The Championship, English soccer’s second tier is tough, tight and unpredictable. Relegated teams often find themselves stuck in mid-table obscurity, with promotion back to the Premier League just a distant dream.

But try telling that to Leicester City.

Relegated on the final day of last season, Leicester lost midfielders James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Youri Tielemans among others in the summer.

But Leicester kept most of their team from the Premier League together. The Foxes also brought in new head coach Enzo Maresca, who used to be one of Pep Guardiola’s assistants at Manchester City. Maresca might lack experience, but his managerial career in England is getting off to a rather good start.

In fact, after eleven games, Leicester City have had the best start to a Championship season since the league’s rebranding in 2004.

Leicester have won ten of their 11 games, only dropping points in their loss to Hull City at the start of September.

The only other team to match them in the last 19 years of the Championship was Sheffield United in 2005/06, who also managed 30 points from 11 games.

Ironically, Sheffield United didn’t actually win the league that year though. The Blades finished second, behind a record-breaking Reading side that amassed 106 points despite losing their opening game. Sheffield United finished on 90 points, which was still nine clear of third place.

The third best ever start in the Championship, with 28 points from 11 games, is this season’s second-placed team, Ipswich Town.

Ipswich won promotion from League One to the Championship last season under former Manchester United coach Kieran McKenna. Despite adding relatively little to their squad in the summer, the Tractor Boys have continued where they left off, winning nine of their 11 games at the start of this season and are the league’s top goalscorers as they look to return to the Premier League for the first time since 2002.

But is a good start enough to earn promotion?

The evidence from the top ten starts before this season would suggest not.

Only five of the ten teams with the previous best starts went on to win automatic promotion, with two other teams winning the playoffs. Two more sides reached the playoffs but failed to win them, including a Brighton and Hove Albion side that missed out on automatic promotion on goal difference in 2015/16.

The other team, Cardiff City in 2006/07, had the fourth best start before this season with eight wins, two draws and one loss in their first eleven games, but subsequently imploded and finished in the bottom half of the league.

On the flipside, Sunderland were rock bottom of the Championship at the start of that 06/07 season after losing their opening four games and still ended up winning the league, while two seasons ago, Nottingham Forest won promotion through the playoffs despite suffering their worst start in over 100 years.

Still, it doesn’t do any harm to start the season with ten wins in 11 matches, and with Leicester City already ten points clear of third-placed Preston North End, the Foxes look well-placed for an instant return to the big-time.