A longish preview of the Championship season

So onto the final preview of the three Football League divisions for 2015-16, arguably the toughest Football League in the world – the Championship.

It is only behind the EPL and big European leagues for attendance, and streets ahead of most for competitiveness. Any side can win or get promoted, and as a result it’s the hardest league to pick a winner from.

It is a hard division to be successful in, look at Derby County last year who were well positioned and well-resourced with a manager of international pedigree. They looked the certainty to go up for most of the season.

In the end they went on an irreversible slide to miss the play offs. The reward for the manager Steve McLaren? The sack, and a job at a much bigger EPL club Newcastle United. Even the EPL bosses recognise how tough the division is. Unfortunately not many of them get to last even if they have success in the second tier.

With the riches of the EPL on offer for three of the 24 teams, it’s hard not to get caught up in just the clubs who get promoted, and the only time mainstream media are interested in the Championship is at the sharp end when they need to know the three clubs coming up.

Usually they can barely give a Dickens about the second tier. But this league has classic clubs, classic rivalries, fantastic loyal fans and 46 rounds of genuinely tough league football.

And last year was a classic with all the top positions decided on the last days of the season and a revolving top 6 for most of the post-Christmas period.

Great expectations
The promise of EPL makes the Championship a favourable way to get involved in a football team without the extra cost. Look at the current state of the ownership, more than half of the clubs are owned by overseas interests. Some see the second tier as the cheaper way of buying into the EPL. The reality is much different.

There are a number of clubs now foreign owned who were bought in the lower divisions with a view to making it to the big time.

For some it eventually works out like Leicester City, who fell just short for a few seasons but made it to the EPL and stayed last season.

For others, the investment is still waiting a return, like Nottingham Forest, Charlton Athletic, Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United. All of those listed teams have had a good turnover of managers in the past few seasons, but as seen with Watford last year – foreign ownership and four different managers didn’t hurt them.

Tale of two cities
MK Dons arrive in the second division for the first time, sort of. They were in this division as recently as 2004, but that was when they were known as Wimbledon not Milton Keynes Dons.

The 1988 FA Cup winners fell out of the EPL and into major financial woe, and were moved to and renamed Milton Keynes Dons.

The MK Dons dropped as far as League Two in the last 10 seasons but consolidated under their young manager and previous success under Paul Ince and have threatened promotion to the Championship for a few seasons now.

The old namesake Wimbledon started up again and became AFC Wimbledon and have made it back as far League Two from the very bottom.

The other two teams coming up have plenty of experience in the second tier. Both Preston North End and Bristol City were mainstays of the division, both coming close to promotion to the EPL at various stages. These teams will be ready for what it is required at this level

Hard times
The Championship is also a place for some big clubs to continue treading water or even attempt to halt the slide. Last year EPL mainstays Wigan weren’t able to do it, and big clubs like Wolves, Norwich and Southampton have even dropped down to the third division before recovering.

Leeds United is one of the big clubs in the Championship, playing Champions League semi finals in what seems not too long ago, they struggled to finish mid-field last season flirting with relegation at times.

However with an owner in charge who created more headlines off the field than a club needs, it’s not hard to imagine that creating some kind of impact on the field.

In fact the Leeds United owner Massimo Cellino may bemoan Blackpool’s relegation as the competition for craziest off field antics by an owner got more open this year.

Cardiff’s Vincent Tan is another contender, but has thankfully returned the club colours to blue for this season, as the experiment with a red first kit ending in EPL relegation and an 11th place finish first year back.

On hard times are the three clubs coming down from the EPL from last year. QPR looked doomed for most of the season and are back in the second tier after just one season.

Also up and back within a year is Burnley, but the surprise packets of the Championship the year before always planned on a relegation contingency plan, so will be more ready than their 2014-15 EPL contemporaries.

QPR didn’t seem to learn from their previous relegation and suffered a second in three year. Anyone who has seen the documentary Five Year plan may not be surprised.

Hull are the final team joining the Championship from above, and this was a mild surprise as no one seemed too panicked about relegation until it was too late. Some claim that an owner more hell bent on an unpopular change to Hull Tigers from Hull City didn’t help.

There are numerous similar stories of hard times, clubs with pedigree who think they should be higher. Problem is only three go up, and usually the rest sack their managers, reset, and try again.

Please sir, can I have some more interesting facts…

Stats from last 10 seasons.

