Championship experts reveal Leeds United title prediction and unexpected ‘perfect crime’ scenario

Having correctly predicting each of the four previous Championship winners in their favoured ‘1-24’ season previews, Elek and Maxwell of ‘Not the Top 20’ and Sky Sports are backing Daniel Farke’s Leeds to bounce back to the Premier League with immediate effect as title winners.

Speaking on the NTT20 Championship season preview podcast this week, the pair said: “We’ve picked the last four winners of the Championship on our 1-24s. This year, we're picking Leeds United, Daniel Farke is in charge, they've gone through a fairly protracted ownership change, a new takeover that got ratified a couple of weeks ago.

"On the outside, George doesn't look like they've done a tonne of work in terms of recruitment. And that always worries people, that always concerns people when they don't see lots of transfers being made. We're not concerned. We've got them number one.

“Daniel Farke has won this league twice. You said to me yesterday when we were talking through this, the fact that it feels like he's less tactically innovative, certainly less than [Southampton boss] Russell Martin and we'll see with [Leicester head coach] Enzo Maresca, but by the looks of it, he is – I think that is maybe short term, at least a positive where any teething issues that I'm talking about, the processes that go on with it, but certainly Martin-ball or Maresca-ball that might create a little bit of time before this gets up and running, I don't think will be the case for Leeds.

"Otherwise, the key here for me is that Leeds’ relegation was a case of the wrong recruitment at the wrong time. Georginio Rutter is a case of that where were needing to ward off relegation they spent 30 million pounds on a striker that fans were then told wasn't ready for first-team football.

"What that means is that they have a lot of players who are young, talented, destined for the top level players who probably aren't going to be picked off this summer, coupled with a new ownership group, who seem intent on retaining some of those players.

"Willy Gnonto, if he is there this season will be one of the standout players in the Championship and the EFL this season, possibly the standout, already rejecting bids from Everton for his services, seemingly with no desire to let him go.

"To add to that you've got Summerville, Sinisterra, they've already added Ampadu which I think is a really shrewd signing, I think he's going to pay holding midfield for them rather than centre-back. Someone who’s going to distribute the ball really well, and the aforementioned Rutter who, again, you've got a 30 million pound striker playing up front. There's no way he can be going anywhere because they’re not going to recoup that fee, he scored eight goals when he was 19 in the Bundesliga.

"So it's kind of the perfect crime where almost poor recruitment has meant that, in my eyes at least, if you look at the profile of the Norwich side that went up under Farke, the Burnley side from last season, it's this profile of young, technically-gifted players who are able to develop within the Championship rather than necessarily going into a Premier League side where they're under the cosh the whole time and can't really get a foothold in the game.

"They still have Liam Cooper at centre-back Luke Ayling, at full-back, these are players who have won this league already before.”