurnie finished as the club’s leading scorer with 19 goals last season, but he is now 30 and has managed only 13 goals in 96 Premier League appearances. Second-highest scorer Joe Gelhardt has gone back to Leeds after his loan spell and is being tipped for a move to Birmingham. Hull also picked up bookings freely, finishing with a league-high 115 last season.

Outspoken owner Acun Ilıcalı should add some colour to the Premier League, especially after his latest talking point came via cryptic posts about potential signings. But the reality remains that there is a clear financial gap between a man valued at $100m and the rest of the division.

It is therefore no surprise that Hull have not gone on a major spending spree. Goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis arrived for a club-record £20m fee. The undisclosed sum paid for Jack Butland is the only other spending of the summer so far, and while outsiders may find it amusing how publicly close Hull appear to be to completing transfers, it may not be the smartest way to negotiate.

Unless they pull off another shock, it is difficult to see how comparisons with Derby will not surface when Hull are discussed this season. Yet this is also a side that confounded logic last year. Can they do it again? Probably not.

Ipswich’s 2026 can fairly be described as a summer of upheaval.

Kieran McKenna stepped away, saying he needed a break from football after his first managerial role. To show how central he had become to the club, had he stayed, only Mikel Arteta would have been a longer-serving Premier League manager in his current post.

To replace him, the Ipswich board turned to Gary O’Neil, hoping he can repeat the feat for a third time after previously keeping both Bournemouth and Wolves in the division.

The scale of the task is enormous, though. This time last year, Ipswich were fancied to break points records in the Championship, but they fell short and ended up second behind Coventry.

What has changed since their promotion two years ago? The short answer is the feel around the squad. The Ipswich team that went up in 2024 was built largely around a group that had mostly stayed together from League One. This version contains far fewer players from that period and has been assembled at significant cost.

On paper, that ought to leave them better prepared. Club captain Dara O’Shea played every minute of the Championship season, and the arrival of Issa Diop appears a shrewd bit of business.

The issue, however, could be goals. Ipswich netted 12 fewer times last season than they did during their promotion-winning 2023-24 campaign. Much of their threat came from wide areas, with Jack Clarke and Jaden Philogene ending as the top scorers. Suggestions that the latter could leave may even prove beneficial, with both players shown to be most effective only from the left flank.

Through the middle, Ipswich have brought in 21-year-old Emersonn in the hope that he can provide the goals needed for survival. But if a Brazilian forward who scored only eight times in 34 matches for Toulouse is not a gamble, then nothing is.

Daizen Maeda has joined from Celtic, accompanied by the warning from Hoops supporters that every moment of brilliance he produces can be followed by a glaring miss. Ipswich also spent heavily on Leicester’s Abdul Fatawu. Kjell Scherpen is one of two new goalkeepers through the door and already holds a Premier League record as the tallest player ever to feature in the competition at 6ft 9in.

Unlike last time, Ipswich have been handed a slightly kinder fixture list, starting with a home game against Sunderland. A trip to Old Trafford comes before Liverpool visit Portman Road, but there are matches after that from which points can be taken.

Momentum will matter. A strong opening will lift belief. If September ends without a win, Ipswich supporters will be longing for their former manager even more than they already are.

Coventry’s biggest strength last season was the spread of their goals.

Haji Wright was the club’s top scorer with 17, but Ellis Simms, Brandon Thomas-Asante, Ephron Mason-Clark and Victor Top also all reached double figures. In total, seven players scored seven goals or more, while 16 different players got on the scoresheet at least once. That looks far more sustainable than depending on one talisman to reproduce the same output in the Premier League.

At the back, securing Carl Rushworth permanently from Brighton looks an outstanding move, while much of their creativity came from right-back Milan van Ewijk, who posted a club-best eight assists. There is, however, evidence that an attack-minded full-back may not have the same influence in the Premier League. Ipswich’s Leif Davis produced 18 assists in the club’s promotion-winning 2023-24 season but managed only two in the following Premier League campaign.

In terms of recruitment, Gustavo Hamer is being linked with a return, while Mykhailo Mudryk has surfaced as a surprise target, although even the most hopeful Coventry supporter would have to admit that would be a gamble. Aurele Amenda has come in to strengthen the defence, joined by central midfielder Frank Onyeka and winger Loum Tchaouna.

Coventry have also not been favoured by the fixture list. A home meeting with Hull is wedged between away trips to the Emirates and the Etihad.

But the biggest reason for Coventry fans to feel positive is their manager. Frank Lampard’s spell in charge has eased doubts over whether he is a capable coach, though the question remains whether he can prove it in the Premier League. His first period at Chelsea was promising, but that came in the context of lower expectations during a transfer ban, while at Everton he recorded a win percentage of only 27.3%.

There will also be some unease over their dip in the middle of the season. Coventry began brilliantly but faltered over the festive period, including 3-0 and 2-0 defeats against fellow title challengers Ipswich. They recovered from February onwards, losing only one of their final 14 games, but they undeniably benefited from other promotion rivals also failing to take advantage.

Right now, Coventry’s range of attacking options and the continuity provided by Lampard make them the promoted side that appears most likely to survive, but their fate may depend as much on which established Premier League teams underperform as on how the Robins themselves cope.

A campaign in which they scored 97 goals and bought back their own stadium has generated enormous goodwill among the fanbase, but that will only stretch so far. With a May run-in featuring Manchester United, Newcastle and Tottenham, they will want safety secured before then.