The Championship table always looks a little different in the first week of a season that's just welcomed three relegated Premier League clubs, and 2026/27 is no exception. West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley have all dropped down, and the market has installed West Ham as clear favourites at an implied probability of roughly 36%, a bigger gap over the field than the Championship usually produces at outright winner.

The case for West Ham is mostly a resources argument. Parachute payments and Premier League-calibre individual quality generally hand relegated clubs a significant squad-value advantage over sides who've spent the season competing in the Championship itself, and historically that edge tends to show up in the table, over the last decade, at least one relegated club has won automatic promotion back in the same season more often than not. The caveat with West Ham specifically is the scale of their rebuild: multiple reports this summer describe a squad overhaul that's likely to run deep into the transfer window, which introduces exactly the kind of late-integration risk that can undercut a resource advantage in the opening months.

Wolves, priced second at around 11/2, arguably carry less of that risk. Having known their relegation fate for most of last season, they've had a full pre-season to plan rather than scramble, and the retention of experienced Premier League-level players like Kieran Trippier alongside the arrival of Raul Jimenez suggests a squad built for continuity rather than reconstruction. New head coach Cesar Peixoto inherits a group that, on paper, should be too strong for this level even accounting for one difficult top-flight season.

Middlesbrough are the highest-priced of the "non-relegated" contenders, and the data case for them is different but still meaningful: they reached last season's play-off final and carry the strongest recent Championship baseline of anyone outside the relegated trio, managed by Kim Hellberg. Burnley, the third relegated club, have actually undergone the least squad upheaval of the three and, despite sitting behind Wolves and Middlesbrough in most markets, represent something close to value against that context, with new manager Nicky Hayen arriving off the back of a title win with Club Brugge in Belgium.

Taken together, the statistical picture favours West Ham on resources but Wolves on stability, and it's genuinely close between them. If squad value and parachute-payment quality were the only variables that mattered, West Ham's advantage would be closer to decisive than the market currently prices it. The size and timing of their squad rebuild is the one factor that could realistically hand the initiative to Wolves instead, and it's worth watching September's table before treating either as a foregone conclusion.

For Pick10 purposes, both clubs are worth building into your regular picks early in the season, with Middlesbrough as the value option if you're looking further down the market for value beyond the top two.