The second part of our annual preview for the forthcoming Championship campaign features the eight teams the bookies think will be bobbing around the middle – as ever, there’s a few we disagree with.

West Brom 20/1 (title odds)

Last Season: In this column last year, right up until the last moment, we had West Brom ninth. Ageing team, lack of pace, owner using the place as his own personal piggy bank, parachute payments ending, FFP concerns rising, Ron Gourlay – it’s going to be a clusterfuck, right? Then, having seen every other Championship preview had them making the play offs as a bare minimum, powered to promotion by the apparently unstoppable force of Jed Wallace and John Swift, we blinked and bumped them up to sixth. They finished… ninth. I usually say I blame myself but, in this case, it was your fault.

One thing we did all agree on was The Steve Bruce Tax. There were/are some good players at West Brom. Swift and Wallace had been the outstanding talents at Reading and Millwall respectively, and were coming into a squad that contained Daryl Dike, Karlan Grant, Grady Diangana, Jake Livermore, Semi Ajayi, Matt Phillips, Jayson Molumby… Nobody’s burning the barn down here, but these are solid enough Championship players who have occasionally excelled in promotion pushes here and elsewhere. There are some serious earners among them too, pulling a far greater wage bill than clubs like Luton and Coventry who did achieve big things in 22/23. The issue at football level, before getting to the chaos upstairs, was they were managed by a large potato.

The summer recruitment drive, led by this enormous man cabbage, also included 34-year-old Eric Pieters, because he lived on the same street as the manager, and Brandon Thomas-Asante, because he played in the same Salford team as Bruce’s son in law. It didn’t, however, include a replacement for the departing Sam Johnstone, and the decision to play much of the campaign without a goalkeeper at all was a pretty bold one with predictably dire consequences. Under such guidance the team was always likely to under-achieve, but by how much? Well, since you ask, everybody’s hot tip for promotion won one of their first 13 and two of their first 17 games to, at one stage, improbably, prop up the entire table. Gourlay, already with one financial and footballing meltdown at Reading on his CV, eventually binned off his fat mate in mid-October.

And if you want an indication of just how much that lead weight was dragging the side down, his replacement Carlos Corberan won nine of his first ten games. By the time QPR salvaged an unlikely 2-2 draw at The Hawthorns over Easter they were unbeaten at home in 12 games in which they conceded only one goal. The start they made, and a slight petering out towards the end, ultimately kept them shy of the top six.

Ins >>> Jeremy Sarmiento, 21, AM, Brighton Loan

Outs >>> Dara O’Shea, 24, CB, Burnley, £7m >>> Jake Livermore, 33, DM, Watford, Free >>> Tom Rogic, 30, CM, Released >>> Kean Bryan, 26, CB, Released >>> Karlan Grant, 25, CF, Cardiff, Loan >>> Zac Ashworth, 20, LB, Bolton, Loan

Manager: Carlos Corberan That rotter turned up to my cousin’s funeral wearing white jeans.

This Season: This time last year West Brom’s manager was their biggest problem, now he’s their biggest asset. Without a takeover here, however, he faces significant obstacles.

As owner Guochuan Lai’s money has dried up, and the general Chinese attitude to hoarding foreign football clubs has changed, the Baggies are left with an entirely absent owner, who’s in too deep to sell, but no longer wants to fund. In fact, it’s even worse than Lai no longer wanting to fund, he’s actually taking money out to prop up his other Covid-stricken businesses. West Brom paid a £5m loan to Lai’s day job, which he promised to repay but has missed four deadlines to do so and the club’s new auditors have written off in their first report on the situation. From a debt-free, well-run club living within its means, with Dan Ashworth holding court in its matchday programme on how to run football clubs, this lot are now in the shit up to their neck. They have taken out a £20m loan from a US off-the-shelf company with interest payable at 14%. The latest set of accounts also shows a £3m loan with an annual interest charge approaching 80%. The £5m loan to the owner’s business is long gone. Their parachute payments cease imminently. Lai is essentially using the club as a cash point to take out the last of his overdraft, propping himself, and it, up with loans from the sort of companies that advertise in the breaks on This Morning. Gourlay, another club successfully torpedoed, has moved on.

West Brom needed to be promoted in May. Without it the auditors say their only hope of avoiding a financial meltdown is a large amount of player sales for serious money, and they have fetched a reasonable fee from Burnley for Dara O’Shea to keep the wolf from the door this summer. But West Brom had the oldest team in the Championship and spent last summer bringing Jed Wallace and John Swift in on the sort of wages they’d previously only read about in books. Sellable assets here are few and far between. One of them, Daryl Dike, gets hurt more than Kenny from South Park and starts off injured yet again. Thomas-Asante is the only fit striker on the books, with Karlan Grant – only 25 and a player they paid £8m for – now on loan at divisional rival Cardiff. Jeremy Sarmiento, churned out of Brighton’s random football generator, is the only new arrival on loan.

There is talk of a much needed £60m takeover but, conversely, it’s French cryptobro Fred Chesnais behind it and, as Preston and later Derby found out with Chris Kirchner, you can’t pay for football clubs or football players with JPGs of cartoon monkeys. Corberan has proven himself a brilliant manager at this level, capable of achieving against the odds and without the ball. But he walked out of Huddersfield when the financial going got grim and how long he sticks around for in this mess could be a key factor in the direction of travel. He’s the bright light in what is otherwise a complete mess.

Local Knowledge — Matt Graham @SAhistoryMatt “Last season was definitely not boring. From looking like the club was nailed on for relegation under Steve Bruce’s stewardship, to only just missing out on the playoffs after Carlos Corberán had inspired an excellent turnaround, it was a rollercoaster. For added drama we also had to endure the off-pitch ownership / financial dimension to keep things interesting. Ultimately it was a season of missed opportunities and ‘what ifs’: Bruce remained in post too long, his commitment to David Button in goal was disastrous, a season ending injury to Daryl Dike blunted our attack, a terrible run of away form during the second half of the season, and too many dropped points in the final games meant it was close yet too far.

“I think we’ll end up in that 8-14 zone. If we can keep Carlos Corberán in post, then the first XI is still a pretty strong Championship side. However, there is a distinct lack of squad depth. If more players leave and we don’t get a striker, then the season could be pretty painful.”

Prediction: 13th

Stoke 22/1 (title odds)

Last Season: Welcome to TGI McScratchey’s, where it’s constantly New Year’s Eve. Here we go again… Stoke’s consistency since returning to the Championship, after a ten-year Premier League stint, has been remarkable. They’re yet to finish in the top half of this league in five attempts, and have finished sixteenth, fifteenth, fourteenth, fourteenth and sixteenth in that time. Kill me.

