The first part of our annual look ahead to the new Championship season starts with the teams the bookies fancy to challenge for promotion.

Red Bull Leeds 3/1 (title odds)

Last Season: In this column a year ago we described Leeds as the “least inspiring” of the three teams relegated from the Premier League and tipped them to miss the play-offs entirely. Initially, you could see exactly why.

Despite hiring Daniel Farke, a serial winner at this level, they spent the summer dealing with the myriad problems that come when a club that doesn’t really know what it’s doing is promoted to the Premier League and gets handed an enormous amount of TV money. Going from Marcelo Bielsa to Sam Allardyce through Jesse Marsch and Javi Gracia doesn’t suggest a lot of joined up thinking, and the pile of over-priced, over-paid, under-performing, under-committed signings made during a chaotic three years in the top flight could mostly be shifted only on loan. Just kick that can down the road lads, what harm can come? After an August defeat at eventually relegated Birmingham, Farke was forced to admit Willy Gnonto had gone on strike to try and force his own departure. Viz Top Tip – if you don’t fancy playing in the Championship, don’t get your team relegated there in the first place you little scrotes.

As things settled down, post transfer window, it all became very, very Leeds, and very, very Farke, indeed. Our prediction was made to look ever more foolish by the day as the wins started to amass – nine of them and just one defeat in an 11-game spell through the autumn, another 12 from 16 games through the spring. Ipswich were beaten twice, Leeds scored eight goals in the process, which proved the Tractor Boys would definitely fall away eventually and not be a problem come May.

They took more away than anybody else, they twirled their scarves around on demand like performing circus bears, they proclaimed their front four the greatest attack ever seen at this level of football, and all those seasons when they didn’t even have enough turning up here to justify opening the upper tier of that stand down the side is just a figment of your imagination.

When it came to the final frame and the final black, however, it all got a bit Steve Davis v Dennis Taylor. This mighty, dominant, all-conquering force, that shouldn’t even really be at this level in the first place, started to totter about a bit. Mateo Joseph scored twice in the cup at Chelsea and was then dropped for a weekend draw at eventually relegated Huddersfield when the Whites were, to be frank, complete crap and lucky to draw. They drew at Watford too, who had the worst home record in the league of any team that stayed up. There were defeats at Coventry and at home to Blackburn. Sunderland, who’d long since given up, got a draw at Elland Road. Farke remained stubbornly wedded to his formation, his tactics, and his late, overly-cautious substitutions. The other three in the top four continued to run on take-off power. Now it was Leeds who looked vulnerable and - facing a tough week of Middlesbrough away on the Monday followed by QPR away four days later - there was an opportunity there for somebody to nudge them over the edge.

I don’t want to overstate how happy that Friday night made me, but if can imagine a dark, cold evening, with a roaring log fire, being interrupted by Anna Kendrick turning up at your door, with an ice cold Albariño in one hand and a QPR 92/93 season video in the other, telling you to “fire up the VCR while she slips into something more comfortable”, then disappearing into the bathroom with a Victoria’s Secret carrier bag the size of a credit card as Ray Wilkins begins “and what a season it’s been”, then you’re not even halfway there. Clive Wilson was good, wasn’t he?

That Leeds even made the Wembley final at all after Lucas Anderson and co curled a dreadnaught of that girth and heft straight into the s-bend of their life can only be down to Norwich being perhaps the worst team to ever qualify for the play-offs in living memory. No surprise to see them beaten by Southampton in the final. They were done.

Ins >>> Joe Rodon, 26, CB, Spurs, Part-Ex >>> Jayden Bogle, 23, RB, Sheff Utd, £5m >>> Alex Cairns, 31, GK, Salford, Undisclosed >>> Joe Rothwell, 29, CM, Bournemouth, Loan

Outs >>> Archie Gray, 18, CM, Spurs, £40m >>> Crysencio Summerville, 22, AM, West Ham, £25m >>> Luis Sinisterra, 25, LW, Bournemouth, £20m >>> Glen Kamara, 28, CM, Stade Rennais, £8m >>> Marc Roca, 27, DM, Real Bets, £3.5m >>> Charlie Cresswell, 21, CB, Toulouse, £3.5m >>> Diego Llorente, 30, CB, Real Betis, £3m >>> Robin Koch, 27, CB, Frankfurt, Free >>> Cody Drameh, 22, RB, Hull, Free >>> Kristoffer Klaesson, 23, GK, Rakow (Poland), Free >>> Jamie Shackleton, 24, RB, Sheff Utd, Free >>> Luke Ayling, 32, RB, Boro, Free >>> Ian Poveda, 24, RW, Sunderland, Free >>> Rasmus Kristensen, 27, RB, Frankfurt, Loan >>> Sam Greenwood, 22, AM, Preston, Loan >>> Darko Gyabi, 20, CM, Plymouth, Loan >>> Sonny Perkins, 20, CF, Orient, Loan

This Season: Once Anna had gone home and you’d stopped laughing yourself to death, it was probably worth remembering Leeds’ total of 90 points would have been good enough for automatic promotion in every other second tier season since football was invented in 1992. Leicester, Southampton and Ipswich, who maintained that record-setting pace from August to May, are all gone and out of the way now. In their place has come the weakest set of relegated Premier League teams we’ve seen for some time. At the other end the promoted sides don’t look anywhere near as competitive as Plymouth, Sheff Wed and Ipswich were able to be. A theme of these reviews will be a significantly weaker division this season.

That’s good for Leeds. Crysencio Summerville wants to go to Liverpool. I want to moonwalk son but life’s a shitter. West Ham for you. Star boy Archie Gray has already gone, but they got a chunky fee for both which postpones the sort of financial worries you can get into as a parachute payment team sans-parachute payments. There’s a suspicion Joel Piroe doesn’t really fit here, but Mateo Joseph is an underrated potential replacement up front and they’ll doubtless spend some of the readies on a Sammie Szmodics or Jon Rowe type between now and September. They also got podcast host Joe Rodon back on a permanent deal as part of the Gray deal. He’ll be able to play at the back with Patrick Struijk, who’d scored a Danny Shittu-like six goals from centre half in the first half of last season before ending his campaign with an injury on Boxing Day. That blow saw Ethan Ampadu drop out of an effective midfield combination with Gray, who himself got moved to right back thanks to further injuries and loss of form.

There will, inevitably, be further incomings.

Another thing we said this time last year was that Leeds have, essentially, been complete shite now for the best part of 25 years. To listen to their fans, you’d think this was like that time Italian football bumped Juventus down a division for decades of impropriety, or Rangers got sent to places like Peterhead who hadn’t seen the likes since the time of the Vikings. To listen to the media you’d think this has just been one on-going success story, that Lorimer and Bremner, Charles and Charlton, Speed and Strachan, were all playing here until about 20 minutes ago. Listen to Don Goodman and you’d wonder why on earth there’s any point anybody else bothering to turn up and play Leeds. What do you get for a walkover? 8-0 and a two-point deduction? Take it, better than playing a beast of this might. The reality, though, is very different. Leeds have been in Leage One more than they’ve been in the Premier League. They’ve been managed by Dennis Wise, Paul Heckingbottom, Dave Hockaday, and Steve Evans in a Mexican sombrero and flip flops. This is a chaotic, often clueless, club, charging people £45 a throw to sit in a decaying stadium in the middle of a wasteland. It was lifted, briefly and gloriously, back to success by a generational coaching talent – literally one of the best and brightest football minds alive in the world today. Since they sacked him (I mean, come on) they’ve started accelerating back to being exactly what they were before.

