Here is just a final look at the teams that are going to be battling it out in the Npower Championship this season. Bolton last season suffered some of the worst luck I’ve ever seen a football team suffer from with regards to injuries. To lose three players of the calibre of Lee Chung-Yong, Stuart Holden and Tyrone Mears to long-term injury will hurt the progress of any club. Add to that the losses of Johan Elmander and Daniel Sturridge, the club’s most prolific goalscorers from the previous season, and already you can begin to sense the size of the task Owen Coyle had on his hands. However i think the squad is good enough to put together a promotion run and they will be in the top 2 in my opinion. Blackburn have a bit more work to do but should be capable of pushing for promotion too. Something needs to change at Blackburn before that club starts moving forwards again, and it needs to come from the top. The way that the Venky’s have been running the club doesn’t strike me with being that of footballing people with the footballing interests at heart. They certainly don’t seem to be in touch with the fans, who would have undoubtedly like to have seen Steve Kean depart and somebody else brought in with fresh ideas, which I what I think is desperately needed at Ewood Park. Wolves, on the other hand, have decided to wipe the slate clean and go with a new manager. StÃ¥le Solbakken isn’t a name that is too familiar with a lot of English fans but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He will come in with fresh ideas and it will definitely rejuvenate the club, something which is much needed after the way things went completely off the boil last season. At 44, i'm unsure on how there season will turn out but they do have a strong squad. Birmingham City are another side that look capable of being genuine contenders for promotion. They looked in tremendous shape in the second half of last season, but I always felt after a difficult start to the season, with a lot of speculation about the clubs financial state with the Carson Yeung situation, the club weren’t able to rebuild as quickly as they would have wanted but should do well again this season. Middlesbrough are a team heading back in the right direction, something which Boro fans hadn’t been able to say for a while until last season. They have a good squad of players, with a great blend of youth and experience and it looks as though things are coming together, now that Tony Mowbray has been at the club for a little while. They were unfortunate to miss out on a playoff place last season but I think that was as much about needing a couple of signings in crucial positions as much as anything else, and I think that with the additions that have been made already, with Jonathan Woodgate being the one that stands out, they might be able to claim a top-six spot. Leicester are perhaps the club under the most pressure in the entire division. Last season, with a massive injection of money and with Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager, they were tipped by a lot of people for promotion, only for their season to never really get going. Nigel Pearson will be expected to make this club challenge for promotion, and although he certainly has a good squad of players at his disposal, question marks still remain about how good this team is and how good it can be. He’ll be out the door and another new manager will be brought in, which won’t do the club any favours whatsoever. Leeds United a number of talented and experienced players at Elland Road who will certainly make Leeds a tough team to go and beat, but I don’t think they have the strongest all-round squad by any means. I don’t think you can rule out any team managed by Neil Warnock though. Charlton were simply mesmerising at times last season. They played some fantastic football and Chris Powell did a stunning job to have the team playing as well as they did from the first day of the season given the number of new players that had been brought in. With a year under their belts as a team now, they will only continue to get better but I don’t think they’ll be promotion contenders this season. However, the Valley won’t be an easy place to go and they may take some major scalps along the way. Sheffield Wednesday, meanwhile, are my tip to be the surprise package in the Championship this season. They have a tremendous amount of experience in the squad that they have and with Dave Jones, have a manager who is massively underrated. I would be very surprised if the Owls aren’t occupying the top half of the table throughout the season. They have the players to do very well in this division and I fully expect them to surprise a lot of people as they grow in form and confidence as the season progresses. Huddersfield will always be a threat, too. They have Jordan Rhodes, who was the best striker in the Football League last season. The statistics don’t lie but they only tell half the story. He was in sensational form last season and while the records will always show that he scored 40 goals in 45 appearances for Huddersfield last season, what they don’t tell you is the quality of the goals he scored. If they keep hold of him they could be a team to