There were, as ever, a clutch of new signings. Stoke brought in 15 new players one way another, including five loans in the summer transfer window, and then five different loans in January. Only Southampton’s Will Smallbone (stop it) and Ben Pearson the Goblin Boy were in anyway halfway decent among them. In their five Championship seasons Stoke have signed, either on loan or permanently, 77 footballers, and the successful transfers among them can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Among the class of 2022 was Dwight Gayle who, at 33 years old and goodness-only-knows-what in weekly wage, is exactly the sort of high earning, big name Stoke have enjoyed treating to a pension top up in recent times – he made 31 starts, six sub appearances and scored three times, two of them in one game up at Sunderland.

There was also a change of manager. Shiny-nosed Michael O’Neill was the fourth man to try and clear water from the lungs of this place, but he’d looked on his last legs by the end of 21/22 and the logic in giving him the summer transfer window and budget only to then bin him in August anyway was, I’m afraid, rather lost on me. Why on earth Alex Neil wanted to swap upwardly mobile Sunderland for this gaff I do not know. Let’s just say it moved him… TO A BIGGER HOUSE.

Thereafter it was everything we’ve come to expect. You look at this Stoke team, particularly the forwards, and think there must be enough there to be fairly threatening. Occasionally they prove you right, winning 5-1 at Sunderland, 4-0 at Coventry and 3-1 at home to Sheff Utd. But keeping the squad fit and healthy has been an issue for years, and they were able to win two consecutive games in the Championship only twice. A once feared venue for away sides, QPR’s victory here in the penultimate weekend was a twelfth home defeat– the most in the league along with ourselves.

The players were left to troop around a lap of dishonour in an almost completely empty stadium at full time. Lady and gentleman, your 22/23 Stoke City side.

Ins >>> Ryan Mmaee, 25, CF, Ferencvaros, £3.5m >>> Andre Vidigal, 24, LW, Maritimo, £450k >>> Wesley Moraes, 26, CF, Villa, Undisclosed >>> Ben Pearson The Goblin Boy, 28, CM, Bournemouth, Undisclosed >>> Daniel Johnson, 30, CM, PNE, Free >>> Enda Stevens, 32, LB, Sheff Utd, Free >>> Michael Rose, 27, CB, Coventry, Free >>> Ki-Jana Hoever, 21, RB, Wolves, Loan >>> Mark Travers, 24, GK, Bournemouth, Loan >>> Chiquinho, 23, LW, Wolves, Loan

Outs >>> Nick Powell, 29, AM, Stockport, Free >>> Morgan Fox, 29, LCB, QPR, Free >>> Demeaco Duhaney, 24, RB, Istanbulspor, Free >>> Tom Edwards, 24, RB, Huddersfield, Free >>> Sam Clucas, 32, CM, Released >>> Aden Flint, 33, CB, Released >>> Tashan Oakley-Boothe, 23, CM, Released >>> Phil Jagielka, 88, CB, Released

Manager: Alex Neil Moley, moley, moley, moley.

This Season: Neil spent the back half of last year promising a much-needed overhaul of a dysfunctional and ineffective squad. And so, guess what guys? Yes, that’s right, it’s a whole load of new signings for Stoke City. Ten at the last count, and absolutely no sign that they’ve finished yet under new head of recruitment Jaden Dublin. Squeezing a stadium sale under the wire before the change of rule, and getting Leicester to part with £18m for a part-used Harry Souttar last January, keeps the FFP wolf well away from the door here, but their approach to recruitment remains a little bit taking a machine gun to a partridge shoot. Technical director Ricky Martin more loco than Living La Vida Loca. Sorry, God that’s horrendous.

Let’s have a look at what they’ve done. Morgan Fox, too old and sluggish down the left side of their defence, has been replaced with even older and slower Enda Stevens on a free from Sheff Utd. I would say it’s the most Stoke City signing I’ve ever seen, but they’ve then surpassed that by bringing in one-capped Brazilian international Wesley Moraes, a player Villa paid £22m in 2019 after 48 goals in 151 outings for Club Brugge but who’s only scored 11 times in 88 appearances for four clubs over four years since. You’d think a big, powerful forward like that, still only 26, would be plenty good enough for this level. They go into day one with him, Gayle, Tyrese Campbell, D’Margio Wright-Phillips, Ryan Mmaee, Vidigal, Chiquinho… we go in with Lyndon Dykes. Jacob Brown and Lewis Baker offer the sort of drive and goal threat from midfield we can only dream of. But, like I say, we look at Stoke’s squad, and particularly its forwards, and say the same every year.

Bournemouth’s Mark Travers is a very good keeper in this league – a position Stoke shared out between three different stopers last term. Neil has also reunited his horribly effective Preston central midfield of Pearson and Daniel Johnson. Michael Rose has shuffled across from Coventry. So far, so stodgy. Totally uninspiring. But when Neil was at Sunderland he was part of a club that, through first Jack Clarke and later Amad Diallo, played the loan market successfully to add genuine, game-changing stardust to the line-up. The success or otherwise of Wolves’ 22-year-old winger Chiquinho on loan, Maritimo’s 24-year-old wide man Andre Vidigal for an undisclosed fee, and a £3.5m capture of Moroccan forward Ryan Mmee from the Ferencvaros side he’d scored 25 goals for in 45 league appearances with nine assists into the bargain, will be the difference between Stoke finally pushing on into the top half of the division or not.

Local Knowledge — George Weaver @Potterlytics “Well, ’twas ever thus with Stoke, if I’m honest. Bar the ‘excitement’ of 2019/20’s relegation battle, every season since 2018 has ended with a damp squib of ‘when does the cricket start?’ rather than much excitement for the next season. We had a fantastic run between February and the end of April, where we genuinely looked like we could beat anyone, but a lack of squad depth, a couple of injuries, and a lot of fatigue ended that fairly abruptly.

“We’re in such uncharted territory that it really could go either way. The positives are that we appear to be improving in most positions that Neil wants in the transfer window, at least on paper. We’ve always been a team that can feed off momentum but can crumble when pressure starts, and the hope is that we can start to fight that stereotype off, and grind out results in those tough games. The wingers mentioned above, alongside possible signings up front and in midfield are aiming to solve the age-old problem of losing 1-0 to an opponent who has zero shots on target to our ten. If we can make a solid start to the season, and bed in the new players well, I think the aim is to be between 12th-9th in the league table come May. I will say, though, I’d be very surprised to see such change in the squad lead to a play-off finish, but a season that isn’t over in March would be nice. Early results are crucial in keeping the fans on side.”