We’re about to tip them to win the league, which runs completely contradictory to all of that. But if they don’t, despite the lower standard of the division this year, and that cycle of declining parachute payments and high wage commitments starts to accelerate, then nothing short of Marcelo Bielsa returning will save them.

Manager: Daniel Farke This is how Americans think German people speak.

Oppo View – Nico Franks “For the most part, last season was very enjoyable. Winning heaps of games was great fun and the unbeaten run we went on in the first quarter of 2024 was up there with the longest we've ever seen. But, ultimately, it was disappointing to lose the play off final with a whimper having started that game promisingly. And yes, the 4-0 loss against QPR in April after my end-of-season hubris on this blog that we might use that game to clinch second spot still haunts me in my dreams.

“The pressure is on Farke and all the expectation on Leeds this season means a slow start won't be tolerated. There are a lot of comparisons drawn between Farke and Southgate in terms of their perceived cautiousness and lack of tactic nous. But there's still plenty of goodwill in the tank after the successes of last season. If he can demonstrate an improved ability to turn around games that are getting away from us beyond just throwing on more attackers then that would help get the naysayers on side.

“Jayden Bogle and Joe Rothwell look like very capable additions at this level, while it appears attempts are being made to reintegrate a few high-profile deserters from the 2022/23 relegation season (Brenden Aaronson, Max Wober) who spent last season out on loan in Europe. We heartbreakingly sold wunderkind Archie Gray to Spurs, with Joe Rodon coming the other way only slightly softening that blow, and have just broken his regen Harry Gray in pre-season.

“There were hopes that the Archie Gray funds (and selling our souls receiving investment from R** Bull) would mean we wouldn't sell arguably our star player in Summerville but, at the time of writing, it looks like he's off to West Ham. So, we'll need a replacement for him – a move for Norwich's Gabriel Sara is on the cards. There's the usual clamour for an out-and-out striker with Piroe still flattering to deceive and Bamford spending more time in Yorkshire hospitals than my 94-year-old nan. But hopefully Mateo Joseph, the Spanish (under-21s) international, is on the verge of a breakthrough season, if pre-season is anything to go by.

“I predicted fourth and a play-off semi-final loss before the 23/24 season, so I wasn't far off. This season I expect we'll get fewer points but go up automatically, probably as champions. Last season felt like such an anomaly, with a huge gap between the top four and the rest of the table and three teams getting at least 90 points. This season things will be a lot less extreme, with Burnley, Luton and Sheff United in mixed shape and none of the promoted teams likely to do an Ipswich. So if we can get more goals from midfield and avoid any prolonged slumps then yes, this time next year we could be rubbing our hands in anticipation of some cracking VAR debates in the promised land.”

Prediction – 1st A significantly worse Championship this year. That said, Farke could be a good bet in the sack race if they don’t win big, early and often.

Burnley 6/1

Last Season: Vincent Kompany certainly had plenty of credit in the bank at Turf Moor after Burnley cruised seamlessly to the Championship title in 2023, losing only one home game all season (ahem) and three games overall, posting 101 points and getting their own Sky Documentaries series.

He chose to spend that credit in ever more baffling and intriguing ways. The Championship’s best goalkeeper Arijanet Muric, keeper of 18 clean sheets and conceder of only 35 goals in 46 games, was bombed out immediately and a chunky £19m was lashed on 20-year-old James Trafford who’d previously only ever played as high as League One with Bolton. While he was deemed Premier League ready right away, Anass Zaroury and Manuel Benson were not. Despite terrorising the second tier from left and right, they were afforded just one start apiece and Zaroury spent six months in exile in Hull.

The Clarets’ start was undoubtedly tough on paper: Man City, Villa, Spurs, Newcastle and Chelsea came thick and fast in the first eight games. However, this inevitably meant that a run of kinder fixtures followed over the next couple of months, and they lost seven in a row. With 13 games played, Burnley had won once. After the seventh defeat in that sequence, at home to West Ham, Kompany was asked if the Premier League was proving harder than he’d anticipated. He denied this and said in fact he thought it would be much harder. Well, if it’s that bloody easy how about sticking a home win or two on the board you melon-headed weirdo?

There were two problems with this, other than the obvious.

The first is that reason number 356 that modern football is a bag of wank is this tendency of managers, pundits and wannabe influencers to try and gain clout and make themselves sound more knowledgeable (more knowledgeable than you anyway, pleb) about the game by saying the most ridiculously contrary load of bullshit they can think of by way of a “bold take”. Brentford’s Thomas Frank, after David Raya had cost his team a play-off final by going for a walkabout 20 yards from goal as Joe Bryan lined up a wide free kick, said “next season, I want him to be even further forward”. You don’t though, do you Thomas? Guardiola, Kompany’s mentor, is an absolute sod for this. Man City will come off a month where they play Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd in and around a two-legged Champions League tie with Real Madrid, they’ll then dry bum some idiot scum like Nottingham Forest 7-0, and afterwards “Pep” will insist it was the toughest game they’d had against the best opponent. “No, really, these guys, so, so smart, some of the things they were doing, we had to be so good to beat them, it is the best team we have played. The best.” I mean, it’s obviously fucking not, is it, professor? If the Premier League really was way easier than you were expecting, Vince, Burnley would have done a good deal better than two home wins from 19 swings. Helmet.

The second is that it quickly became apparent Vincent Kompany didn’t really give much of a stuff about Burnley and their Premier League status at all. This was very firmly a Brand Kompany exercise. Maximum ideals, minimum pragmatism. There would be no deviation, no alteration, no attempt to grind out the sort of results you need to survive in these situations, no compromise. They would be sticking to the footballing principles Kompany knew would get him bigger and better jobs further down the line, however much it shafted the team he was managing presently. Lo and behold their wins came mostly against exactly the sides they’d been able to sweep aside in the Championship and nobody else – Sheff Utd twice, Luton, Brentford and Fulham. The players pleaded, begged, and eventually became exasperated. Come the end of the season it was quicker to count the ones he hadn’t fallen out with. When Ian Maatsen didn’t return for another loan spell at left back Charlie Taylor was pressed into action for the first half of the season. Kompany said “we’ll correct the left back problem in January”. Oooh, good luck Charlie, vote of confidence for you there.

The Athletic’s deep dive on a catastrophic season painted a picture less of dressing room disharmony, more an outright civil war. Conor Roberts could stand it no longer, said his bit, and was bombed straight to Leeds. Even stalwart Jay Rodriguez only agreed a contract extension once Kompany had left. Which he inevitably did, for… Bayern Munich. Because of course. Modern football’s a bag of wank reason no.357.

