Our Championship rivals – part 1

I have had a little study of our fellow Championship teams, most of whom we know quite intimately, but the majority we haven’t crossed swords with for a few years.

I am going to split the teams into 3 groups: Promotion candidates; Play-off hopefuls and Teams concentrating on survival. Naturally there are teams that the bookies make short-odds favourites like West Ham and Leicester last year, but I have always thought that the play-off’s in this division are in reach of a large number of clubs with always two or three surprise teams giving it a real crack. Then, and there aren’t many, there are a handful of clubs who’s sole ambition is to not get relegated.

Lets start with the bookies favourites Bolton Wanderers. I rate manager Owen Coyle and he has a history at taking teams out of the Championship and into the Premiership (Burnley 2008/9). The Trotters have seen Gretar Steinsson, Nigel Reo-Coker and long-serving Jussi Jaaskelainen leave The Reebok. Jaaskelaninen has been replaced by Leeds’ Andy Lonergan who was unwanted by Neil Warnock. The pick of Coyle’s five signings is talented Arsenal youngster Benik Afobe.

Bolton have all the attributes of doing a Charlton. The club carries a lot of debt, said to be in the region of £110m and were keen to offload some big earners from their wageroll, although Kevin Davies did sign a new contract. Life after relegation is a little easier now thanks to the renegotiated parachute payments, which make Wanderers’ debt burden less surmountable.

Their fans, and I have one in the office, are a little nervy of their chances but with Coyle at the helm, they should be challenging for a top two place.

Leicester City are once again a summer hit with the bookies. The Foxes began last season with Sven-Göran Eriksson but replaced him with Nigel Pearson in October, who was then given the rest of the season to steady the ship. Pearson who had bought some goodwill following his previous successful stint as manager, has moved on a lot of Eriksson’s signings (Mills, Peltier, Fernandes, Bamba) but will be under pressure to start the 2012/13 campaign well. Once again the Thai-based owners have funded another foray into the transfer market including free-scoring Jamie Vardy from Fleetwood for £1m.

This is Leciester’s 9th season out of the top flight and the locals are getting antsy. A good start is needed but Pearson still has a youthful look to his squad added to by Matty James from Man U and Frenchman Anthony Knockaert. City have a habit of not delivering but with this squad a play-off place at least should be expected.

I am less convinced about Ståle Solbakken’s Wolverhampton Wanderers. Their hard to be please fans will expect nothing less than top two but with the vultures hovering over two or three of their best players and with Kightly already gone, I think Wolves will find this division tough to re-establish themselves in.

Solbakken’s big outlay has been on Bjorn Sigurdarson. He arrived at Molineux for a reported £2.4m fee. Like his manager, Sigurdarson is an unknown quantity in England and it is interesting to note that he managed just 7 goals in the Norwegian league last term. Wolves rank as third favourites with most bookies and following last season’s debacle I can foresee a season of treading water ahead.

The Championship has all of the qualities of many a soap opera this season and Cardiff City are one of the prime characters. Cardiff’s Malaysian owners have rebranded the 113-year old club and the ‘Dragons’ now have a new club badge and will play at home in red. The locals are not impressed, but they would have been pleased about the re-signing this time permanently of Craig Bellamy, who I grew to like and respect during GB’s Olympic football campaign. The well regarded Malky Mackay also splashed £2m on South Korean international attacking midfielder Kim Bo-Kyung, another Olympian.

Jon ‘the Beast’ Parkin, who must have played against us 5 times last season has left as did Anthony Gerrard, who went to Huddersfield. Often the bridesmaid and not the bride I do think this could be Cardiff’s year especially if the Malaysian’s allow Mackay freedom to do his work.

I’m loving the zoo that is Blackburn Rovers. Last week Rover’s ‘global advisor’ Shebby Singh said that Steve Kean would be sacked if they lost three in a row, and then apologised. He also described 30-year-old Norwegian midfielder Morten Gamst Pedersen as a “pensioner.” I wonder how that made 35-year old Danny Murphy feel? Well at least him and his missus will be kept busy at the many red-carpet do’s, the well known haven for celebrity that Blackburn is.

The Venky’s make light of Charlton fan’s concerns over our ‘mystery’ owners but somewhat surprisingly they gave Kean a little warchest this summer and he signed Murphy, Nuno Gomes, Dickson Etuhu, Kazim-Richards and the now injured Leon Best, who came with a £3m price tag, amongst others.

A few players have left including Yakubu but many still remain and Kean has a lot of options available to him and on paper at least Rovers have some players that should excel at this level. However the only paper Rovers’ fans care about are those that they have scrawled on in big letters “KEAN OUT.” I see a bumpy start and probably a change in manager before Rovers can begin their bid of a return to the Premier League that they won in 1995.