Prediction: 9th I rate Neil, and actually think this could be the year they do start to make some forward progress and be a big climber, but when writing a preview you can’t have a lot of faith in a team that’s gone 16th, 15th, 14th, 14th and 16th to do anything massively different to that.

Coventry 25/1 (title odds)

Last Season: Coventry’s years of steady progress, and the dynamic trio of Gus Hamer, Callum O’Hare and Viktor Gyokeres, was always likely to make them an awkward opponent in 22/23. Anybody that tells you they fancied the Sky Blues to make the play off final, however, is just plain lying.

Writing them up a year ago it looked certain that Burnley’s prolonged, public pursuit of O’Hare would eventually prise him away, and even though that didn’t turn out to be the case he spent much of the second half of the campaign injured in any case. They began still under the malignant ownership of the SISU hedge fund, and naturally with yet another shambles at their home stadium. Coventry have been forced to play ‘home’ games at Northampton, Birmingham and now Burton Albion in recent times. The decision to allow the Commonwealth Games to play 3,768 games of the ever-more-pointless sport of “Rugby Sevens” on their pitch on the eve of the season left it a ploughed field and they began with multiple away games, postponements, confusion and farce. They won none of their first eight, and one of their first 11, to sit bottom of the table.

There can have been few better fits between club and manager in this country over the last decade than Coventry and Mark Robins. No panic, no problem. City always get better as they go along. They won eight and lost two of 12 to climb back into midtable. They wobbled through Christmas but then lost only one of their final 17 games to finish in the play-off places. A remarkable recovery, with Gyokeres named by FourFourTwo as the best player in the Football League after another 21-goal haul. Given QPR won at Burnley, and took four points from Sheff Utd that could and should have been six, I rated Coventry, along with Luton, the best team we faced in our two games against them. They beat Mick Beale’s side 2-0 up there, and it should have been twice that, and won 3-0 at a canter at Loftus Road. Gyokeres was unplayable both days.

They completely outdid Michael Carrick’s seemingly rampant Middlesbrough side across two legs of play-off semi-final, richly deserving their 1-0 away win in the second leg, with Gus Hamer outstanding. In the end only a penalty miss in the sudden death stage of the shoot-out at Wembley denied them a Premier League return.

Ins >>> Ellis Simms, 22, CF, Everton, Rising to £8m >>> Milan van Ewijk 22, RB, Heerenveen, £4m >>> Bobby Thomas, 22, CB, Burnley, £2m >>> Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, 26, LM, Oostende, £2m >>> Brad Collins, 26, GK, Barnsley, £500k >>> Jay Dasilva, 25, LB, Bristol City, Free >>> Joel Latibeaudiere, 26, CB, Swansea, Free >>> Luis Binks, 21, CB, Bologna, Loan

Outs >>> Viktor Gyokeres, 25, ST, Sporting, £18m >>> Josh Reid, 21, LB, Ross County, £50k >>> Sean Maguire, 29, AM, Carlisle, Free >>> Michael Rose, 27, CB, Stoke, Free >>> Tyler Walker, 26, CF, Lincoln, Free >>> Fankaty Dabo, 27, RB, Released >>> Julian Da Costa, 27, RB, Released >>> Martyn Waghorn, 33, CF, Released >>> Todd Kane, 29, RB, Sheff Utd, £13m

Manager: Mark Robins Scunthorpe United, currently advertising tickets and travel for their forthcoming Conference North fixture at Rushall Olympic, sacked Robins when sixteenth in League One, six points above the drop zone.

This Season: It’s a bit of a fool’s errand to base predictions for one club on the performance of another previously, but these previews don’t write themselves. In the last two years a team that made the play-offs against all odds and came up just short subsequently crashed and burned into a relegation battle a year later. Valerian Ismael’s Barnsley revolution cratered into relegation to League One a year later, and Huddersfield were singularly fortunate to survive in 22/23 after an afternoon of buggery from referee Jon Moss in the play-off final left them with an arse like a clown’s pocket. In both cases the team that over-performed had key players poached - Daryl Dike and Alex Mowatt from the Tykes, Harry Toffolo and Lewis O’Brien from the Terriers – without adequate replacement. Coventry, having outperformed all expectations to come within a missed penalty of the Premier League, have this summer finally sold star man Gyokeres to Sporting Lisbon for £18m. And so the obvious conclusion to draw is that they’re ripe for regression.

Barnsley and Huddersfield, however, also both lost the inspirational manager who got them there – Ismael to West Brom, Corberan to Olympiakos. Coventry’s big strength is the calm, methodical, astute and tactically superb management of Mark Robins, and more importantly the perfect fit and relationship he has with this club in particular. He remains. Robins dragged Coventry up from League Two to a Championship play-off final with zero money to spend, two separate spells of homelessness, wildly incompetent ownership and the club lurching from one crisis to the next. Now he’s got a benevolent new owner in Doug King, a revitalised home crowd turning up behind his team in ever greater volume and volume, money to spend from the Gyokeres sale, and a feeling that this is finally a club on the up and on the move.

Perhaps a Robins with money will be the mule with the spinning wheel – nobody knows how he got it and danged if he knows how to use it – but the summer business doesn’t immediately suggest that. Ellis Simms was electric on loan at Sunderland, and looks a great pick up from Everton for a starting fee only just north of £3m (it rises exponentially in clauses mind). Replacing Gyokeres is like replacing Giambi, I’ve told you guys we can’t do it, but Simms looks a fair stab at the task. If Callum O’Hare can regain fitness, and more importantly still the division’s outstanding midfielder Hamer be kept, this could be an attack that goes again after all. Worth pointing out that while the focus is obviously on the top scorer departing, Cov have also lost the bulk of a defence that kept 20 clean sheets, including influential Man City loanee Callum Doyle who will this year play up the road in Leicester colours and Luke McNally who looked great and is now back with Burnley. Only Birmingham, QPR and Watford have lost more starting minutes from last season’s squads than Cov’s 17,750.

Elsewhere the signings they’ve made look seriously shrewd. Fankaty Dabo’s last touch for the club turned out to be the penalty miss at Wembley. He was taken up into the woods and released, along with QPR legend Todd Kane who’s presumably just waiting by the phone for Sheff Utd to call with that Premier League move. They’ve been replaced by Milan Van Ewijk, a 22-year-old from Heerenveen that half the continent was looking at. This smart scouting of Europe continues with Japanese midfielder Tatsuhiro Sakamoto (luckily he says we can call him “Tats”) from Oostende and Luis Binks, a former Spurs academy player, on loan from Bologna. Good pickups from the free transfer market include Jay DaSilva at left back from Bristol City, and match reporter’s nightmare Joel Latibeaudiere from Swansea. They liked enough of what they saw of Burnley’s Bobby Thomas on loan at fellow play-off sufferers Barnsley last year to give him a Championship go as well. This is good stuff, at good ages – 22, 22, 22, 26, 26, 25, 21. Everywhere you look positions are being upgraded.

