It was not to be for England at the European Championship. Another chance gone, another wait for the next.
The 26 players picked by Gareth Southgate can now spend their summers questioning where they came up short after losing the final against Spain but, for a handful, there was at least personal satisfaction to be gleaned from a month in Germany.
Ollie Watkins, Ivan Toney, Jarrod Bowen, Eberechi Eze, Ezri Konsa and Adam Wharton had all marked individual progress with inclusion in their first major tournament squad with England. And the thread linking all of those together? Each has been a Championship player in the last five years.
Jude Bellingham, a veteran of the 2022 World Cup, can be added to that list after playing for his boyhood club Birmingham City as recently as 2020. Go far back enough and you can find John Stones, Kyle Walker and Kieran Tripper all on the books of a Championship club too.
It is the division that was the making of so many of England’s best players early in their careers. Unsurprisingly, it continues to be a market closely monitored during every transfer window.
Watkins, Bowen and Eze all started out in the EFL (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Tottenham Hotspur saw enough last season to commit £40million ($51.8m) to sign Archie Gray from Leeds United at the end of last month. Newly promoted Ipswich Town have paid Hull City £15m to take Jacob Greaves to the Premier League. Jaden Philogene is another soon to be on the move, expected to leave Hull to rejoin Aston Villa on the back of his excellent season in the Championship.
This summer’s early moves continue a well-established pattern. Last season, Wharton joined Crystal Palace from Blackburn Rovers for £16million. Alex Scott had earned a £25m move from Bristol City to Bournemouth, joining Antoine Semenyo (Bristol City) and Marcus Tavernier (Middlesbrough) on the ladder up from the Championship to the Vitality Stadium.
Palace, too, are well-versed. Eze was signed from Queens Park Rangers for £17million in 2020. His capture was followed up by that of Michael Olise 12 months later. The £8m that Palace paid to Reading became a remarkable piece of business once Olise was sold to Bayern Munich for a fee in excess of £50m earlier this month.
The gems are there to be found for those looking hard enough.
“It’s been proven time and time again that you can take the right players from the Championship, get them in your group and develop them,” says a former chief scout at an established Premier League club — who, like most people featured in this article, spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity to protect relations.
“The Championship gives players a really good grounding. It’s like a prep school for the Premier League; the physicality is key for young players.
“Every club has its playing identity but having that physicality, that athleticism and sharpness is very important. That’s what makes it a really good breeding ground for Premier League clubs. It’s why you’ll see so many loan their players out there, too, rather than to teams abroad.”
This summer’s transfers of Gray, Greaves, Philogene and Nathan Wood (Swansea City to Southampton) ensures Premier League clubs have already spent in the region of £70million on Championship players with either no or limited experience in the top flight.
Far more has been passed between Premier League clubs in recent weeks, but the flow down the pyramid has increased in recent seasons.
Wharton, 20, has been superb for Palace since joining from Blackburn in January (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Even allowing for the fees collected by Leicester City, Southampton and Leeds in the wake of their relegations in 2022-23, Championship clubs sold players for £500million last summer. That was up on the £208million of the previous season and the highest on record.
Included in last year’s notable trades were Scott, Wharton, Morgan Rogers (Middlesbrough to Villa) and Gustavo Hamer (Coventry City to Sheffield United), as well as some moves to the continent. Sweden international Viktor Gyokeres joined Sporting Lisbon in Portugal from Coventry for £18m, while Ajax spent £11m on Middlesbrough forward Chuba Akpom. It underlined that form in the Championship was being watched in Europe.
Direct moves to the top end of the Premier League, though, remain rare.
“It’s not like there are 100 players in the Championship who can play up,” says one agent and former recruitment head in the EFL. “I do think there’s some prejudice there but it’s about relative levels. When you go and see a player playing in the Championship, he’s playing against a Championship team at a Championship pace in a Championship environment.
“There’s a lot of people who find it difficult to distinguish the difference between a player’s environment and a player’s potential. They’ll look at the level and they won’t be convinced because of it. There are biases and influences involved, and snobbery has to be one.”
Another head of recruitment at a Championship club disagrees. “I don’t think it’s snobbery, it’s just the jump is very big and you have to be sure they can make that jump.
“It’s hardly a needle in a haystack because everyone knows the good players. You’ve just got to find that one who fits what you want and it’s within your price-point on what you can afford. These things are always like a jigsaw and finding the right piece.
“There’s talent in the Championship, no question. But the very good ones are few and far between. Every club in the Premier League will know who the best ones are but it’s often just a matter of timing — for example, if you’ve got that particular gap in your squad, or who’s brave enough to put their faith in them.”
Manchester United, for example, have little history of taking unproven players from the Championship. There was a £15million move for winger Dan James from Swansea in 2019 — but before that, it was Wilfried Zaha’s failed switch from Crystal Palace in 2013 in permanent signings of note.
