Biggest fall-offs: The Championship sides who have flattered to deceive this season

The Championship is a division that punishes complacency and rewards consistency above almost everything else.

This season, several sides who looked like genuine contenders or at least solid mid-table operators have suffered dramatic declines.

Championship promotion odds long ago stopped featuring some of these clubs, and a handful now find themselves staring at a very different kind of fate altogether.

Here are the sides who have fallen furthest and fastest.

West Bromwich Albion

West Brom finished ninth last season with 64 points, a respectable return that suggested a club consolidating and building toward a promotion push.

The reality this season has been almost unrecognisable. James Morrison’s side sit 20th in the table with 45 points and just four points clear of the relegation zone, with Leicester City and Oxford United both within touching distance below them.

The drop-off in defensive solidity has been stark, and a squad that looked settled 12 months ago has struggled with consistency throughout the campaign.

For a club of West Brom’s size and resources, being drawn into a relegation battle represents a significant failure, and the final weeks of the season are likely to be an uncomfortable watch for their supporters.

Sheffield Wednesday

Sheffield Wednesday’s season has been extraordinary for all the wrong reasons.

They began the campaign with a points deduction hanging over them, which immediately put them behind before a ball had been kicked.

But it would barely have mattered. Wednesday have been so comprehensively poor that the deduction is almost incidental to the story.

They have won just once all season and sit on minus six points, a figure that speaks for itself.

The squad has looked short of Championship quality from the opening weeks, and there has been very little evidence of the tactical shape or collective spirit needed at this level.

Last season, they finished 12th with 58 points. The scale of the deterioration is almost without precedent in the second tier.

Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn were one of the more encouraging stories in the Championship last season, finishing seventh with 66 points and looking like a side capable of pushing for the top six with a bit more consistency.

This season, they sit 19th with 47 points, a former Premier League champion club now looking nervously over their shoulder at the bottom three.

For a club with Blackburn’s history, this is a sobering position.

The underlying issues appear to go beyond a simple dip in form, with questions about the squad’s depth and the management’s ability to halt the slide remaining unanswered as the season enters its final stages.

Sheffield United

Of all the fall-offs in this season’s Championship, Sheffield United’s is perhaps the most dramatic in terms of raw numbers.

Last season, the Blades finished third with 90 points and were leading Sunderland 1-0 in the play-off final with 75 minutes played.

They could hardly have been closer to a return to the Premier League.

This season, they sit 17th with just 51 points, a drop of 39 points on the same stage of last year’s campaign.

The impact of that play-off defeat clearly ran deeper than many anticipated. Rebuilding a squad after that kind of near miss is difficult, and United have not managed it.

For those following Championship odds throughout the season, the Blades’ collapse has been one of the most startling stories in the division.

A warning from the second tier

The Championship’s ability to humble even the most ambitious and well-resourced clubs is well established, but this season has produced an unusually sharp set of collapses.

For West Brom and Blackburn, survival is the only objective remaining. For Sheffield United, a serious rebuild is needed.

And for Sheffield Wednesday, the challenge of escaping the bottom three may already be beyond them.

The final weeks will tell.