The Hamer thing is the big unknown. Out of contract next summer he could walk away for free, but the Gyokeres sale perhaps makes that less of a problem. Keep him, add another couple to this squad, and have Simms perform even half as well as Gyokeres did, and perhaps Coventry might emulate the team that beat them in the final instead – nobody expected Luton to make the six in 21/22, never mind repeat it and go one better in 22/23.

Local Knowledge — Dominic Jerams @SideSammy “Last year had the highs and lows of several seasons put together. At times it looked like the club was falling apart all over again, at others it looked like Mark Robins was set to add another remarkable chapter to the success story of his return to the club. Any disappointment that we missed out on Premier League football by the narrowest of margins is countered by the ridiculousness of having even been in a position to go that close in the first place. It was a mad rollercoaster ride and it’s probably both for better and worse that this time out will be calmer.

“The dream is that it turns out that Viktor Gyokeres was actually holding this team back and we go one better on last year and actually win promotion. However, I’ve seen Southampton and Leicester City’s squads and it looks to be one of those years where the relegated teams might not allow anyone else to get to the Premier League, that’s before you get to the 10/12 other teams in this league that want to and easily can at least make the top six. It’s going to be hard for us to keep up with that after such a heavy squad rebuild. Somewhere around 12th and with signs of progress towards years to come would be fine by me, at least avoid a Barnsley/Huddersfield, please.”

Prediction: 8th I’ve talked myself into and out of this one a dozen times over the last week. I had them as low as twelfth in some early drafts, because obviously with Gyokeres gone and the defence broken up they’re going to falter from what was already a significant over achievement. But the more additions they make with that money, and the more I look at what else is out there in the division, the more I’ve come to like them again. If Hamer goes all bets are off, but if he stays I’ve had them as high as fifth.

Swansea 33/1 (title odds)

Last Season: We said Swansea would finish tenth last season, and they finished tenth. We said their best chance of doing better than that was hanging onto Joel Piroe who is the lesser-spotted a genuine 20-goal-a-season striker; they did, and he bagged 19 to go with his 21 from the year before. We said adding MK Dons’ Harry Darling to the back line would do wonders for that little routine they like to perform with the short goal kicks to no perceivable gain or advantage whatsoever but that he’d win fewer headers in defence than Cyril the Swan, and that’s exactly what happened. Ryan Manning had his best season for the club, coincidentally right at the moment he was running his contract down to a free transfer. They beat Cardiff twice, again. There were two separate spurts of seven wins from nine games, one of which when the season was effectively over and it didn’t matter, and two other spells of one win in ten when it wasn’t and it did.

I’m not saying any of this be some smarmy, jumped up little tosser about how right I was about all of this, because there were teams in our season preview last year (Blackburn, Norwich) I called horrendously wrong. It’s more to point out just how wholly predictable Russell Martin’s Swansea City truly were. You knew how they were going to line up, set up, and play. You knew what results that would bring them, and where it would leave them in the league. You knew who would lap it all up, and who would hate it. You knew what Martin would say about it, and that there would be zero pragmatism or deviation from course regardless of results. You also knew that, as happened to him at MK Dons, falling short of promotion, or even the play-offs, wouldn’t preclude him being linked with, and eventually taking, a job higher up the ladder. This type of football is seen as progressive and trendy, regardless of whether it’s effective results wise, where more pragmatic approaches that achieve more (Gary Rowett at Milllwall for instance) are not.

Whether you think Martin has ‘failed upwards’ or deserves his crack at Southampton really depends on how much you rate Swansea’s team. Steve Cooper lost twice in the play-offs here, but did so with a galactic array of Premier League loans like Morgan Gibbs-White, Conor Gallagher, Marc Guehi and Rhian Brewster – several of whom are now top performers in the Premier League. He also had a striker on £80k a week and when financial and FFP realities bit and meant he couldn’t have those nice things any more he upped and left immediately to a club that was going to let him make 33 signings in one season. Martin, as at MK Dons, had to put a team back together amidst financial constraints, and he did so trying to play attractive football on the ground. He also lost Flynn Downes to West Ham halfway through his spell, and Michael Obafemi behaved like a prize dick once he’d had his head turned by Burnley. But with Piroe up front, Grimes in midfield, Manning playing well, I couldn’t help but wonder where a little more steel, nouse and smarts at the back might have taken this side.

Ins >>> Jerry Yates, 26, ST, Blackpool, £2.5m >>> Josh Ginnelly, 26, LW, Hearts, Free >>> Josh Key, 23, RB, Exeter, Undisclosed

Outs >>> Michael Obafemi, 22, CF, Burnley, £4m >>> Morgan Whittaker, 21, CF, Plymouth, £1m >>> Ryan Manning, 27, LB, Southampton, Free >>> Joel Latibeaudiere, 23, CB, Coventry, Free >>> Kyle Joseph, 21, CF, Blackpool, Undisclosed >>> Andreas Sondegaard, 22, GK, Released

Manager: Michael Duff Thrusting in the direction of the problem.

This Season: And, I guess, now we’ll see won’t we? Michael Duff won League Two with tiny Cheltenham, and with it the divisional manager of the year award, in 2021. It was the club’s first ever automatic promotion in the EFL, and he followed it up by comfortably consolidating them at the higher level in 15th. That was enough to persuade relegated Championship outfit Barnsley to take him on, and he took them into the play-off final with a fast, exciting brand of attacking football that was one last second Josh Windass goal away from taking Sheff Wed to a Wembley penalty shoot out. This is much more my style of football, and manager. It’s watchable and exciting, but the fundamentals and basics are looked after too. I think it’s an upgrade.

The loss of player of the year Manning, off to Southampton with Martin, is a blow, but former Birmingham full back Krystian Pedersen is inbound and is fine as a replacement there. On the opposite side, Exeter’s energetic, attacking full back Josh Key is, at 23, the sort of signing other clubs make that have me sucking my teeth and wishing we’d been in there fighting for the signature. Mind you, I said that about Forest Green’s Kane Wilson going to Bristol City last summer and he lasted ten months and has now dipped down to Derby in League One.

Up front the whole show hangs on Piroe. Will he stay? And if not, how much will they get for him, how much time will be left in the window to spend it, and who will they get for the cash? The tiresome nonsense with Obafemi has concluded with the move he was so obviously desperate for, and Blackpool’s Jerry Yates is a reasonable stab at a replacement there. If they’re expecting Yates to replace Piroe, however, that’s a stretch. I have to say, I also remain perplexed at their apparent keenness to offload Morgan Whittaker so cheaply following a successful loan at Plymouth.

In midfield, there aren’t many better in this division than Matt Grimes.

There’s still work to do here. The central defenders are not to be trusted. Goalkeeper Steven Benda (stop it) seems to play a lot better against us than he does everybody else. And that summer to do list gets exponentially longer if Piroe departs. The January transfer window went so badly the club had to send executives out to face the music in specially convened interviews, while Martin held press conference vigils flanked by his coaches as if standing by the fading body of a dying loved one. The Swans were only three points shy of the play-offs in the end, though I felt that flattered them a bit because they stuck a load of results on the board near the end when the pressure was off and the season over. But then I would say that wouldn’t I, because it suits my agenda on this one.

Local Knowledge — Planet Swans @SwansNews “If ever you wanted to see a mixed bag of football then last season summed it up. We started slow, gained real momentum in September and October, managed to win pretty much nothing in the next 23 and ended the season as the form side in the division. Many will say “if we had played all season as we finished then we’d have gone up” but you can’t hide away from the fact that for half a season we were pretty much in relegation form. We all know the league table never lies but it was a strange old season when you look back

“I think we will play 46 matches in the league between now and May. Win some, draw some and lose some. Quite possibly in equal measure. This division looks potentially the toughest it has been for some years but for me we are a mid-table side in the middle of it. That means there will always be the hope of a play-off space if we hit form at the right times but there is always the times when you look nervously over your shoulder. You want an actual prediction? Thirteenth. That’s just about as mid table as it gets.”

Prediction: 10th Keep Piroe, and have Duff make the same impact he did in his prior two jobs, they might be an interesting bet this year. While we wait to see I’ll go same again.

Blackburn 33/1 (title odds)

Last Season: Every year we say the same thing: Blackburn over achieved last time out; Blackburn have lost key players since then; Blackburn haven’t replaced the outgoings with either quality or quantity; Blackburn are financially mismanaged; if Blackburn don’t get a big fee for Brereton-Diaz they’re going to have FFP issues as the Armstrong sale disappears into the distance… Blackburn, we confidently predict every year, will plummet down the league to one degree or another and struggle.

Every year the same thing happens: Blackburn overachieve again; Blackburn find new key players; Blackburn do smart little bits like Dom Hyam and Callum Brittain because of scouting and that while we do dumb shit like Tyler Roberts because Mick Beale was there to cut his fucking umbilical cord; Blackburn’s financial mismanagement doesn’t matter; Brereton-Diaz sticks around and scores lots of goals instead… Blackburn, contrary to our prediction, compete and hover around the play-off zone regardless. Usually, it should be added, with a couple of comfortable wins against QPR thrown in for good measure, just to make us look extra stupid.

And so it came to pass again in 22/23, a season in which they set about proving Flavio Briatore’s theorem on the uselessness of draws by not having any and finding themselves top four at the turn of the year once again despite having already lost 12 times and nursing a negative goal difference. QPR were beaten 1-0 at Ewood Park on the opening day, natch.

This being the Championship, once Rovers had drawn a game they got a flavour for it and couldn’t stop. Ridiculous division this sometimes. From none all season to six in a row through February, part of an unbeaten run of 11 games that, of course, included an embarrassingly comfortable 3-1 victory at Loftus Road in Gareth Ainsworth’s big homecoming.

Thereafter, however, with a run through to a thrilling FA Cup quarter final loss at Sheff Utd thrown into the bargain, things started to falter somewhat. No wins in nine games, another load of pesky draws, meant that while they still had a technical chance of qualifying on the final day even a remarkable 4-3 comeback win against fellow challengers Millwall wasn’t enough to secure the spot. It did bollocks up Wawll’s chances though, which must have made for a fun time in the cage afterwards.

Ins >>> Sondre Tronstad, 27, CM, Vitesse, Free >>> Niall Ennis, 24, CF, Plymouth, Free >>> Arnor Sigurdsson, 24, AM, CSKA Moscow, Loan

Outs >>> Ben Brereton-Diaz, 24, CF, Villarreal, Free >>> Bradley Dack, 29, AM, Sunderland, Free >>> Daniel Butterworth, 23, CF, Carlisle, Free >>> Tayo Edun, 25, LB, Charlton, Undisclosed >>> James Brown, 25, RB, Ross County, Undisclosed >>> Daniel Ayala, 32, CB, Released

Manager: Jon Dahl Tomasson Still trying to convince people it’s pronounced Joan Dale.

This Season: Blackburn over achieved last time out, Blackburn have lost key players since then, Blackburn haven’t replaced the outgoings with either quality or quantity, Blackburn are financially mismanaged, Blackburn didn’t get a fee at all for Brereton-Diaz who’s gone to Villarreal as predicted and they’re going to have FFP issues as the Armstrong sale disappears into the distance… Blackburn, we confidently predict this year, will plummet down the league to one degree or another and struggle.

With only a couple of free transfers, including Plymouth’s Niall Ennis, and a Scandi loan from Tomasson’s little black book among the incomers so far it feels like the manager might agree with us: “It's a difficult situation. When I started this project, it was a different project. The project has changed now, we need to be realistic about that. I really feel sorry for the fans that there is no clarity because they are the soul and the heart of the club. I think they should never be kept in the dark. It is a totally different situation from when I started the project, which was a great project and we need to be totally different about it. The ambitions need to change a lot with a different budget at the moment. We lost Dack and Brereton Diaz, two great players, and 23 goals. We lost experience with Daniel Ayala. These are all kids that want to learn but it's a young team. We saw last season where it was really important and we had a great season, it was terrible not to have a senior striker when it was all about winning and getting a goal in the end. Now the situation is probably even worse, but that is the situation. The fans need to know that. I am not the right person to ask about the financial things because I don't know exactly, I am the head coach.”

Brereton-Diaz and Bradley Dack depart, taking 23 goals out of last year’s line-up. Sam Gallagher remains somebody you’d like your daughter to bring home, not your head of recruitment. A lack of replacement has been blamed on some sort of tax problem for the Venky’s back home in India, but the simple fact is they face the same FFP three-year rolling problem that we do with the big sale of Armstrong to Southampton rolling out and no other significant fees received to offset the substantial annual loss the club makes. Consequently, doing business this summer is proving tough and there was even talk of Tomasson walking away from the job, reputation enhanced, last month. Like us with Ebere Eze, they may be saved by a chunky percentage of any potential sale of David Raya by Brentford this summer – lots of clubs you’ve heard of are sniffing.

There’s still a very steady Championship team here – Travis, Buckley, Gallagher, Brittain, Hyam and others always seem to play well against us, though perhaps that says more about us - well good enough not to have the sort of problems at the wrong end of the table we’re surely facing. Unlike us there’s also a good academy here, from which prolific striker Harry Leonard may end up solving all sorts of Brereton-Diaz shaped holes in the attack on the cheap – he’s signed a long term deal to 2027 and scored against Girona at the weekend.

Nevertheless, at the risk of repeating ourselves, I’d expect a serious dip on last year’s final finish of seventh.

Local Knowledge — Ian Herbert @Ian Herbert brfcs.com “Much like my A Level studies, the ultimately, surprisingly good outcome belied the difficulties, lack of beauty and inspiration en-route.

“It’s not a stretch to see Rovers conceivably conceding more and scoring fewer than last season - well, not for me anyhow. In that event, remaining in the top half may well be a challenge too far. If JDT walks, that turmoil could tip us into surprise relegation candidates. I’ll go JDT to stay long enough to see us finish 15th.”

Prediction: 17th But then we would say that, wouldn’t we?

Bristol City 33/1 (title odds)

Last Season: If you want an indication of where QPR are, and a best case scenario for where they’re going, then treat Bristol City as something of a Robin down the coal mine.

Like QPR, they set themselves up as a footballing nursery, buying potential prospects cheap or bringing them through their system to fatten up for market day. That money could then be reinvested in better quality prospects in higher quantity, and so the success would snowball. While we had moderate success in Alex Smithies and Luke Freeman, and a jackpot strike in Ebere Eze, Bristol City actually did substantially better - £20m for Adam Webster, £10m Lloyd Kelly, Jonathan Kodjia and Bobby Reid, £6m for Aden Flint and Joe Bryan. With that capital, and more importantly FFP headroom, they started to spend: £5m for Famara Diedhiou, £5m for Webster, £7m for Tomas Kalas, £5m for Han Noah Massengo.

Several things happened, almost immediately. Firstly, they got a bit daft – never dafter than handing Nahki Wells a three-and-half-year contract at an eye-watering wage just before he turned 30. Secondly, a couple of those investments, instead of moving for big money, started running their contracts down to free transfers instead (Massengo, Diedhiou). Thirdly, Covid-19, and the lockdowns that followed. Fourthly, the subsequent collapse of the Championship transfer market. Suddenly City found they’d taken on big, long contracts; their sellable assets were, for one reason or another, no longer sellable; and the big sales of their past started to roll out of the their three-year FFP calculations. They went through 20/21 and 21/22 without a significant sale for any money whatsoever. Any of this starting to sound familiar?

A period of medicine taking has been in order, and disliked CEO Mark Ashton was binned off (though he’s now doing very nicely at Ipswich). Last season’s final place of fourteenth followed seventeenth and nineteenth the previous years. But things are starting to motor again. A new training ground is up and running (how interesting), and with it an academy is producing serious talent in volume. They received the much needed £10m for one of them, Antoine Semenyo, in January to furnish the squad with this summer, and will get more than twice that when protégé Alex Scott moves to Wolves or elsewhere. They won 2-0 at QPR on the final day last year with zero loan players and six youth team graduates in their team, against a side with Chris Martin up front who’d they’d been able to release early in January thanks to the emergence of the likes of Scott, Bell and Conway.

Survive in this league while you wait for the excess to roll out of your three-year reporting period, and there can be sunlit uplands beyond.

Ins >>> Jason Knight, 22, CM, Derby, £2m >>> Ross McCrorie, 25, DM, Aberdeen, £2m >>> Rob Dickie, 27, CB, QPR, £700k >>> Haydon Roberts, 21, LB, Brighton, Free

Outs >>> Jay Dasilva, 25, LB, Coventry, Free >>> Taylor Moore, 26, CB, Valenciennes, Free >>> Kane Wilson, 23, RB, Derby, Undisclosed >>> Han-Noah Massengo, 21, DM, Released

Manager: Nigel Pearson The tyranny of the ostrich hunt is ceaseless.

This Season: So, with all of that said, we like Bristol City a lot as a potential big mover up the division this year.

Nigel Pearson is now the third longest serving boss in the league and that stability seems to be soothing for City. The early sale of Semenyo basically enabled preparations for 23/24 to start in January when they brought in Harry Cornick from Luton, Anis Mehmeti from Wycombe, and let Martin waddle off towards our cake stand. The core of the team had aged – Matty James, Andy King, Nahki Wells, Andi Weimann are all at the wrong end of their careers – so Chris won’t be the last gently ushered out to pasture.

They’d clearly planned the first part of their summer well in advance too and flew out of the blocks in the first week of the close season picking up defenders Ross McCrorie from Aberdeen, Haydon Roberts from Brighton, and our own head fuck Rob Dickie who, kindly put, needs a fresh start. City’s centre backs were absolutely woeful in our 2-1 win at Ashton Gate last year, the excellent Nathan Baker has sadly had to admit defeat in his battle with concussion and retire at 31, and their poor runs came when defenders and defensive midfielders were missing so strengthening the depth and starting line up in those areas was an obvious first priority.

Jason Knight is a super capture. The relentless 22-year-old midfielder from Derby already has 20 full Irish caps to his name. An absolute pain in the arse. Slick business.

Much beyond that will depend on Scott. Socks rolled down, playing in the ten role, he made that final game of last season in W12 look embarrassingly easy, like he was playing on the beach back home in Guernsey with his mates. City played everything into, off, and through him on the day. There hasn’t been a player as good as him in this league since Eze, and if he stays in City colours who knows what he and they might achieve. More likely he’s sold, but he was back in the team for the weekend friendly at Portsmouth. The club are, quite rightly, holding out for the £25m, and the Semenyo deal takes the pressure off them to cave for less. Wolves have had a crack at bullying them, and not got very far. Selling him, now or later, is exactly what the model for clubs like us and them requires, and if it is to be this summer then when that happens and what they do with the money will determine the outcome of the 46 games ahead.

Local Knowledge — Dave Featherstone @FevsFootball “Overall it was a good season. As part of a two-year rebuild both on and off the pitch there was a sense of it coming together nicely by the end. There was no real worry about relegation and two good unbeaten runs when we had a near-fit squad and good bench options has meant a fair bit of optimism as the season finished.

“I’m usually bullish in pre-season until about now, when it dawns on me the reality as to how tough the Championship is, and you take stock of what other teams have done. Saying that, I still think we are in for a much better season. A rise from fourteenth to tenth would be great. If we can be in the mix for the play-offs, even better. With five weeks left to go in the window a lot can change. But we have a bit of depth, and that was what was lacking last term. Our poorer runs were when key players were missing, ie James and Naismith. We now have replacements to ensure we are not weaker when those types of players are absent / rested.”

Prediction: 11th Really all hinges on what happens with Scott, or the money they get for him. I like them a lot, along with Birmingham I think they could be the big Coventry-style mover up this division.

Millwall 33/1 (title odds)

Last Season: In the LoftforWords season preview, Millwall finish sixth. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. Although, actually, in this case, I do.

Millwall are a solid, settled side, difficult to play against particularly on their own patch, with a very good owner and a pragmatic manager. From that base you only need a couple of hot loan signings, like Arsenal’s Dan Ballard, and a little bit of extra pizzazz provided by a Jed Wallace, to push for the six in this league. And so every year I sit here and say I fancy them to do just that, and every year they sort of look like they might, then don’t ever quite manage it and all the regulars at the Crown & Sceptre laugh at my obsession and tell me Wawll “ain’t gonna shag ya”.

They’ll struggle to come closer without managing it than they did in 22/23. The role of star boy on loan was played by Leeds’ Charlie Cresswell. The x factor was provided by the superb capture of Dutchman Zian Flemming, who scored 15 goals in 40 starts on Championship debut and contributed so much more than that besides. Tom Bradshaw, having for years threatened to be a really good striker at this level, found both fitness and form – 17 goals for him, dear God shift that beard though. There were eight hat tricks scored in this league last year, and three of them were by Millwall players (Bradshaw against Watford and Sheff Utd, Flemming away at Preston). Adding a regular tide of goals to all the solidity you expect from the Lions made them a potent opponent, and they went into the final day at home to Blackburn in possession of the last play-off place we’d tipped them for. Mwaha, toldjya.

Quite what happened then only Rowett and his players would be able to tell you. Just before half time they surged into a 3-1 lead, with a full-house crowd absolutely bouncing, and out-of-form Blackburn, only nominally with anything to play for themselves, apparently completely done for. Caught between holding what they had and pushing on for more, the Marxist Hunters did neither. Apparently locked in a spiral of ‘we’ll give it five more minutes’, Rowett was slow to spot the decay and deal with it. We’re in a Xenon pit Gary, you’re choking the reactor man. Rovers roared back to win, improbably, 4-3, and the top six slipped away once more.

As shit outs go this was full on, ice in the drinks, eating the salads on holiday in Mexico levels of spray up the bathroom wall at the hotel levels of gooey, pooey horror show. I blame myself.

Ins >>> Casper de Norre, 26, CM, Leuven, £2m >>> Kevin Nisbet, 26, CF, Hibs, £2m >>> Joe Bryan, 29, LB, Fulham, Free >>> Wes Harding, 26, RB, Rotherham, Free

Outs >>> Scott Malone, 32, LB, Gillingham, Free >>> Mason Bennett, 26, Drinker, Burton, Free >>> Ryan Sandford, 24, GK, Released

Manager: Gary Rowett A truster of process.

This Season: Let’s do the problems first, before I predict them to finish sixth anyway.

First, Wawll have been casting admiring glances towards West Bromwich Albion’s attempts to do a whole Championship campaign without a goalkeeper at all, and thought it looks fun and adventurous enough to give it a go themselves. Their version of David Button is George Long, and frankly the guy may as well not be there at all for the all the use he is. Bartosz Bialkowski, who himself always used to proffer up tasty treats whenever QPR came to town, is 36 now and down the pecking order. There’s ten points-worth of improvement just dying to be made to this team just with a loan pick up of someone like Bournemouth’s Mark Travers, who has instead gone to Stoke with everybody else.

Second, while the loss of Ballard was covered with the loan of Cresswell, neither are here this year and as yet there is no replacement. Whether it’s another loan of that ilk, or a permanent deal, it’s something that needs addressing because currently their centre back options lack depth and ball playing ability. As Nick London said on coms there during our 2-0 victory, there’s got to be more to life than walloping the ball at Benik Afobe. The rest of the team is so much better in a back three set up, with two big boppers and a ball player in the back line, but they don’t have that personnel at their disposal currently. The Blackburn collapse was induced, in part, by having to go back to a flat four in defence.

Third, this summer has brought the sudden death of benevolent American chairman John Berylson, one of the best, shrewdest and liked owners in the entire EFL. Millwall have, by their standards, been spending some money in the last couple of summers, and have done so again this. Where that funding, direction and leadership comes from after this sad loss will probably take a while to filter through but it’s a tragedy on all levels.

And fourth, they really did finish 22/23 in poor form – two wins from the last nine with the play-offs there to be taken, culminating in the shemozzle on the final day. Will doubts from that linger in the mind of the team and over the ability of Gary Rowett and bleed into the new year?

Let’s look at what they have got though. Joe Bryan has arrived from Fulham on a free transfer – one of the signings of the Championship summer. His lung-busting runs down the left, and quality of delivery in open play and from set pieces, with these sorts of targets to aim at, is a frightening prospect, particularly the way we defend. One-time QPR target Danny McNamara can do the same down the right, though his form tailed off badly through the spring.

The likes of George Honeyman, George Saville and Eastenders’ Billy Mitchell fit this team and club perfectly and make for a very dependable midfield, into which Belgian Casper De Noore (a title winner with Genk in 2019) looks a very easy fit. Again, a not insignificant £2mish has been invested there.

Money has been spent, too, up front where Scottish forward Kevin Nisbet arrives from Hibs having initially turned down the move in January – leading the Lions to briefly look at adding our own Lyndon Dykes instead. Nisbet scored 39 goals in 101 appearances for Hibs, and has hit the ground at high speed in South London with five already in pre-season including a hat trick against League Two Sutton.

With him and Bradshaw up front, Flemming just behind, Bryan supplying the service, the whole thing anchored by Honeyman, Mitchell, De Noore et all through midfield, and the likes of Duncan Watmore and youth team starlet Romain Esse on standby, there won’t be many more settled, functional, threatening set ups in this division outside the parachute payment clubs. Obviously if Flemming attracts bids late in the window then that’s a different kettle of fish altogether but, for now, add a Ballard/Cresswell type on loan for the middle of the three centre backs, and a goalkeeper with some hands (and it would help if you brought your fucking gloves as well) and they can do it this year. They can. Honest.