Ins >>> Mike Tresor, 25, LW, Genk, £16m >>> Maxime Esteve, 22, CB, Montpellier, £10m >>> Andreas Hountondji, 22, CF, Caen, £3m >>> Lucas Pires, 23, LB, Santos, £2m >>> Shurandy Sambo, 22, RB, Eindhoven, Free >>> Vaclav Hladky, 33, GK, Ipswich, Free

Outs >>> Arijanet Muric, 25, GK, Ipswich, £8m >>> Bailey Peacock-Farrell, 27, GK, Birmingham, £500k >>> Charlie Taylor, 30, LB, Southampton, Free >>> Lawrence Vigouroux, 30, GK, Swansea, Undisclosed >>> Jack Cork, 35, CM, Released

This Season: Burnley bring with them the size of squad not seen at this level since Steve Cooper and Evangelos Marinakis played Supermarket Sweep with the Nottingham Forest company credit card. There are the thick end of 40 senior players here, including a whole host of names you’d either completely forgotten played for Burnley or never realised in the first place: Bristol City’s hairy boy Han Noah Massengo is here now, apparently; as is Nathan Redmond, on a three-year deal; Wout Weghorst is technically a Burnley player; Michael Obafemi; Posh Scott Twine. The chaos exemplified by them having to spend the best part of £16m on Mike Tresor, who they only started three times during his loan spell and no longer want to sign.

Still, when you can put together a Championship midfield of Josh Brownhill and Liam Cullen with Benson and Zaroury either side of them, you’re going to be a threat regardless. When you’ve still got more than a dozen other midfielders and wingers you could pick besides that – Koleosho, player of the year and almost certain departure Sande Berge, Johan Gudmundsson, are all here – you’re essentially bringing not one but two teams capable of winning this league at a canter. All you need is a manager to knit them altogether.

Enter Burnley’s star-fucker owners, whose summer-long search for somebody they’d heard of on TV carried them through a near miss with Frank Lampard to… Scott Parker.

Therefore, we know exactly how this is going to go, because we’ve seen this movie before. And not a very good movie it was the first three viewings either. Scott Parker the Championship Seal Clubber. Setting off once again into a field of small, defenceless animals, armed with a semi-automatic weapon and a shoulder mounted flame thrower. Big, tough guy. The only challenge he ever likes to pose himself is taking squads the likes of which Fulham, Bournemouth and now Burnley were able to bestow upon him, and get them promoted by playing the most turgid, shithouse, unwatchable load of old dross he possibly can. Burnley will win. Burnley will win often. Most of the games will be 1-0. A 0-0 away from home will always be a good result, even when they take their 47 bastard players to Oxford United. The gamesmanship and playing of referees will be off the scale. You will want to watch none of this, and if somebody ties you to a chair and forces you the only thing you’ll ever remember of what you experience is the burn of the rope against your wrists.

After a year of Vincent Kompany pisballing about fluffing his own CV up, a little bit of pragmatism and results over performance might be quite welcome in a town where they renamed a pub after Sean Dyche. But this is such a complete about-face from one extreme to another you have to wonder how this squad, however well-furnished and talented it may be, will cope with the whiplash. The other doubt is up front. At Dean Court and Craven Cottage Parker was frequently rescued from some of his bigger clusterfucks by having Mitrovic or Solanke up front. Here strikers are plentiful in number, but it looks the weakest bit of the squad to me – not helped by talented Lyle Foster’s ongoing battles with his own mental health. When Parker, as you all know he will, turns around in the last week of January and demands money be spent on another six players to help the struggling four dozen he’s already got, expect new strikers to be high on the shopping list.

Manager: Scott Parker In one single moment, your whole life can turn 'round. I stand there for a minute, staring straight into the ground. Lookin' to the left slightly, then lookin' back down. The world feels like it's caved in, proper sorry frown.

Opposition view: Tom Whittaker @TomClaret “Last season was about as bad as it gets. There was early optimism among the fanbase after a fantastic Championship title-winning campaign and a summer spending spree far outstripping anything the club has ever done previously, despite the loss of a couple of key loanees in Ian Maatsen and Nathan Tella. What followed, however, was worse than even the most pessimistic Burnley fan could have predicted, as the Championship title winning Vincent Kompany appeared to be replaced by an alien who didn't understand how to get the best out of the players and the lopsided squad he had assembled. The playing-out-from-the-back style proved relentlessly suicidal and obvious personnel changes came too late to prevent by far the most tame relegation we've witnessed in our years as a yo-yo club.

“Parker's pedigree at this level and the undoubted talent throughout the squad, with many winning the title in style two seasons ago, should mean that automatic promotion is achievable, particularly given the relative weakness of the division compared to last season. Burnley fans are pretty optimistic we can bounce straight back once again.”

Prediction: 2nd It’ll be excruciatingly boring. It’ll be borderline unwatchable. It’ll be a complete waste of the attacking talent in this squad. And it’ll almost certainly work, as it always has done before. Modern football’s a bag of wank reason no.358.

Luton 12/1

Last Season: A first return to the top flight since 1991/92, and promotion to the Premier League having been in the Conference as recently as 2014, was a formidable achievement. From 2016 to 2023 Luton finished in progressively higher league positions year on year. They did this despite talismanic manager Nathan Jones walking out on them twice. They did it despite the obvious financial restrictions that come with playing at Kenilworth Road, competing in a league dominated by parachute payments while only being able to bring 9,000 people through the door once a fortnight. They did it through razor sharp recruitment, always miles ahead of the trends other eejit clubs (naming no names) only cotton on to years later and then mimic. They did it by eschewing the pronounced modern insistence that football shall now only be played one way, and you must all try to copy Pep Guardiola whether you’ve got the players for it or not, and went instead with two massive bastards up front and goalkeepers that are, first and foremost, really good at keeping the ball out of the goal – passing can come later. They know what they’re really good at in Luton, and they’re really very good at it indeed.

The ’coverage’ they were afforded in the Best League In The World delved into little of this. It was generally accepted that they’d ended up there through some pure dumb luck and wouldn’t be staying around for long. When they, predictably, made a better fist of it than the pre-season predictions of “will this lot even win a game?” words like “brave” started being trotted around. Oooh, look at Rob Edwards, isn’t he handsome, so ruddy, bloody brave not just rolling over and dying with this team of complete no-hopers. A succession of YouTube and TikTok wankers queued up to point at the away turnstiles – look at them, can you believe it, they’re part of that house?! And look at these stairs, that’s somebody’s bathroom there look, look. Sin your whole life, commit heinous acts, think debauched thoughts, die in squalor and misery abandoned by your family in disgust and shame, descend on the stopping train through hell to level nine, creak open the door of your new home in Dante’s eternal inferno, and there will be Thogden, with his GoPro out, filming “I VISITED THE WORST FOOTBALL GROUND IN BRITAIN”.

Luton were, indeed, relegated. And because everybody expected that to happen it was rarely acknowledged how close they’d come to staying up. Certainly, a good deal closer than Burnley’s tame effort, which seemed to be entirely based around playing a type of football that furthered Brand Kompany so he could pop off to Bayern Munich at the end of the year. And a lot closer than they really had a right to given the scale of injury absentees they had to deal with – most notably at the back where Tom Lockyer’s tragic heart failure at Bournemouth was the obvious terrible lead story, but Edwards was frequently facing Premier League away games without a recognised centre half available to him.

Ins >>> Reuell Walters, 19, RB, Arsenal, Loan >>> Shandon Baptiste, 26, CM, Brentford, Free

Outs >>> Ross Barkley, 30, CM, Villa, £5m >>> Ryan Giles, 24, LB, Hull, £5m >>> Gabriel Osho, 25, CB, Auxerre, Free >>> Luke Berry, 31, CM, Charlton, Free >>> Jack Walton, 26, GK, Dundee Utd, Loan >>> Dion Pereira, 25, LW, Dagenham, Loan >>> Dan Potts, 30, CB, Released >>> Fred Onyedinma, 27, AM, Released >>> Admiral Muskwe, 25, CF, Permanent Shore Leave >>> Elliott Thorpe, 23, CM, Released

This Season: It’ll be an odd experience for Luton to no longer be the underdogs, but they continue to be widely underestimated. There’s plenty of love for Burnley, despite Kompany-ball being replaced by Scott Parker’s ongoing attempt to bore everybody to death. Early calls on the demise of Sheff Utd have subsided with a flurry of excellent additions in the transfer market. Luton, though? There still seems this latent belief they were lucky to have been there in the first place, despite steadily building towards it for years and deserving that promotion when it came.

They bring back with them not only the daunting, physical Morris-Adebayo strike force that took them up in the first place, but a plethora of other options behind them. As we prepare to take on a Championship season with Dykes (injured), Celar (unproven) and Frey (just you be ready with that WD40) they’ve not only got Cauley Woodrow and Jacob Brown as back up but now John McAtee, who was outstanding when I watched him regularly at Grimsby and scored 15 (frequently spectacular) goals for Barnsley on loan last season, and Joe Taylor who scored a goal every other game as part of Lincoln’s remarkable second half to 23/24. Arguably the best collection of strikers in the division.

Ross Barkley was outstanding for them and has left, but their ‘best of the Championship’ recruitment strategy means they’re bringing back Ogbene down one side and Chong down the other to supply those forwards – good luck with that Championship full backs. The centre of midfield, where Marvellous Nkamba leads the way, needs work, and the arrival of Shandon Baptiste is unlikely to ease the physio’s workload. The world’s most fragile set of centre backs will be a problem again if Reece Burke and the likes cannot string a regular run of games together. There will be departures – Alfie Doughty, who QPR repeatedly tried to buy from Charlton, is attracting most interest. But Tomas Kaminiski was one of this division’s better goalkeepers when he played for Blackburn.

Luton have been slow off the mark in the summer transfer market, but they’ve got money to spend now and you’d trust one of English football smartest recruitment operations to get that spot on if and when they do go into the market over the next month.

Having taken over midway through a season after Nathan Jones defection, Edwards spent a daunting first full campaign as Luton manager trying to wrestle them to Premier League survival. This is a first big run at this job with things in his favour. What will the full Rob Edwards Luton experience look like? We’re about to find out.

Manager – Rob Edwards Seemingly now under instruction to keep flashing his wedding ring in every TV interview.

Opposition View @LutonTownExile “Last season (our first in the Premier League) was an incredible rollercoaster ride, almost a microcosm of the rollercoaster ride that being a Town fan has been for the last 60 years, certainly the last 15. What people have to understand is that we went into that PL season having spent £25m and with a bottom third Championship budget. Ok, we lost our first five games but we adjusted quickly and actually completely changed our system and the way we played as the season was happening. We actually played really well for a long time and genuinely competed in most games. We controlled a lot of games and should have got about a dozen more points but didn’t due to a combination of some bad luck, errors, and, it has to be said, a gulf in quality at times. Ross Barkley was sensational for us. The extent of injuries we experienced really killed us though and if it hadn’t been for that I genuinely think we’d have survived even without Everton & Forest’s deductions. A fit Adebayo in the form he was in would have got 30 PL goals which is phenomenal. All in all we made a really good fist of it, made a lot of friends, impressed a lot of people, and really set down a springboard to get back and survive at that level.

“Much depends on who we can keep hold of and if we can’t keep hold of them, how we replace them. At the moment the question is almost unanswerable. If we can keep Kaminski, Adebayo, and Mengi we can get back up. If we lose them we’ll struggle. Doughty and Chong could go but we can probably deal with that better. And keeping injuries at bay has to happen (we’re already struggling in pre season). Based on what I think will happen in the window and what we’ll then do to cover it, I see us finishing top 6. I don’t think we’ll get automatics.”

Prediction: 3rd One of football’s smartest clubs now has parachute payments. You guys should be afraid, certainly more afraid than you’re currently coming off.

Middlesbrough 10/1

Last Season: The LFW Memorial Millstone hung heavy around the neck of Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough who took our prediction of them kicking on still further from a brilliant 22/23 by winning automatic promotion in 23/24 and turned it swiftly into no victories from their first seven games (even Gareth Ainsworth’s QPR won at the Riverside).

That needn’t have been terminal. A run to the play-off semi-final the year before grew from a start of just four wins from the first 16 league games – a sequence which saw Chris Wilder binned off and Michael Carrick handed control. From there they won a remarkable 16 of 19 games and when they stuck seven consecutive wins together through September and October last year it felt like history might be about to repeat.

Unfortunately for the Teesside faithful it was a year that spluttered in and out of form from there on in. One win and four defeats through November, then four wins and one defeat the month after, fairly typical. One defeat in 12 preceded by one win in eight and four in 14.

Reasons/excuses/mitigation were in plentiful supply. Firstly, the summer departures of Chuba Akpom and Cameron Archer took 40 goals out of the team. We tipped them strongly regardless on the guesswork that money would be spent on replacements, but one of their chief 22/23 supply lines – Ryan Giles – also did not return, opting instead for Luton. Secondly, one of said replacements, Emmanuel Latte Lath, was a slow burn. He finished the season with a chunky 18 goals, but only seven of those came before March. Thirdly, Boro’s injury list was the worst of any other club in the division. It tested squad depth that, it turns out, simply wasn’t there. And a fourth, in some ways supplementary, point, they had a run all the way to the League Cup semi-final. Although their opposition all the way through were from the lower divisions they were also all away games (Exeter A, Plymouth A, Bristol City A back to back one of the logistical problems that presented). When they subsequently collapsed and lost the second leg 6-1 having won 1-0 at home in the first, the disappointment and exhaustion was palpable and took a lot out of an already stretched side.

Ins >>> Aidan Morris, 22, CM, Colombus, £3m >>> Delano Burgzorg, 25, LW, Mainz, £2m >>> Luke Ayling, 32, RB, Leeds, Free

Outs >>> Paddy McNair, 29, CM, San Diego, Free >>> Liam Roberts, 29, GK, Millwall, Free >>> Jamie Jones, 35, GK, Salford, Free >>> Hayden Coulson, 26, LB, Blackpool, Undisclosed

This Season: With the usual caveat that we often/always overrate Boro in this season preview (we’ve had them down for a promotion push in each of the last three seasons), here’s why we’re placing them high up again.

The traumatic summer of 2023, where 40 goals and chief supply line Ryan Giles all exited the building, has not been repeated. This will be a settled team with a season together under their belts taking the field in August. That should hopefully help them the slow starts that handicapped the previous two seasons – both of which could still have resulted in promotion anyway without too much else going for them instead of against.

You’d have to be very unlucky indeed to have a set of injuries on the scale Boro did last term for a second season in a row. Three misfortunes, that's possible. Seven misfortunes, there's an outside chance. But nine misfortunes? I'd like to see that! A run to the League Cup semi-final made up entirely of away draws is also unlikely to burden them again.

