League One Odds: Who are the favourites in the winner, promotion and relegation markets?

With the new League One campaign starting on August 7th, we’ve taken a look at the favourites in each of the division’s ante-post betting markets: winner, promotion and relegation. 

Below, you can find all of the latest League One odds for the coming season. 

Outright winner

This will be Sunderland’s fourth consecutive season in England’s third tier, following their catastrophic back-to-back relegations from the Premier League and then Championship in 2018. 

The Black Cats are far and away the biggest club in the division, with the largest budget and one of the strongest overall squads, including striker Charlie Wyke, who netted 26 league goals last term. They have finished in the top-six in two of the last three campaigns and last season missed out on the play-off final after losing to Lincoln in the semis. 

This time around Sunderland will be hoping to avoid the uncertainties of the play-offs by securing automatic promotion, and they are current bookmaker favourites to win the league at 13/2, slightly longer than the 7/1 available for Ipswich to be crowned champions of England’s third division in 2021/22. 

The Tractor boys are gearing up for their third straight season in League One following relegation from the Championship in 2019, and will be looking to better their finishes from the previous two campaigns where they’ve finished 11th and 9th respectively. 

New signing Rakeem Harper will add strength to Ipswich’s midfield this season, while striker James Norwood will be looking to build on his tally of 10 goals in 2020/21 to help the East Anglian side in their quest for the title. 

Elsewhere in the market, Sheffield Wednesday are 9/1 shots to win the league; Portsmouth are 11/1, and Charlton are 12/1. 

Full list of League One odds for outright winner:

Promotion

League favourites Sunderland (9/4) and Ipswich (5/2) obviously top this market, with both sides available at short prices to be promoted back to the Championship come May. You would certainly back their ability to achieve such a feat - whether it be via finishing in the top-two or winning the play-offs - due to their financial resources they have available to them. 

Away from the two favourites, though, and recently relegated Sheffield Wednesday follow up in the League One odds for promotion at 3/1. The Owls were demoted from the second tier last season thanks largely to a six-point deduction from the EFL for breaching rules surrounding the sale of Hillsborough, but will be looking to bounce straight back up at the first time of asking this time around. 

The South Yorkshire club have a really strong squad of Championship-standard players, including the likes of Barry Bannan, Calum Paterson and Josh Windass, so it would be a shock to not see them in and around the top-six this term. 3/1 just for promotion could represent a decent bit of value for your ante-post acca. 

League One stalwarts Oxford United are usually always in and around the play-off places, returning two consecutive top-six finishes during the last two seasons. Last term they missed out on a spot in the play-off final after being defeated by eventual winners Blackpool, a year after they lost to Wycombe in the 2019/20 play-off final at Wembley. 

This season, they’ll be looking to finally go one better and secure promotion to the Championship, and the bookies are giving them a 17% chance of doing so with their odds of 5/1. Other sides near the head of the betting are Wigan & Charlton (both 4/1), Portsmouth (10/3), Rotherham (9/2) and Bolton (5/1). 

Full list of League One odds for promotion:

Relegation

Morecambe shocked the football world by obtaining promotion to League One via the League Two play-offs on a shoestring budget last season. The Lancashire outfit are one of the smallest clubs in the EFL and are often among the favourites for relegation, and last season they were the biggest price of any team to win the league at 200/1 with Sky Bet! 

This time out, the odds are again stacked firmly against the Shrimps, with the bookies offering slender odds of just 11/10 for an immediate relegation back to the fourth tier, and it is certainly difficult to look past them in this market given the resources they have available. 

Cambridge were promoted alongside Morecambe and are second-favourites to be relegated this season, priced at 6/5. Much of their success last term was down to the free-scoring Paul Mullin up-front, who notched 32 league goals as the U’s clinched the second of three automatic promotion spots in League Two. 

However, Mullin has now departed the club, rather bizarrely, to join Wrexham in the National League, so Cambridge will be without their leading marksman in 2021/22, which will make their job of remaining in a higher division all the more challenging. 

Third-favourites for the drop is last season’s League Two title-winners, Cheltenham Town. The Gloucestershire side have been so defensively solid during the last two campaigns, conceding just 66 goals in 92 league outings, so if they can remain as tightly knit this time out they will stand a great chance of staying up, although the challenge will of course be much greater in a tougher league. 

Full list of League One odds for relegation: