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The Championship play-offs are some of the most romantic but nerve-shredding games in all of English football.
For possibly the last time, four clubs will be put through that process once again over the next few weeks as Millwall, Southampton, Middlesbrough and Hull City vie for promotion to the Premier League. But who would be the most interesting play-off winners, and who would get a big old shrug from neutral fans?
Full disclosure here that this is a purely vibe-based exercise, rather than a pure assessment of football merit. That’s what the actual play-offs are for. So you know…don’t get too upset by it.
4. Southampton
Take it as a compliment, Saints fans. There’s no doubt that if you were making one of those faintly ridiculous “pick your ideal 20 teams to make up the ultimate just-feels-right Premier League” lists, Southampton would be included.
The way they have charged up the Championship after a dreadful start this season shouldn’t be overlooked either. They’ve arguably been the most interesting story in the division this year, even if to begin with that was for all the wrong reasons.
But come on… yo-yo teams are just a bit boring, and this would be the fourth year in a row that Southampton have moved between the Premier League and the Championship.
The big counter-argument, of course, is to do with the size of the club. Southampton were comically bad under Russell Martin last time around, and by the time they replaced him, it was much too late.
But a better-managed version of Southampton probably has the best chance of the four play-off sides to be genuinely disruptive and establish themselves for a longer stay again. If that happens, then we will take it all back.
3. Hull City
There is definitely something to be said for Hull City as a Premier League team again.
Their fans have suffered plenty over the past 15 years; seeing them go up alongside Coventry and Ipswich would make the tale of redemption stories a complete triumvirate.
On top of that, there’s the surprise factor. We’re not sure we had Hull pegged for promotion contenders this season, given that six of their past eight seasons had been spent in the bottom half of the Championship, and one of the exceptions was because they had a season in League One.
The knocks against them, really, are that this would be their fourth spell in the Premier League, which removes a bit of the lustre for a neutral and puts them in much the same “oh, them again?” camp as Sheffield United and Burnley.
2. Middlesbrough
There’s a cigarette paper between Boro and Hull in this regard, really, and City fans would be right to be irritated by this placement.
This would be Middlesbrough’s fifth spell in the Premier League, after all, and the romance of the Juninho and Fabrizio Ravanelli wore off years ago.
The main reason we’ve got them higher: we’ve not had Middlesbrough, Newcastle, and Sunderland all in the same division since 2008/09, largely thanks to Boro and Newcastle switching places for the 2016/17 season.
That was Boro’s only season in the Premier League in the past 17 years, and they were pretty miserable to watch under Aitor Karanka that season. A more fun and ambitious version of Middlesbrough could be a different story.
1. Millwall
Easy choice. Millwall would be Premier League virgins, though we’re not sure we’d put it that way to their faces.
We need to be careful how we frame this, for very good reason. What we will say is the club have done a lot of good work to try and dispel their bad reputation over the years, to their immense credit. But the Den still carries a certain edge that would make them fascinating as a top-flight presence.
There is also an interesting stylistic concern. Millwall have long been built on being an unashamedly physical side who are happy to play long balls. We’re not sure the Premier League has another team quite like that at the moment – the most long-ball team in the division is Brentford, for goodness sake – and we’d be really interested to see just how that would play out in 2026/27.