They have, for me, three of the Championship’s outstanding talents right down the centre of the team. Dutch centre back Rav van den Berg, still only 20, was one of the best opposition players we saw at Loftus Road last season and has plenty of ceiling yet. Finn Azaz was a genius pick up from Aston Villa for the money they paid - Plymouth were never the same again after the mercurial loanee left and he’s had half a season to bed in at the Riverside now. Latte Lath, once he got settled and fit, couldn’t stop scoring – 11 in his final 12 appearances. He’s ready and raring to go, they have good back up for him in Marcus Forss and Josh Coburn, and another striker still is being actively sought. Bristol City’s wantaway Tommy Conway is an exciting target.

When the fixture list abated, injuries eased, and Lath found form, they lost only one of their final 12 matches, winning seven.

There’s plenty still to do. Has that squad depth improved sufficiently to cope with another winter crisis? Probably not. The left side remains a bit of a state since Giles left, with Engel no kind of replacement – attempts are now being made to bring Giles back despite him moving permanently to Hull this transfer window. Giving Luke Ayling a permanent deal at 32 on the back of a nice Indian summer might be the absolute epitome of ‘don’t fall in love with a loan player’. Dr Zoidberg has scuttled across from an erratic loan spell at Huddersfield and will need to learn to pass to teammates if he’s to impact here, but Riley McGree has committed to a new four-year contract which is a huge boost and Aidan Morris arrives to bolster centre mid.

Overall, with further additions to come, and a weaker division overall, this lot look hot to trot to me.

Manager – Michael Carrick Has he genuinely not been on The Overlap yet? He must sit by that phone day and night.

Oppo View: Dana Malt @Boro_Breakdown “I was massively optimistic at the start of last season and we burned that bridge right away with a poor start. I predicted that we’d finish second and that did not happen. We’d lost key players which was a big reason behind the start to the season. I’d like to say it was a slow burn, but there never really was a burn at any point mostly because there was a complete conveyor belt of injuries that hit us like a plague. It never really felt like Carrick was able to get his best team on the pitch at any point. That massively affected our campaign, and I think is ultimately why we finished the season outside of the playoff places, because we've got a good manager, we've got good players, but when you don't have those good players in the team consistently, you can't really bank on consistent results. There were only two players that had a completely available season in that they weren't unavailable through injury, Africa Cup of Nations, Asia Cup or suspension.

“I think we’re good to go but you know what the Championship is like, there’ll be some fuckery happening somewhere – a lightning strike, injuries again. But right now, right this second, I’m happy with where Middlesbrough are.”

Prediction: 5th He said he’s changed this time mum.

Coventry 14/1

Last Season: Coventry’s run to a play-off final defeat against Luton in 2023 was built around the talented trio of Viktor Gyokeres, Gus Hamer and Callum O’Hare. With Gyokeres picked off by Sporting, Hamer joining Sheff Utd late in the window, and O’Hare only free of injury enough for 18 league starts, it was always going to be tough to follow that up and, on the face of it, with a ninth-place finish, the Sky Blues fell short.

That doesn’t really come close to telling even half the story. With Sisu long gone and Doug King newly installed as benevolent owner, crowds are pouring back in to watch this City team and a return to the Premier League doesn’t feel far away.

Their 23/24 mirrored that of Middlesbrough, who had also made the play-offs the year before only to lose the key players (particularly goalscorers) who took them there. A poor summer of friendlies, significant departures and late arrivals, one win from the first eight, three from the first 16, a cup embarrassment at Wimbledon. A climb back as far as the play-off places proved beyond them, but a run right the way through to the semi-final of one of the cups (FA Cup in Coventry’s case, League in Boro’s) did not.

City’s 3-2 quarter final win away at Premier League Wolves, a game they trailed in the 92nd minute, was one of the competition’s greatest. It would have been surpassed by a semi-final comeback from 3-0 down to beat Manchester United 4-3 at Wembley in the last second of extra time – but of course we now have to let some gimp with a laptop examine such moments for five or six minutes before deciding whether they can proceed and instead we end up with Man Utd lifting the cup themselves while IShowSpeed wanks himself to death into his GoPro and uses his hospitality pass for the clean-up. Because that’s much better for football, apparently.

If that had happened to us I’m not sure I’d ever go to football again. It’s little wonder City’s play-off push withered on the vine.

Ins >>> Jack Rudoni, 23, CM, Huddersfield, £5m >>> Brandon Thomas-Asante, 25, CF, West Brom, £3m >>> Luis Binks, 22, CB, Bologna, £2m >>> Oliver Dovin, 22, GK, Hammarby, £2m >>> Raphael Borges Rodrigues, 20, LW, Macarthur (Oz), Undisclosed

Outs >>> Callum O’Hare, 26, AM, Sheff Utd, Free >>> Liam Kelly, 34, DM, Rotherham, Free >>> Simon Moore, 34, GK, Sunderland, Free >>> Matty Godden, 32, CF, Charlton, Undisclosed

This Season: Coventry whacked Everton 3-0 last week to heighten optimism ahead of what could well be the season they finally return to the top flight for the first time since 2001. This lot mean business.

Again much like Middlesbrough, a couple of last summer’s signings took time to settle and then came on strong: Ellis Simms scored two in his first 26 (both against us, natch) then scored 16 in 18 including two hat tricks; Haji Wright got 13 of his 19 goals after Christmas; Victor Torp looked a very good January pick up to me and now has a full run at a Championship season.

Having previously been heavily reliant on loan players, transfer incomings have enabled them to invest in some strong permanent signings. They banked the thick end of £40m in transfer fees last summer, there’s potentially a Gyokeres sell-on fee coming soon, and interest is building in Ben Sheaf and others.

Jack Rudoni has rightly been identified as one of the few things worth saving from the meltdown at Huddersfield. The creative midfielder was the Terriers’ best player in both games against QPR last season – Rangers watched him repeatedly at AFC Wimbledon, he was a favourite of the data and analytics department at Loftus Road, and in the end they let him move to West Yorkshire for a relative pittance while we were noshing off Laird, Balogun and Roberts. Rudoni’s been great for City in pre-season by all accounts. When he eventually signs for QPR well past his best at 33 I’m going to be fuming.

There are areas of concern. O’Hare has been lost on a free to reunite with Hamer at Bramall Lane, and an attempt to upgrade Jake Bidwell with much sought after Peterborough wing back Harrison Burrows has also been scuppered by Sheff Utd. They must be getting mighty sick of the Blades. Adi Viveash, Robins’ long term right hand man and said by many to be something of the brains behind the outfit, has been jettisoned from the coaching staff on the eve of the season with weird abruptness. It’s difficult to see last season’s rotation of goalkeepers Ben Wilson and Brad Collins sustaining. And City must work on their starts – one win from eight to begin 23/24, one from ten the year before.

I like the signings, I like the balance of the squad, I like the manager, and the direction of travel is pretty clear. Bring back a Luke McNally-type at centre back and they’ll go very close.

The momentum rather went out of their season after the scandalous Wembley heartbreak, but this lot will be very well positioned to push strongly come August.

Manager – Mark Robins A perfect fit.

Opposition View – Dominic Jeram @SideSammy “The more distance there’s been from last season, the more positively it is being looked back on. While it was a disappointment that a poor final month of the campaign cost the team a pretty good shot at making the play-offs for a second season in a row, there were mitigating factors. The most notable of which was that last season was the first for an almost entirely rebuilt team and one that didn’t get going until late November. To go so close to the top six in that context was fairly impressive. In addition, the team made memories to last a generation in making the FA Cup Semi-Final and coming within a hair’s breadth of beating Manchester United, having been 3-0 down. That Manchester United game will be the memory of last season, rather than, say, a disappointing 2-1 loss at home on the final day when everyone was knackered.

“The defence is the biggest concern, the hope is that either someone like Oliver Dovin or Bobby Thomas will step up this year as strong players who can lead the back-line or a new signing before the end of the summer transfer window can address that, but that has not happened yet. As it stands, this could be quite an open, attacking team that looks like it can punch harder than it can get hit but I think Mark Robins would prefer a more boring approach knowing the match-winners he has up his sleeve to decide tight games.”

Prediction – 4th A good bet to win the play-offs, or more.

Sheff Utd 14/1

Last Season: Some shades of QPR 2013/14 in Sheff Utd’s 2022/23, where a promotion was desperately needed to stave off a financial catastrophe entirely of the club’s own making. The Blades weren’t even turning their undersoil heating on during the second half of that campaign as Michael Carrick’s Middlesbrough staged a late surge towards their top two spot which must have had the Bramall Lane accountants sweating like Fred West on Time Team. Paul Heckingbottom’s men gallantly clung to second and saved the club from a full graphite on the roof situation in the process. The scale of the problem then laid bare by summer transfer activity which, even with the Premier League TV riches coming their way, saw the two best players, Sande Berge and Iliman Ndiaye, sold without replacement.

The nine months that followed were predictably horrific. The Blades won only three times, two of their 19 home games, and amassed a paltry 16 points – a full 16 again away from safety. They conceded 104 goals and finished with a -16 goal difference. Jack Robinson scored two of those himself, into the wrong net. They took one point from their first ten games, lost 8-0 at home to Newcastle, 6-0 to Arsenal, 5-0 to Arsenal, Burnley, Brighton and Villa, 5-1 to Newcastle, 4-1 to Burnley. THEN THE LARGE WOMEN AGAIN.

Quite what blame you could pin on Heckingbottom for any of this I really don’t know, but he was sacked anyway. And then, like that bit halfway through season 124 of Cunt Factor where a troubled Simon Cowell walks out of an audition and makes the executive decision to Bring Back Louis Walsh, they reappointed Chris Wilder, who they’d previously sacked the last time they were getting relegated out of the Premier League. What a couple of tempestuous and totally unsuccessful stints at Middlesbrough and Watford did to justify that decision, who can tell, but it went all “oooh I’m dead northern me, I say what I think” for the remaining months of the season in which they triumphantly amassed three draws and 11 defeats from their remaining 14 games.

Fuck me dead.

Ins >>> Harrison Burrows, 22, LB, Peterborough, £3m >>> Kieffer Moore, 31, CF, Bournemouth, £1.5m >>> Callum O’Hare, 26, AM, Coventry, Free >>> Jamie Shackleton, 24, RB, Leeds, Free >>> Sam McCallum, 23, LB, Norwich, Free

Outs >>> Cameron Archer, 22, AM, Villa, £15m >>> Jayden Bogle, 23, RB, Leeds, £5m >>> Benie Traore, 21, CF, Basel, £4m >>> Roddy McScotsman, 28, CF, Las Palmas, Free >>> George Baldock, 31, RB, Panathinaikos, Free >>> Max Lowe, 27, LB, Sheff Wed, Free >>> Ben Osborn, 29, CM, Derby, Free >>> Daniel Jebbison, 20, CF, Bournemouth, Free >>> Wes Foderingham, 33, GK, West Ham, Free >>> Sam Curtis, 18, RB, Peterborough, Loan >>> John Egan, 31, CB, Released >>> Oliver Norwood, 33, CM, Released >>> Chris Basham, 35, CB, Released >>> Jordan Amissah, 22, GK, Released

This Season: Those QPR comparisons keep on coming. Despite being a relegated side in possession of parachute payments for 2015/16, few were tipping Rangers for a run towards promotion under Chris Ramsey and with a summer intake that included James Perch, Jamie Mackie, Paul Konchesky and the ever-swazzy JET (not the one from Gladiators, though she’d probably have been a better buy) you could see why. There was a feeling that years of excess and Premier League reach couldn’t feasibly continue, with an enormous FFP fine still to come, and the club needed to focus on a complete rebuild rather than another unsustainable bonfire of money in the hope of a Bobby Zamora goal at the end.

Similarly, you’d now be a brave man to tip Sheff Utd this year regardless of their relatively short title odds. Chris Wilder may be back, but time and football has moved on, and the final remnants of his innovative underlapping centre back set up that brought them consecutive promotions from League One to Premier League half a decade ago have been jettisoned en masse. John Egan, Chris Basham and Oliver Norwood are notable stalwart departures, all currently without a club. George Baldock, Ben Osborn, Max Lowe and League One Wes have all got themselves fixed up. Daniel Jebbison isn’t the messiah, he’s now at Bournemouth. They’ve managed to offset their big Cameron Archer outlay by returning him to the Amazon depot for a refund. Leeds have paid them some actual money for Jayden Bogle. A buyer has been tricked into signing Benie Traore. They’re hoping to find somebody equally as gullible to offload the detested Vinicius Souza. Oli McBurnie has signed for Las Palmas in Gran Canaria. I mean, what can possibly go wrong with that? Thank you, Tim, for leaving me with my favourite food.

In total, 13 players have left and two loans have gone back, and with the one worthwhile footballer they do have (Anel Ahmedhodzic) still in the building there’s likely to be more to come.

A much needed takeover by an American consortium is currently winding its way through the EFL’s most excellent and stringent “fit and proper persons” challenge (Faces we’d like Pam. Throw. Thud. BOOKS.). Meantime they have signed some decent players. Callum O’Hare is a fantastic free transfer pick up, reuniting with his Coventry partner in crime Gustavo Hamer who was a rare success story last season, if he can stay fit. Kieffer Moore reneged on Hull City at the eleventh hour to sign here instead, giving significant boost to a strike force that basically consisted of one forlorn boy in a Rhian Brewster costume (five goals in 77 appearances). They’re linked with Plymouth’s excellent Michael Cooper, or Brighton’s Carl Rushworth who was incredible for Swansea last year, in goal. The whole division wanted Peterborough wing back supreme Harrison Burrows and his arrival perhaps puts a spanner in the idea Wilder may be about to abandon his once revered, now tired back three system. Signing Burrows when you’ve already brough in Sam McCallum at left back, however, suggests the sort of purchasing planning and strategy employed by toddlers in sweet shops – OOOH, GIMME.

Does Wilder still have his powers? We used to be his biggest fans, but as it stands I’ll be pretty amazed if he makes it to Christmas without having a colossal falling out with whoever’s employing him. Will the takeover go through? Will there be more funding for signings? Will it be a back four or three? Will the brilliantly named Oli Arblaster live up to his hype? What on earth is Andre Dozzell doing here?

It’s certainly a club with far more questions hanging over it than answers being provided at the moment and perhaps the biggest one is this… If the Blades are, indeed, settling in for a rebuild and transition season, will the fans buy into that after three of the last five seasons in the top flight? Chris Ramsey got absolute dog’s abuse at QPR in 15/16. This problem could be exacerbated in the Steel City if Danny Rohl does, as many are tipping, finally get Wednesday motoring on the other side of town.

Manager – Chris Wilder We’re Sheff United mate, we come in through t’front door.

Opposition view: @BeastlyOli “Last season was just a complete mess for so many reasons, but it’s hard to look past the first and most obvious - we sold our best bloody player a week before the season started! The Iliman Ndiaye transfer saga had rumbled on all summer but when it finally looked resolved and a new contract was about to be signed the rug was pulled out and he left the club on the eve of the season. From that point onwards it was an inevitable dredge to relegation, the players stopped trying around mid October, the defence were as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot and all that was interspersed with some of the worst performances I can imagine any club putting forward in embarrassing defeats to Newcastle (twice), Arsenal (twice) and Burnley… TWICE! It turns out I’m not quite over it…

“Sheffield United meet reality and it’s a hard one to pitch. With so much recruitment still to do we could either end up looking very strong or looking down the barrel of a complete lack of depth. Given the huge difference in quality from premier league to championship most fans will accept a period of transition… but while still expecting us to be at least challenging the play offs. If we get off to a poor start - especially accounting for the two point deduction- I think we could see things turn quite dark at Bramall Lane, especially if the takeover doesn’t complete soon. Within all that context I will go with my heart and suggest my prediction would be sixth and sneaking into more play off heartbreak. I think our starting 11 will be up there with there strongest in the division - but with even one injury to a key man we might find that the house is built on sand.”

Prediction: 10th Oh, and they’re starting on -2 points. Just because.

West Brom 16/1

Last season: With a distinctly mid-table looking defence, midfield and attack, we confidently tipped the Baggies to finish slap bang in the middle of the 23/24 Championship and then forgot all about them.

We’d also forgotten their manager was Carlos Corberan.

Daniel Farke and Scott Parker walk in and out of top jobs at promotion seeking clubs. Danny Rohl and Marti Cifuentes are the new bright young things on campus. Leicester and then Chelsea go Pep-lite with Enzo Maresca. The best manager in the league is currently at The Hawthorns.

Corberan was part of the Marcelo Bielsa staff which broke Leeds United’s quarter century absence from the top division. He moved into a chaotic situation at Huddersfield to be his own man, got them to a play-off final, and they’ve cratered into League One since he left. Having taken over a West Brom side bottom of the table, with two wins in 17 games, hysterically mismanaged by a human cabbage, he won ten of his first 11 games to soar off into ninth place.

In his first full year the Baggies made the play-offs. This was the epitome of a team more than the sum of its parts. Rush goalkeeper Cedric Kipre was arguably the star man. Alex Mowatt, brilliant at Barnsley and mistreated since his move here, was brought back into the fold to good effect – working with what you’ve got, coach your players, it doesn’t always need to be another signing. Sometimes it was functional stuff rather than champagne football – Lovely Darnell Furlong’s long throws and prodigious leap at set pieces was a potent weapon - but it worked.

It worked despite Daryl Dike’s amazing exploding Achilles blowing up again. It worked despite starting the season under the malignant ownership of Guochuan Lai, who’d started stripping money out of the club to prop his other failing businesses up rather than put it in to fund the team. And despite the team obviously running out of steam through a season end that included poor results against Millwall, Watford and Stoke, a hammering by Sheff Wed, and the luckiest of all escapes at Loftus Road.

There wasn’t much left in the tank for a semi-final with Southampton, but it still took them a game and a half to crack. A fine achievement. Managers matter.

Ins >>> Torbjorn Heggem, 26, CB, Brommapojkarna, £600k >>> Devante Cole, 29, CF, Barnsley, Free >>> Ousmane Diakite, 23, CM, Hartberg, Free >>> Joe Wildsmith, 28, GK, Derby, Free >>> Paddy McNair, 29, CM, San Diego, Loan

Outs >>> Brandon Thomas-Asante, 25, CF, Coventry, £3m >>> Okay Yokuslu, 30, DM, Trabzonspor, £1.5m >>> Conor Townsend, 31, LB, Ipswich, £500k >>> Cedric Kipre, 27, Rush Goalie, Stade Reims, Free >>> Nathaniel Chalobah, 29, DM, Sheff Wed, Free >>> Matt Phillips, 33, RW, Oxford, Free >>> Ethan Ingram, 21, RB, Dundee, Free >>> Zac Ashworth, 21, LB, Blackpool, Undisclosed >>> Josh Griffiths, 22, GK, Bristol Rovers, Loan >>> Yann M’Vila, 33, DM, Released >>> Adam Reach, 31, LW, Released >>> Eric Pieters, 35, CB, Released >>> Martin Kelly, 34, RB, Released

This Season: The good news, straight away, is West Brom have a new owner – American Shilen Patel, who has a minority stake in rapidly rising Italian Champions League qualifiers Bologna. The bad news is that years of financial mismanagement and a new absence of parachute payments mean FFP/P&S restrictions which are severely hampering summer recruitment.

Brandon Thomas-Asante departed a week before the season, further depleting and already threadbare attack continually hampered by Daryl Dike’s ongoing war with his own body. Devante Cole looks like a bit of a stretch as a replacement there.

Kipre has also gone to keep goal elsewhere this season. A big miss from the centre of the defence where giant untried Norwegian Torgborn Heggem arrives from the Swedish league with big boots to fill.

A whole plethora of old, high-earning stodge has been jettisoned. Matt Phillips (if I pulled out as much as him I wouldn’t have to sit in the family stand etc etc), Adam Reach, Erik Pieters, Martin Kelly, Nathaniel Chalobah and Yann M’Vila are all no longer. Sadly, neither is Micky Johnston, who was a terrific loanee from Celtic. Okay Yokuslu’s annual link with Trabzonspor may actually be a thing this time.

What they do have is a quality midfield, boosted further by the arrival of Ousmane Diakite who was one of Europe’s more promising prospects before a couple of bad injuries. Jayson Molumby going postal in the pre-season friendly against Majorca was a tad weird.

And Corberan is still here. Previously linked with a return to Leeds, I’d start to get very nervous if Daniel Farke doesn’t hit the ground running there this season, but while the Spaniard is in situ at The Hawthorns they’ll be a good half a dozen places higher than they really have any right to be.

Manager – Carlos Corberan Liable to turn up at your cousin’s funeral wearing white jeans. You’d say absolutely nothing.

Opposition View – Matt Graham @SAHistoryMatt “Overall the season was pretty strong. I think the key element of this is to remember the context of what was going off the field. We started the season with our chairman, Lai, who really had no interest in the club and was running it down. Which meant that there was this kind of financial blackhole, hanging over us and the auditors at the back end of the season before it said the club might not exist at the end of this one. Just surviving as a club was the key thing. That was overshadowing a lot of the stuff that happened on the field.

