A new Championship season – part II
A lot of clubs in The Championship will have ambitions of promotion, play-off’s at least, and the next grouping will each start the season believing this is their year, and sure enough as is proved every season, one or two will come out of the pack and surprise everyone.
Birmingham have had the most revolving revolving door in The Championship this summer. 11 players have joined the Blue Noses since the end of last season including Darren Randolph and the son of a former turnstile operator Oliver Lee. Matt Green scored 42 goals in the Conference last season and Lee Clark went back to Huddersfield for striker Lee Novak.
Clark did lose two influential players though in Curtis Davies and Nathan Redmond although the sales did raise over £4m. Selling assets to fund recruitment or in Clark’s case a rebuild, was something that Charlton could have done of course and it remains to be seen if the 11 players brought in end up being anywhere near as good as Curtis or Redmond.
City were one of the many clubs that were looking over their shoulders going into the last fortnight of the last season, but ended up in 12th.
Mick McCarthy knows how to get teams promoted from The Championship having done it twice before. When he took over at Ipswich they were on a disastrous run, but in McCarthy’s normal way he brought stability and defensive acumen that led to a midtable finish.
McCarthy like Clark has performed a lot of cosmetic surgery on the squad he inherited and made more than a couple of eye-catching signings. Christophe Berra and David McGoldrick stand out and I think under the Irishman a shot at the play-off’s is not beyond the Tractor Boys, who are the longest serving members of The Championship.
Leeds United, the biggest club by all kind of metrics in The Championship have found themselves one of the division’s mainstays. It is now 10 years since they were among the elite. Once again under new ownership promising a return to the glory days, but they at least appeared to chosen well in Brian McDermott.
Leeds have been relatively quiet in the transfer market although they did pick up exciting youngster Luke Murphy from Crewe and the experienced Noel Hunt from Reading and they kept hold of Sam Bryam and Ross McCormack. McDermott’s another manager with a promotion to the Premier League on his resume but has he got a squad equipped to challenge?
I think Sheffield Wednesday will improve this season. Manager Dave Jones has strengthend the spine with 6ft 6 Albanian Atdhe Nuhiu joining up front. That may well be a key to which style Jones will have his team playing. Jérémy Hélan made his move permanent from Man City. Nicky Weaver has moved on but Llera and Semedo are still at Hillsborough.
Watford were last season’s surprise package and although most us didn’t agree with the way they put their team together, one can’t ignore how difficult it must have been for Gianfranco Zola to manipulate all those loanees into a successful team playing good football.
The Hornets antics led to a rule change so this summer Zola had to buy his players and 8 have come from sister clubs Granada and Udinese including the return of Abdi, Anya, Battocchio, Ekstrand and the impressive Pudil. Matej Vydra and Chelsea’s Nathaniel Chalobah are two that didn’t return.
Reece Brown (bother of Wes) joined from Man U and is one of only 8 English-born players in Watford’s 35-man squad. It will be interesting to see how they get on after the bitter disappointment of losing the Play-Off Final. I do think the free transfer signing of Lewis McGugan was a great catch but without Vydra and Chalobah they will need Troy Deeney to prove last season wasn’t a one-off.
Brighton & Hove Albion were a club that had everything before that fateful night at the end of May. The Seagulls were favourites to go up via the Play-Off’s, playing their easy-on-the-eye way, their wonderful stadium was brimming with newness and atmosphere and then it all fell apart.
We’ve had Gus-gate, poo-gate and still no one really knows what happened. Brighton have plumped for an unknown quantity for head coach, Oscar Garcia, although he did steal away from us Nathan Jones as his assistant.
It has been pretty quiet on the south-coast in regard to transfers, even after the long wait before Poyet was finally booted and Garcia joined. The experienced Matt Upson has signed on the dotted line after being on loan at The Amex last season and the highly regarded Adam Chicksen will replace Wayne Bridge at left back.
Will the likeable Seagulls manage to put the summer from hell behind them and justify themselves as one of the promotion favourites? I think it might take a while but they still have enough quality to be up there.
Part I here.
