The 2026-27 Championship season is the 23rd of its kind, dating back to 2004, when it was rebranded from the First Division to what it is presently known as.
But who have been the best midfielders since the rebrand’s inception – players who have commanded play from the middle of the pitch and impressed both their club’s fans and neutrals? FLW looks at their top EIGHT from the last 22 years…
Honourable mentions go to Barry Bannan for his longevity, Charlie Adam for tearing it up with Blackpool, Emi Buendia, who played mostly as a winger for Norwich City instead of a number 10, Kevin Nolan for his two seasons and 29 goals for Newcastle United and West Ham, and perhaps even Hayden Hackney, who won the Championship Player of the Year award for the 2025-26 season.
8Gus Hamer
When Coventry City signed Gus Hamer from the Eredivisie in the summer of 2020 after winning promotion from League One, it appeared to be a gamble.
Fast forward six years, and he’s just lost out on promotion with the Sky Blues, left the club for an eight-figure amount, then returned to the CBS Arena when they finally made it back to the Premier League.
In his early years at Cov, Hamer was a tough midfielder who understood where the goal was, but he also enjoyed a yellow card and occasionally got into trouble on the pitch, being booked 14 times in the 2021-22 Championship season.
His 11 goals and 10 assists for City in his third year, primarily in a more advanced midfield role, earned him a move to Premier League team Sheffield United after Mark Robins’ side failed to win promotion, although he was not away from the Championship for long.
With 10 goals and eight assists for the Blades in the 2024-25 second tier season, he was voted Player of the Year, despite losing another play-off final.
While his two years in the Championship with United saw him play more wide-left under Chris Wilder, Hamer remains a midfielder, and he’s unquestionably one of the best in recent years.
7Jason Koumas
In the early days of the Championship, strikers such as Jason Roberts, Nathan Ellington, Marlon King, and Kevin Doyle dominated the regular 4-4-2 systems.
However, number 10s and midfielders contributed, with Jason Koumas standing out as one of the finest in the second division.
Prior to the 2004 relaunch, Koumas came through at Tranmere Rovers, where he was a significant threat, scoring 18 goals in his final two seasons at second-tier level before being signed by West Brom for their Premiership campaign for £2.25 million.
While the Welshman would be decent in the Premier League, being a big hitter in the Championship paid off more for Koumas – he scored a further 10 goals in the final season before the division was renamed, and after being loaned out to Cardiff City in 2005-06, he scored another 12 goals.
Returning from his spell with the Bluebirds, Koumas helped Albion back to the Premier League in 2006-07 with nine goals and 11 assists; with two Championship Team of the Year accolades and a Player of the Year trophy under his belt, it’s difficult to argue with his place on this list.
6Jack Grealish
Prior to his £100 million transfer to Manchester City in 2021, Jack Grealish had to put in some effort in the Championship.
Grealish had top-flight experience as a youth before to Aston Villa’s relegation in 2016, but he would establish himself as a first-team regular in 2016-17 as a number 10, and he would play a significant role in their run to the play-off final in 2018 – a defeat to Fulham.
At the third time of asking, Villa regained their place in the top flight through the play-offs, and Grealish was their lynchpin in the middle – six goals and eight assists on the surface don’t look like much, but he missed chunks of the campaign due to injury, and it was easy to see how talented he was on the ball, and why he would make his big move in two years.
5Pablo Hernandez
Pablo Hernandez was unquestionably a Championship icon, having played both on the flank and at number ten.
The Spaniard had previously played in the UK for Swansea City, but it was his time with Leeds United that EFL fans will remember him for, when he appeared over 150 times in the Championship before a brief spell in the Premier League.
Hernandez scored 30 goals in his first two league seasons at Elland Road and peaked in 2018-19, earning a spot on the Championship Team of the Year with 12 goals and 12 assists.
Hernandez would win Leeds’ Player of the Year title THREE times in a row between 2018 and 2020, with a final season of 18 goals and assists in the second tier serving as a fitting farewell to the division for the playmaker, who will be remembered as one of the modern-day greats.
4Wes Hoolahan
Wes Hoolahan joined the EFL in 2006 as a little-known Irish midfielder, and he would leave 16 years later as an icon for Norwich City.
