EFL Championship

When we think of injuries in soccer and of their repercussions, we often think of big names at big clubs. But oftentimes it is the absence of important players at mid-sized clubs that has the biggest impact on performance.

Larger clubs have the depth to replace even the most talented of players; most teams do not. This list of most impactful injuries this season will include one or two big names, but it also features several footballers that sometimes go unnoticed.

By Championship standards, the end of the 2021-22 regular season was rather anticlimactic. There were no relegation deciders as in 20-21, and no dramatic fights for automatic promotion like the year before. This season, on the final day, four teams were fighting to secure two playoff spots, but in the end, there were no changes to the final table.

After a chaotic final day of the 2020-21 EFL Championship campaign — during which Derby County was relegated, safe, relegated, then finally safe again, all within the space of 90 minutes — the Rams had secured their status as a Championship side.

At least that's what the final table said. The club still awaited judgment from the EFL regarding serious breaches of financial fair play regulations. In the end, the Rams were spared a points deduction and stayed in the second tier.

Since the advent of the sport in the 1800s, England and football have been intrinsically linked. This bond started with schoolboys on muddy fields, with the objective to get the ball from one end of the field to the other by any means necessary — no rules, no limit on numbers, only brute force.

Football has now evolved into an organized game; manicured, well-lined pitches, tidy uniforms, and 11 players on each side. Kicking the opponent was outlawed and shinguards were installed should a stray boot make contact with the tibia.

If the EFL Championship last year was a volcanic explosion, then this year is the spreading and settling of the lava flows.

No team this year will approach the 97 points earned by Norwich or the 91-point total of Watford last year. In fact, Brentford's 87-point, third-place finish from a year ago could be enough to win the league this year.