Last season The Championship was
in the top four of most attended leagues for games across the whole of Europe.
With such a battle every season for promotion to the country’s elite Premier
League it comes as little surprise, that any one of usually around the top 12
teams in the division do battle until the final weeks to reach those dizzy
heights. Last year’s ultimate victors were Thai consortium owned Leicester City
amassing a huge 102 points, followed by second automatic promotion placed
Burnley a further 9 points behind. The winners of the play offs were Queens
Park Rangers managed by wheeler-dealer Harry Redknapp (albeit on a Premier
League budget) overcoming Steve McClaren’s Derby side in Wembley’s showpiece
final.
The 2014/2015 looks set to be as
intense and competitive as ever, let’s take a look at some of the promotion and
relegation candidates in more detail…
Fulham
Predicted finish: Champions
Fulham managed to retain manager
Felix Magath after failure to turn around a struggling season in the Premier
League. Appointed on Valentine’s Day he managed 10 points in the final 12 games
of the season, which was simply just not good enough to retain their Premier
League status. 9 players and a wealth of experience have departed Craven
Cottage over the summer, leaving for other clubs on free transfers, players
such as John Arne Riise, Steve Sidwell, Johnny Heitinga, Damien Duff, Brende
Hangeland and Mahamadou Diarra.
Arrivals include the marquee
signing of last season’s Championship top scorer Ross McCormack for a fee of
around £11M from Leeds United and European experienced centre back Nikolay
Bodurov from Bulgarian side Litex Lovetch. Fulham can also count on Costa Rican
midfielder Bryan Ruiz who played at the World Cup this summer to bolster their
ranks after his second half of the season loan return from Dutch giants PSV
Eindhoven.
Some people may question
Magath's ability to return Fulham to the Premier League at the first time of
asking; however they are rated strongly among the bookmakers at around second
favourites to be playing back in the top division next season.
Key man: Ross McCormack – Knows
the division inside out having being Championship top scorer at Leeds and just
missing out on the same accolade a few seasons prior at Cardiff, knows where
the back of the net is and can expect a haul in the region of 25+ from the
Scottish hit man.
Derby County
Predicted finish: Runners up.
Derby will be gutted about the
manner of their play-off defeat at the hands of QPR last season, a last minute
goal coming from substitute Bobby Zamora ending their hopes of promotion.
The bookies make Derby joint
favourites for winning the league outright this season and few would argue they
have what it takes to match that.
This summer has seen few
arrivals on a limited budget in free transfers and loans notably central
defender Zak Whitbread (free) from Leicester City and loan signing, striker
Leon Best from Blackburn Rovers. Derby were never really a team that needed
many arrivals as their squad seemed to retain its best players for this seasons
fight, midfield startlet Will Hughes who attracted the attentions last season
of a number of Premier League clubs combined with the expectation of goals from
ex Norwich City man Chris Martin will prove key to Derby sustaining themselves
in the mix come the end of the season, decent support up front from Conor
Sammon should help alleviate the pressure on Martin somewhat.
Steve McClaren’s men last season
were the highest scoring team in the division but also had the leakiest
defence, the hope will be that Whitbread will help to shore this up and I can
only see this as Derby’s only real area of concern going forward.
Key man: Chris Martin – His
goals and assists to his teammates will be pivotal in Derby’s promotion charge
this season.
Cardiff City
Predicted finish: 3rd (playoffs)
This season’s bookies joint
favourites Cardiff finished last season bottom of the Premier League after just
one season. In a closely contested battle with other relegated teams Norwich
and Fulham there were only 6 points from themselves up to 17th placed WBA.
Cardiff I think as most people will agree spent big (reportedly £8M) on Andreas
Cornelius only for him to fail to deliver in an injury plagued 6 months,
something you cannot afford to do in the Premier League not registering a
single league goal before a January return to F.C. Copenhagen of Denmark.
Cardiff had fought for recent
seasons for that promotion and it was of concern to many fans alike up and down
the division when controversial owner Vincent Tan decided to part ways with
manager Malky Mackay 2 days after Christmas, Tan directing the flak firmly in
his direction after a series of very public altercations. Tan then went on to
appoint Molde boss and former Manchester United player Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to
improve the clubs standing which would ultimately come to no avail at the end
of the season.
With relegation came the
departures and arrivals of a number of players, gone are the likes of Frazier
Campbell (Crystal Palace, est. £1M), Chilean international Gary Medel (Inter,
season long loan) then there’s one season, yet ever present man Steven Caulker
(Queens Park Rangers, est. £9M) and central midfield player Jordan Mutch
(Queens Park Rangers, est. £6M). Arrivals have seen much needed firepower in
the promising striker Federico Macheda (Manchester Utd, free) Championship
experienced Adam Le Fondre (Reading, undisclosed) and ex Valladolid front man
Javi Guerra (free).
As with Derby I can see
Cardiff’s frailties lying in their defence, selling Caulker will be a big blow
to Cardiff without a decent replacement they could struggle defensively. David
Marshall will once again have to be at his shot stopping best, the keeper
impressing with some fine individual performances in the Premier League last
season.
Key man: Adam Le Fondre - The
Cardiff no. 10 will bear the brunt of the requirement to be banging in the
goals, averaging just over 20 in each of his last 5 seasons for previous clubs
Reading and Rotherham Utd, Cardiff will be hopeful of a haul around the 25-30
mark, could prove to be one of the leagues signings of the season.