watch. I’d like to see Burnley really punch above their weight again because it was a thing for football to see a club on a relatively modest budget go and achieve the things that they did, and I think their time may yet come again, but I’m not sure that they will be able to push much beyond the upper reaches of mid-table. I think Eddie Howe’s a terrific young manager and he did great things with Bournemouth but he will still need more time at Burnley before we see great things from the club. Derby County are a team who I was really impressed with in the first half of last season but they ultimately lacked the quality and consistency to keep up the pace for the full duration of the season and were eventually unable to push beyond a mid-table place. That said, it was still much needed progress from the struggles in the bottom half of the table that the club had endured in recent seasons. Nigel Clough is a decent manager though and although he doesn’t have the kind of resources available that a lot of teams in this division do. Brighton had a terrific first season back in the Championship last season. The only problem I foresee is that it is going to be difficult to replicate this success now, and the real challenge for Gus Poyet is to ensure that they don’t suffer from the infamous ‘second season syndrome’. They’ve got some great players in the squad however, and have continued to surprise people wit the the calibre of player they’ve been attracting over the summer with Tomasz Kuszczak and Wayne Bridge joining the club, albeit the latter on a loan deal. Peterborough and Crystal Palace were equally impressive, given their modest budgets, and I expect both sides to be competitive but not challenging for honours towards the top of the table. The two sides have a lot in common in that they play good football and will always look to try and play their brand of football, no matter who the opposition is. Watford - Despite their recent takeover by the Pozzo family, I think it could be a tricky season for Watford. Although I think ultimately the takeover will be beneficial for the club going forward, the new owners have to be careful not to make too many major changes too quickly or they will risk unsettling the club. Similarly, Nottingham Forest are going to struggle despite also having new owners recently take charge. They clearly have money and they clearly will make it available to be spent, but the problem for Forest goes back for quite some time. Last summer, then-new boss Steve McClaren was trying to put a squad together and openly admitted he wasn’t able to strengthen the squad as much as he would have liked. Ipswich Town - Next in my list of potential strugglers are Ipswich Town, who have baffled me in the last couple of seasons. Normal footballing logic would suggest that when someone new takes over the club and invests money into the club, then the club ought to take steps forward. This doesn’t seem to have happened at Ipswich. Marcus Evans took over the club in 2008 and since then, I find myself feeling like Ipswich are actually slowly falling further away from their aim of getting back to the top flight. Barnsley and Bristol City are teams which I genuinely fear for in the coming season. They are small clubs who operate on very modest budgets when you compare them to even some of the teams that they are competing with to ensure survival year in, year out. Barnsley impressed me and looked very good at times last season, but the loss of Ricardo Vaz Te in January definitely hurt them and if they aren’t able to find a replacement for him over the summer then they could be in for a real struggle this season. Millwall - However, I’m not convinced I can say the same about Millwall. I think Kenny Jackett’s a terrific manager and he’s done brilliantly to deliver some stability to the club and to have done it with the side in the Championship. They’ve got some good players in the squad but looking at the squad they have as a whole, I just don’t think they will be able to compete with a lot of the sides that are now in this division. As for Hull City i think we have a great chance of making the playoffs this season, with a manager that has lots of experience of getting teams to the premiership. We have in my opinion made our squad stronger and they will be challenges for places. The only thing i am worried about is the lack of goals last season and just hope that bringing in proschwitz and Aluko will fix this.
Thanks for the writeup TigerReece. It's hard to find nuggets of info like that over here so that helps a lot.
Good analysis TigerReece. Personally I'm not so sure that Nigel Clough is a good manager and many Derby supporters would agree. Also your review of Leicester's hopes might be a tad influenced by an understandable dislike of Pearson. I think they are rightly tipped as one of the favourites to reach the play-offs, but beyond that they will need luck. Just a suggestion, but why don't you either put the team names in bold or a different colour so people can see it's broken up into clubs rather than one long paragraph.
Agree with the suggestion of the teams in bold however i disagree with the Leicester comment i thought i was very nice considering