Local Knowledge — Lucas Ball @LucasBall2211 “The season as a whole was mostly good: we were in or around the top-six for virtually the whole campaign and players stepped up, with most signings contributing somewhat effectively or at some key moments. Zian Flemming was obviously the standout signing with Tom Bradshaw thriving when we finally gave him the kind of service he craves after around five years with the club.

“The league is so hard to call again, as much as we say that every year in the Championship. Leicester look well-set to push for promotion but I’m less sure about Southampton and Leeds currently given the uncertainty around the futures of key squad members. Teams like Watford and Stoke, who are expected to be there or thereabouts most years at this level, are in a big rebuild phase while it will be interesting to see if the likes of Sunderland and Coventry can go again after play-off heartbreak. I think we’ll be top-half, around tenth - be around there with ten to go and there’s every chance that we can make a late push for the play-offs, the league looks stronger this year and Flemming, one of our key men, is still being linked with a move away.”

Prediction: 6th What did you expect me to say?

Hull City 40/1 (title odds)

Last Season: Newly minted under the ownership of Acun Illicali, Hull spent last summer giving season preview writers nightmares by hoovering up an eclectic array of talent from European backwaters you’d only ever possibly have heard of if you spent all your time running a 738-league save on Football Manager. Whether they were any good, whether they would settle in a fairly remote and unfashionable part of the UK (no letters please, it’s my home too), whether they would cope with the Championship, and how to do accented letters on a British keyboard, all added to the mystique.

Leaving friend of the chairman Shota Arveladze as manager looked doomed from the start, although to be fair to him when he was sacked after a lacklustre start that included a fair old hammering at Loftus Road he was dealing with a dozen first team injuries. Still, cannot believe this guy hasn’t at some point had a ten-week spell in charge of one of the “Old Firm” brought to an early end by a mid-July two-legged European exit at the hands of the Romanian Taxi Drivers Union work side.

In the end City were, we concluded, “impossible to call. If you tell me now they finish third and go up, I’m not surprised. If you tell me now they finish third bottom and go down, I’m not surprised. More known unknowns and unknown knowns than a round of pass the parcel at Donald Rumsfeld’s birthday party. I’ll stick them bang in the middle and watch with intrigue.”

In finishing fifteenth, they basically parred the course. For all the spend and overhaul, a decade of mismanagement, asset striping and under investment by the malignant Allam ownership was always going to take some building back from. There were runs of poor form – the 3-1 loss in W12 was one of seven defeats in eight games – and other peaks – our 3-0 hammering in the reverse fixture part of a run of one loss from nine fixtures. Colombian forward Oscar Estupinan made for a predictably eye-catching addition – a creditable 13-goal haul including an early hat trick against Coventry.

The big plus, from my point of view, was the decision to appoint Liam Rosenior as manager at the midway point. I like this guy a lot. He speaks with intelligence, has a deep understanding and knowledge of the modern sport, and sets his teams up in creative ways. He arrived in early November and brought stability and calm to a team in a state of flux. Hull have only lost six of the 28 league games they’ve played since he moved in. The analytics types will tell you their xG data and the like perversely declined as the results improved – that always rings alarm bells about medium and long term progress. For now it’s manifested in too many draws which, in the end, hindered further progress up the table.

Ins >>> Jason Lokilo, 24, RW, Sparta Rotterdam, Undisclosed >>> Xavier Simons, 20, DM, Chelsea, Undisclosed >>> Liam Delap, 20, CF, Man City, Loan >>> Ruben Vinagre, 24, LB, Sporting, Loan

Outs >>> Tobias Figueiredo, 29, CB, Fortaleza (Brazil), Free >>> Callum Elder, 28, LB, Derby, Free >>> Tyler Smith, 24, CF, Bradford, Free >>> Billy Chadwick, 23, CF, Stockport, Free >>> Callum Jones, 22, CM, Forest Green, Loan >>> Harvey Cartwright, 21, GK, Grimsby, Loan

Manager: Liam Rosenior Real deal.

This Season: It’s been, as you would expect, a calmer summer. Four new arrivals to this point, two on loan and Hull the latest Championship club to try and unlock that apparent potential in Liam Delap who played for Stoke and Preston last year like he’d put his boots on the wrong feet. One would expect more arrivals, particularly in goal where loanee Karl Darlow has elected to go elsewhere permanently, but having spent big on wages last summer FFP will restrict them this. Aaron Connolly’s two goals against QPR in January were nothing to write home about – you’d have fancied yourself for a brace the way Dickie and Dunne played that day – and he only managed six appearances overall, but a permanent move from Brighton is being mooted regardless.

Plenty of positives though. Rosenior, who made such a good impact upon arrival, has had a full summer to work with his troops. Estupinan, Sayyadmanesh and the other foreign imports from 12 months ago are a year in now, know what it’s all about and are ready to go. Meandering winger Dogukan (Catucan’t) Sinik is back for a second swing at things after spending most of his first year back home on loan at Antalyaspor. Jean Serri and Ozan Tufan make a formidable midfield pair, and it’s not unreasonable to hope that an injury list of a dozen players all missing at once won’t recure to quite those extremes again. Jacob Greaves and Ryan Longman are my favourites from the English contingent, the former is only 12 months into a new four-year contract after the Tigers fended off interest in their centre half from Boro and others but is already attracting big money attention from elsewhere again. Former Sheff Utd junior Regan Slater has looked good in pre-season.

Local Knowledge — Nathaniel Whittingham @NathanielWhitto “Last season was a necessary stepping stone for what will hopefully be a better, or at least more stable, second full season under Acun Ilicali as owner. After a brilliant start, neither Shota Arveladze or interim manager Andy Dawson could find consistency. Once Rosenior was appointed we improved massively and ended the season with a much more positive outlook than we had around October and November.

“It’s hard to call. I've done some predictions already and I've gone around tenth spot. That's probably the bare minimum where our ambitious owner wants us. If we continue on from a good run under Rosenior that's where we'll end up. Our defence will be solid but with the strikers we have and potentially more attackers to be signed, adding goals could definitely see us having a solid chance at the playoffs. That is pretty much exactly what I said this time last year though.”

Prediction: 15th Once again, the hardest call on the coupon. I’ve seen them tipped as high as fifth and as low as a relegation struggle elsewhere. I originally had them 11th, and ended up dropping them down as I decided I liked sides like Stoke, Birmingham and Bristol City more.

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