Blackburn Rovers
Predicted finish: 6th (playoffs)
Unlucky on the final day of the
season to miss out on a play-off berth by 2 points Blackburn will be looking to
go one further after a strong finish last season took them to 12 games unbeaten
in the final weeks. Remembering speaking to first team coach Craig Short just
before last season started about the hopes for the new season Blackburn
would’ve finished in a solid position, considering they weren’t expecting
playoffs in the first season under new full time manager Gary Bowyer.
This season is a different story
with playoffs at least the target, arriving to support the front two of Jordan
Rhodes and Rudy Gestede (38 league goals between them last season) are Luke
Varney (Leeds Utd, free) and Chris Brown (Doncaster, free). Alex Baptiste has
been brought in on loan from Bolton in defence, it is noted that Baptiste was
actually wanted by Bowyer last season however the defensive man chose Bolton
over the Lancashire club whom he is now on loan to Blackburn from.
Departing Ewood permanently
after loan spells at and away from the club are Ruben Rochina and Scottish
striker David Goodwillie (after contract settlement in June) respectively. Add
to those two names a plethora of free transfers the other well known name would
be that of DJ Campbell, who left the club by mutual consent at the beginning of
July after being involved in a controversy over match fixing earlier in the
season (to which the outcome of which is unknown if the player is guilty or
innocent at the time or writing).
Key man: Jordan Rhodes - A
continuing theme of front line key men Rhodes will be in the minds of Blackburn
fans of being their hero come May. With a devastating record of having netted
25 or more goals in the past three seasons (25, 28*, 36) when Rhodes is on form
it doesn’t rain it pours.
*This season included 2 goals
for previous club Huddersfield town as well as 26 for Blackburn Rovers.
Norwich City
Predicted finish: 4th (playoffs)
As well as Fulham and Cardiff,
Norwich was the other team unable to muster enough points to stay in the
Premier League last season. Parting ways with manager Chris Hughton just before
the end of the season and choosing former Under 18’s manager Neil Adams as his
replacement they followed form with the other two relegated clubs changing
managers before the end of the season to their determent.
While finishing with a better
goal against record last season than either of the other two relegated clubs.
Norwich suffered the feat of recording the lowest goals scored in the entire
division, 28 in total. Despite this low total Norwich should have done better,
club record signing Ricky Van Wolfswinkel (since departed on loan to St Etienne
for the season) failed miserably mustering a sole league goal in 25
appearances. Johan Elmander (also now departed returning from loan to
Galatasaray before being sold to Brondby) also managed only one goal, although
with hard working performances for the team won over more hearts than the Dutch
flop. Explaining their struggles further Luciano Becchio failed to register in
the league in his 13 appearances for the Canaries. The only forward player
managing any feats (including an impressive personal record) was Gary Hooper
managing 6 league goals in 32 appearances. The record mentioned was that on 9th
November 2013 (scoring a penalty against West Ham United) Hooper became the
first player to score in the top four divisions in England, the top division in
Scotland, both cup competitions in each country, as well as the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Despite this accolade he
couldn’t find the extra goals that eventually led to Norwich falling short of
safety by 3 points (albeit also to a vastly inferior goal difference).
Norwich have recruited two strikers
to replace the departed in Lewis Grabban (Bournemouth, est. £3M) and Kyle
Lafferty (Palermo, est. £4M). Lafferty’s experience of top flight leagues in
Scotland, Switzerland and Italy will prove invaluable to a team looking to get
out of the blocks early and build up a significant goal haul.
Loan returns of Jonas Gutierrez,
Joseph Yobo and Johan Elmander have also included the sale of Robert Snodgrass
(Hull City, est. £6.5M) which will no doubt be felt in the midfield, the
signing of Queens Park Rangers veteran Gary O’Neil should help soften the blow
to some extent but Elliott Bennett remains the only out and out right sided
midfielder in the squad. Fans will be hoping Snodgrass won’t be too sorely
missed but Norwich have arguably the best midfield in the division, Leroy Fer,
Jonathan Howson, Bradley Johnson, Andrew Pilkington, Nathan Redmond and
probably Wesley Hoolahan (subject to potential transfer) will all be fighting
to fit into manager Neil Adams formation.
Key man: Neil Adams – Yes here I
have gone for the manager as the key man, to getting all of his players playing
in a formation both he and they are comfortable playing with will be as much of
a challenge that any single player faces. If he manages to crack it early on I
feel they could even push for the top two places.
In The Mix
These teams I think will
definitely be in the fight for promotion and the playoffs but could also easily
be last season’s Blackburn and just miss out. All have strikers capable of
finishing top scorer in the division this season and maintaining a sustainable
challenge from day one.
Nottingham Forest
Watford
Middlesbrough
Wigan Athletic
Relegation Fodder
Personally I see the likes of
Milwall, Blackpool, Birmingham City and Rotherham struggling this season. Brave
escapes last season mixed with the lack of quality and squad depth, coupled
with Rotherham being newly promoted are the reasons why I think these teams
will be involved in the scrap this season. However, the transfer window is
still open until the end of the month and anything can happen, just as with the
top of the league can be any one of 12 clubs, so can the relegation places be
decided in such an open fashion, making The Championship one of the best
leagues in Europe to watch or follow.
By Ash Woods
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