“We need at least one, probably two forwards. Possibly a left winger. We’ve got two decent right sided players in Tom Fellowes and Jed Wallace, we’ve got swift and Mowatt, so with that supply we’d be in great shape if we had a forward. Brandom Thomas-Asante was our top scorr with 11, which isn’t great, and he’s left now to go to Coventry. So he needs replacing, and we need more. Grady Diangana is injured for the first six weeks of the season. The only hope is the European or overseas scouting network kicks in and we find some gem from somewhere.
“I would put us anywhere between six and tenth, but I would say the sixth if we can sign a couple more players and Corberan sticks around all season.”

Prediction: 6th A 10th-12th placed team, elevated by the manager.

Norwich 16/1

Last Season: It has felt for sometime like Norwich have just needed to tear it all up and start again.

Initially the plan was clear, well thought through, and executed almost to a tee. Stuart Webber would be the sporting director, as he had been at Huddersfield, and he’d be using the German and European markets for his managers and signings, as he had done at Huddersfield. Buoyed by a sale of James Madison they’d go to the Premier League, keep their powder dry, bank the money, probably come straight back, but go back stronger 12 months later. Daniel Farke quickly stuck two promotions in three years on his CV.

The problem arose when it came to the bit where you actually use the money to buy things, you know, things you like. Norwich’s £60m+ outlay on their 2021/22 Premier League swing (£10m for Christos Tzolis thank you come again) was disastrous. They finished 16 points adrift of safety with a -61 goal difference and Farke was fired midway through.

From then on it’s rather felt like Norwich have clung to a busted regime and plan and simply attempted to paper over the cracks. Dean Smith was a wholly uninspiring replacement, hired just a week after Villa had binned him off, and inexplicably kept on for the following season in the Championship. David Wagner a rather desperate grab at Webber’s Huddersfield past once more – but the past is what it was. Both managers, and their playing style, felt an awkward fit with this club and as supporters have increasingly voiced their displeasure at what they’re seeing so barbs have been fired back at them for “creating a negative atmosphere” by Smith and Wagner, by owner Delia Smith, and by an increasingly chippy Webber. When his departure was announced, somewhat reluctantly by all sides it felt, he hung around for months anyway, apparently overseeing the appointment of his own successor. In an interview with the local press, he casually dropped into conversation he felt most of the club’s black players would probably be in prison if they hadn’t become footballers. Whoops. Tell that ‘is it bigger than the the bread bin?’ one again, Stuart. Apologies all round I think.

Still the Homer’s flying pig routine continued. It’s just a little dirty, it’s still good, it’s still good. It’s just a little slimy, it’s still good, it’s still good. It’s just a little airborne… All the way, it turned out, into last season’s Championship play-offs. This came as something of a surprise to plenty of Championship watchers and, having spent much of the season decrying Wagner’s football and demanding his sacking, most Norwich fans too. One of the worst teams to ever qualify for that end of season knock out at this level.

A semi-final humiliation at the hands of Leeds brought several years’ worth of chickens home to roost on a horrible night at Elland Road. Wagner was invited to find his own way home.

Ins >>> Jose Cordoba, 23, CB, Levski Sofia, £3m >>> Ben Chrisene, 20, LB, Villa, £1.5m

Outs >>> Gabriel Sara, 25, CM, Galatasaray, £15m >>> Christos Tzolis, 22, LW, Dusseldorf, £3m >>> Dimitrios Giannoulis, 28, LB, Augsberg, Free >>> Ben Gibson, 31, CB, Stoke, Free >>> Sam McCallum, 23, LB, Sheff Utd, Free >>> Danny Batth, 33, CB, Blackburn, Free >>> Joe McCracken, 24, GK, Dundee, Free

This Season: That long overdue change has now come. There’s a trendy, young sporting director attacking his first full season – Ben Knapper was ‘loan manager’ at Arsenal prior – and he’s gone even trendier and even younger with Danish manager Johannes Thorup, who had no playing career whatsoever and at 35 arrives from his first number one gig at Nordsjælland in his homeland where he finished runner up in the Danish league. Twitter favourite Will Still was also in the running as the Canaries prioritised a more progressive playing style, an ability to work and develop academy talent, and a record of over-achieving on limited resources. José Córdoba, a Panamanian from the Bulgarian league, is the first new signing – new direction of the Oakland A’s etc etc. There’s also some fresh blood/money in a tired boardroom with Mark Attanasio investing so Delia can spend more time with her table wine.

There’s a reasonable amount of gear here to work with as well although which season previewer doesn’t love a club selling its best player on the eve of publication? Gabriel sara went to Galatasaray last night after we’d written two paragraphs on him. Callum Doyle a handy replacement if they can get that over the line from Man City. It’s unlikely that Josh Sargent and Jon Rowe will be sticking around either, but as mid-range Premier League clubs start grappling with FFP/P&S concerns it’s not a given they will leave and if they’re all here come September then, as Norwich showed last season, you can get a lot done however stodgy the rest of the side is – Sargent scored 16 in 24 starts last time out. Adam Idah and Abu Kamara return from successful loans at Celtic and Portsmouth to further bolster that attack, though Celtic are in for Idah permanently and Southampton are keen on Kamara. Having lost Alex Matos to Chelsea, it looked liked his best mate and prolific academy striker Ken Aboh would follow, but Knapper’s promised new focus on youth and better football has persuaded him to pen a three-year deal.

Nevertheless, there’s a fairly sizeable turnaround job to be done here after several years of decline and a tightening financial situation. Last summer’s deliberate attempt to add Championship coagulant to thicken up a flimsy team has left them nursing an old squad with players unsuited to this brave new era. Danny Batth and Ben Gibson have been shifted, but Ashley Barnes remains as referee in residence and Shane Duffy is still stumbling around here smashing into the back of parked cars and other people’s girlfriends.

Feels like a big work in progress and long term project to me in which the initial goals will simply getting back to playing some football that appeals and reconnecting with a grumpy fanbase.

Manager - Johannes Hoff Thorup Add one tote bag and a copy of this month’s Mundial to complete the vibe.

Oppo View: Phil Harris @Kingswell “Only the third time in our history we’d reached the end of season shootout, but the excitement and anticipation of our two previous attempts was replaced this time with a collective and weary shrug. More ‘do we have to?’ than ‘bring it on’.
The bruises from our two recent relegations hadn’t really healed, so promotion was a gruesome prospect, even ignoring the fact that the squad this time around was a limp imitation of the bravura Farke-led double title-winners.

“Overall though, as the club tries to unpick the knotty mess of three, maybe four, consecutive seasons of drift, expectations are moderated this season. We would expect to have enough to avoid getting sucked too far downwards, but no-one really believes, at this stage, that we will have a promotion challenging squad in place as the season gets underway. It gets forgotten that Daniel Farke’s first season was a bit of a mish-mash and we ended up finishing 14th before hitting our stride a year later. A similar debut season for Thorup feels very much on the cards.”

Prediction: 8th Moulding into an entirely new style will be even more difficult if their talented strikers start following Sara out of the door. If the likes of Sargent stay they’ll go close to the six regardless – after all, they got there last year when they were mostly terrible.

If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Action Images

dannyblue added 14:46 - Aug 6 Shore leave. Lol.
0

tsbains64 added 10:02 - Aug 7 Great Work Chris , amazing network of fellow football writers .Learnt so much
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Norwich City Polls