When Blackpool was in League One, they took a chance on the then-Livingston man on loan before signing him permanently the following summer after a lengthy legal struggle – it paid off for the Seasiders.
They were a Championship club when Hoolahan joined permanently in 2007, but it was a year later that he joined Norwich for £250,000, which turned out to be an incredible deal.
While the Irish playmaker did not immediately gel at Carrow Road, it took relegation to League One and an immediate promotion back for ‘Wessi’ to show his best stuff, and with 17 goal contributions in the 2010-11 season, which saw the Norfolk club win a second consecutive promotion, Hoolahan was proving he was a Premier League-quality player.
Hoolahan was mostly playing on the left side of a 4-4-2 at the time, but when Norwich returned to the Championship in 2014, he was frequently used as a number 10, with two outstanding second-tier seasons sandwiched by another brief top-flight stint.
Hoolahan would leave Norwich in 2018 as a club icon, having been named to the Championship Team of the Year in 2010-11 and winning City’s Player of the Year award in 2017. He’d appear 225 times in the Championship across three different clubs (including a brief stint at West Brom), scoring 29 goals and creating 44 – a true stalwart of the division.
3Ruben Neves
This one is based on pure talent rather than a combination of factors – Ruben Neves could be one of the silkiest players to have graced Championship surfaces.
When Neves joined Wolves in 2017 for £15.8 million, a club and Championship record at the time, eyebrows were raised, especially given his 20-year-old age and experience, which includes captaining FC Porto on multiple times at first-team level.
Neves only played one season in the second tier of English football, as Nuno’s Wolves side cruised to victory, but the Portuguese maestro was a star in the middle of the field, scoring six goals, including a world-class stunner against Derby County at Molineux.
It was unsurprising that Neves won the league’s Player of the Year award in his debut season, as well as a spot on the Team of the Year; he’s gone on to larger and better things since then, proving how ridiculous it was that he was in the Championship at all.
2Adel Taarabt
Adel Taarabt’s tenure at QPR will be remembered by the streets, as will the Championship defenders he decimated throughout the years.
The Moroccan had flare at Tottenham, but it didn’t go him very far, and he had to work his way up to QPR, where he was loaned out in March 2009.
His brief stint at Loftus Road went well enough for the Hoops to approve another incoming loan arrangement for the 2009-10 season, and it was there that he began to show he was the genuine deal.
Taarabt produced seven goals and 11 assists for the R’s that season, and he was so unpopular at Tottenham that they agreed to a £1 million permanent sale for him in the summer of 2010 – significantly less than the £4.5 million option QPR had months earlier.
Taarabt was the driving force behind QPR’s promotion-winning campaign in 2010-11, scoring 19 goals and providing 21 assists in 44 Championship matches while under Neil Warnock’s coaching. He also won the Championship Player of the Year title. It was a team effort, of course, but he was the magician who made the majority of things happen.
While Taarabt was not as efficient in the Premier League, and his QPR career eventually faltered, his Championship exploits will be remembered.
1Peter Whittingham
There was only going to be one guy at the top of this list, and that was Mr Championship.
Peter Whittingham had previously spent time on loan at Burnley and Derby County from Aston Villa before joining Cardiff City permanently in 2007, and he would frequently play out wide in his early years with the Bluebirds, providing a solid output.
Whittingham came into his own in the 2009-10 season, scoring 20 goals and assisting 10 times – an extraordinary production for a non-striker – and he’d be creative again a year later, contributing 20 goals altogether as Cardiff lost in the play-off final to Blackpool.
Whittingham scored 12 goals and assisted 15 times in 2011-12, when he made a more full-time transition from wing to middle of the park, and after a 13-goal contribution haul in 2012-13, Whittingham finally tasted Premier League football with the South Wales outfit when they won promotion under Malky Mackay.
After his brief tenure in the top division, Whittingham spent three more seasons in the second tier, scoring 19 goals and providing 24 assists until retiring in 2017, following a spell with Blackburn Rovers.
Whittingham is the ultimate Championship player when you combine ability and long-term impact, and his tragic and untimely death in 2020 was heartbreaking not only for Cardiff fans, but for all football fans who had the opportunity to see him play.
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