Manchester City? Even less so. Nathan Ake was technically a Championship player when joining from relegated Bournemouth in 2020 but goalkeeper Scott Carson, capped by England and previously of Derby County, was the only other senior player taken from a Championship club in the last 10 years. City and others will typically do their raiding of EFL clubs long before the player has arrived at senior level.
“If you look at Wharton going to Palace, why wasn’t he on Manchester United’s radar?” asks the recruitment head.
“There’s some stubbornness — (a viewpoint of) ‘We’re better than that’, maybe. But the bigger Premier League clubs want them ready-made. They want to know they can play in the Premier League. A lot of Premier League clubs will believe they can go elsewhere in Europe and get better value.”
The Championship, however, can still bring indirect benefits to the biggest Premier League clubs.
Manchester City use the division as a stage to drive up the values of young players. Forward Liam Delap, 21, who had solid if unspectacular loan spells with Stoke City, Preston North End and Hull, was sold to Ipswich for £15million last week, despite only two appearances totalling 50 minutes in the Premier League for City.
Delap’s Championship displays led to a Premier League move at Ipswich (Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)
“There’s a level to it,” says the former Premier League chief scout. “You can look at the Premier League and make sweeping statements — but there are levels.
“You’ve got the Champions League level, then another crop and then the rest just trying to survive. A lot of the players that get talked about in the Championship could easily go and play in those teams towards the bottom.
“If you look at a player like Ben Sheaf (at Coventry), for example. He’s got to be up there with the best midfielders in the Championship and I’ve no doubt he could play in the Premier League. I wouldn’t say he could play for Liverpool or Arsenal just now — but at the lesser teams in the bottom half, he would hold his own.
“It’s just about the right club having the opening.”
Grant McCann, now manager at League Two club Doncaster Rovers, has seen several of his former players earn moves to the Premier League.
He was in charge of Hull City when West Ham United were convinced to sign Bowen for an initial outlay of £18million in 2020 and worked closely with Keane Lewis-Potter before his £16m move to Brentford two and a half years later.
This summer has already seen another two make the leap.
Central defender Greaves is now a Premier League player with Ipswich, while the 21-year-old defender Ronnie Edwards, who McCann managed at Peterborough United in the 2022-23 season, has jumped from League One to the top flight with Southampton in a £3million deal.
Ronnie Edwards has gone from League One to the Premier League this summer (Pete Norton/Getty Images)
“The EFL is an excellent breeding ground,” McCann tells The Athletic. “I do think there’s top talent in the Championship; you see it every week.”
Bowen, who twice came off the bench for England at Euro 2024, has become an accomplished Premier League forward since a prolific two-and-a-half-year period in the Championship.
Sixty goals have been scored for West Ham, including a late winner in the 2023 Europa Conference League final victory over Fiorentina. Yet it took time for suitors to be convinced of his ability in the division below.
Bowen netted 15 times for Hull in 2017-18 before adding another 22 to his tally the next season. Only after another 17 goals were scored in the first half of the 2019-20 season were West Ham compelled to make their move for the 23-year-old forward.
“I was surprised when I came to Hull (in the summer of 2019) that he was still there,” says McCann. “He’d had a couple of really good seasons before we got there and scored goals. We knew (the move) would come — particularly with how he trained and played. He was a natural goalscorer but he always wanted to work on his game. That helped him get better and better.
“We knew at some point he would go, and I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. There was Newcastle and West Ham both bidding at the same time, and West Ham bid a little more.
“Young English talent isn’t cheap, is it? That’s a factor. Maybe it’s why certain Premier League clubs go abroad a little bit more.
“There’s still a fair share of them coming through, though. Eze was very good at QPR, for example. I remember playing against him and it was pretty clear he was going to be a Premier League player. The best ones will always get there.”
Any reticence, perhaps, is strengthened by those who fail. Adam Armstrong cost Southampton £15million from Blackburn in 2021 but scored only four Premier League goals across two seasons. Harry Souttar, who joined Leicester City from Stoke for £15m in January 2023, is another who has struggled to live up to expectations.
Not every gem can be polished, and clubs such as Palace also seek the potential to make more on a signing. Olise could yet be followed out of Palace by the in-demand Eze this summer, while 20-year-old Wharton’s £16million fee already appears like the smartest of business inside just six months.
“There’s a lot that goes into taking these players,” says McCann. “Is he big enough? Is he quick enough? It’s a massive step to make from the Championship to the Premier League.
“Maybe it’s not the name that fans (of Premier League clubs) want. It’s hard to put your finger on why some clubs won’t do it, but there’s still plenty who will. I guarantee you a lot of clubs in the Premier League will have had a lot of names taken to the managers and presented to them. Then it’s their call.
“There’s some top quality in the Championship — even in League One as well. Some very good players just need that opportunity.”
(Top photo: Getty Images)
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