– 13 of the 24 teams have owners from overseas.
– The longest-serving club in the division is Ipswich Town. Since 2002-03.
– The longest-serving manager is Karl Robinson at Milton Keynes – over 5 years.
– The average length of service for the current managers in League One is 1 year 5 months
– However no fewer than 20 managers were sacked/left during 2014-15.
– Watford, who were promoted, went through four managers.
– 10 teams who bounce back within three years from EPL relegation – 7 of those with 1 year. Proving any team who doesn’t go straight back up really struggle to go up to EPL at all.
– 16 of the 30 teams promoted are back within three seasons. Ten of those 16 within just one season.
– Five teams who are promoted to EPL from League One within three years
– Three teams have suffered back to back relegations to League One. 8 in total have dropped down another division.
– Average Crowd of League One Teams 2014/15 – 17,857
– Top Three Clubs Av Crowd
o Derby County – 29,232
o Brighton & Hove Albion – 25,645
o Leeds United – 24,276

Ghosts of Championship winners, promotion and relegation past an future
And so it is time to attempt to pick the winners and losers from the world’s toughest division of football.

The usual teams are up the top of the most favoured – Derby, Middlesbrough and the three relegated sides but it is hard to see all three promoted sides coming from that group.

Derby County look strong again, signing Tom Ince and Andreas Wiemann, and the addition of Paul Clement as manager who arrives to the midlands from no less a club as PSG and Real Madrid as assistant manager. But their squad was strong last year also, and can they be trusted again?

Middlesbrough’s success was partially dependant on Patrick Bamford, who gets loan gig with EPL Crystal Palace this year. Not that he was the everything, but he helped plenty. Their similarities to Derby are a manager with experience at Real Madrid, this time with Jose Mourinho, and that link sees a few loan players going their way, but will they be the same quality as Bamford. Another thing the same with Derby is that Boro looked set for automatic promotion for most of the year but failed in the playoff final.

Out of three coming down, only Burnley have prepare for second division life, but it is hard to see them going straight back up without the 50+ goals they got in their promotion year with Danny Ings and Sam Vokes.

That leaves just about any team who can get off to a decent start and/or go on a decent Christmas of last season run.

There’s last year’s playoff teams Brentford and Ipswich. Brentford will be interesting to watch as they gave their manager a few months’ notice despite his successes with the club.

Will the grass be greener is the big question, as will the second season syndrome after a promotion to the Championship in 2013-14.

Ipswich are building nicely, selling one of their marquee players to Bournemouth for 8 million (cost only 10K), and holding onto the rest (including goal scoring king Daryl Murphy) whilst consolidating elsewhere, including four quality strikers.

Running through a list of former EPL sides see Blackburn, who have sold two of their three best players in Gestede and King (and Rhodes looking less likely to stay by the day), looking weaker than last season.

Bolton have a lot of debt to worry about and a manager with pedigree, so they’ll struggle to hold onto him. Wolves bookended last season with good runs either side of a bad run, and in their second season back in the Championship will be better for the run, so to speak.

Fulham got a lesson in how hard the Championship is last year despite signing one of the best strikers in the division in McCormack. Reading looked over their shoulder rather than above for most of the season.

Then there’s more clubs with claims to be the surprise packet of the season. Well-timed manager changes helped Birmingham City and Nottingham Forest at times last season, and the question is whether that can hold up to an entire season.

Charlton Athletic have the link with Standard Liege and more clubs to their advantage, an asset that assisted Watford’s promotion last season. Cardiff City and Sheffield Wednesday have their overseas owners and grand ambitions as assets.

So given how hard the Championship is to pick promotion candidates let alone a winner, this time I’ll chicken out and pick a few sides for promotion and relegation.

Surely Paul Clement wouldn’t go from Real Madrid level to Derby County ($7 win title / $2.80 promotion) without a grand plan of success. Ipswich Town ($19 / $6.50) are looking their best in many a year, forgoing usual mid table mediocrity to join the sharp end last year and improving in the off season.

And the last spot could be just about anyone, and anyone could be Nottingham Forest ($23 / $7), Wolves ($15 / $5) or even newly promoted Preston North End ($41 / $13).

At the other end it’s hard to see Rotherham United ($2.75 relegation) staying up, or their fiery manager Steve Evans not being upset with someone. MK Dons look like a team who may struggle up a grade. And there’s a feeling that one of the big guys could even go down with them this year, like a Blackburn ($6.50), Bolton ($5) or, depending on how bad it gets off the field, Leeds United ($5).

But that’s just one man’s view on the season ahead. I’d love to have some good banter of the year ahead from all the Championship fans. Hopefully a weekly Football League catch up will follow so those fans of the lower leagues can talk football.

For those in Australia who like to follow all the divisions on a Saturday night, and can’t find Soccer Saturday, the show Scores on Radio Station LBC through Tune In is an excellent alternative.