After a gruelling 37-day slog the Championship has begun a near three-week break for international football. What have we learned from the opening eight-game block of the marathon 46-game campaign? Just seven points separate the top 15 sides in the Championship after eight games - though Wolves and Pompey have yet to play their game in hand which was postponed due to Carabao Cup clashes.
It already feels like it could be a fascinating season with no stand-out team as yet, and the table backs it up. Swansea lead the way, QPR, Stoke, Bristol City and Charlton are in the chasing pack, and West Brom have swapped the bottom five last season for the top five this. Interestingly, since the Championship adopted its current name in 2004, only once has a team topped the table after eight matches and had fewer than the 17 points the Swans have currently earned - indicating this is a wide-open league this year.
Brighton were top of the pile in 2012 with just 16 points but the Seagulls ended up finishing fourth and went on to lose in the play-offs. Six other sides have been in first place with 17 points before the Swans, but only two of those - Leeds in 2019-20 and Sheffield United in 2022-23 - won promotion. Sorry to break it to Swans fans, however, but three of the other four did not even finish in the top 10.
There have been 277 goals scored already in the Championship this season. That's 36 more than at the same stage last season, with one fewer match having taken place, and the second most ever at this stage since the Championship rebrand in 2004-05. What do we put it down to?
Well the stats suggest it is due to more direct play and quality on the flanks. Only once in the past nine seasons have more goals come from crosses than the 47 so far this campaign. Also, 44 of those 47 have come from headers, the most at this stage by some distance over the past five seasons, while nine have come from throw-ins - the second most at this stage in the past 14 seasons, behind only last season's 12.
That suggests a real shift in the way the game has evolved in recent times, given that from 2013-14 to 2020-21, by this point of the campaign, just 14 goals across those eight seasons - an average of fewer than two - came from throw-ins. Bristol City's on-loan Crystal Palace full-back Rio Cardines has six assists already, the most by any player in Europe's top leagues. Burnley began this season aiming to do something which had never been done before - become a six-time yo-yo club.
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