The Beautiful Game Returns: El Chumbazo's Championship Season Preview

The EFL Championship returns this weekend, and looks set to offer yet another incredibly exciting season of football. El Chumbazo's George Frith presents his preview of the upcoming season, taking a look at who might challenge for promotion to the richest league in world football, who looks set to fall further down the Football League, and a few of those in-between.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's that time of year again. 'Proper' football returns, and with it comes reckless optimism, total fear, and everything in-between. Last season saw the ascension once again of Leicester City, who earned their return to the top flight under Pep disciple Enzo Maresca. Ipswich Town followed, completing a remarkable feat of back-to-back promotions, whilst Southampton were victorious in the playoff final. Coming down to replace them are Sheffield United, on the back of a horrendous 23/24 season, alongside Scott Parker's Burnley, and of course, Luton Town (have you seen their away end?, etc). At the other end of the table, Portsmouth, Oxford United and Derby County replace relegated Rotherham United, Birmingham City, and Huddersfield Town, who will spend this season at least enjoying all that League One has to offer. In this article, I look at who will have the pleasure of enjoying watching the club they love, and who might want to sit this one out.

First things first, let's talk about Leeds. Leeds are by far the bookies favourite for the title this year, despite losing local hero Archie Gray and their top goalscorer Crysencio Summerville already this summer. However, with a month still to go until the end of the transfer window, they are sure to bolster the squad with new arrivals. In Daniel Farke, they have an experienced manager at this level, having won the league twice previously with Norwich City. They came very close to promotion last year, although any hope of automatic promotion was crushed with a 4-0 loss away at Queens Park Rangers in April, and they continued to derail afterwards, eventually losing to Southampton in the playoff final. They will hope to go one further this year, and seem nailed on to be in the top 6 at a minimum come May.

Other promotion hopefuls include newly relegated Burnley, who reacted to Vincent Kompany's departure by bringing in Scott Parker, renowned for his defensive and patient style of play. It remains to be seen how this change affects the mood at Turf Moor, although with a squad market value of €242.73m, almost €100m more than the second most expensive squad in the league (Leeds), you would imagine it wouldn't matter too much. Both Luton Town and Sheffield United will also surely have their promotion hopes bolstered by parachute payments, and all three should certainly be in and around the playoff places this year. I personally think that Coventry City may be able to push on under Mark Robins, particularly with the addition of Huddersfield's Jack Rudoni, who was a shining light in an otherwise depressing season which saw them relegated. Coventry, of course, will seek some form of retribution for the horrendous VAR officiating which saw them miss out on an FA Cup final appearance last year, and that may well come in the form of playoff victory in a return to Wembley.

At the other end of the table, it's shaping up to be a tough challenge for newly-promoted Oxford United, on their first return to the second tier of English football since 1996/97, a near-30 year gap which has seen the club drop all the way to non-league and back. Oxford make their return to the Championship with the lowest wage bill in the league, having come through the League One playoffs last year following a league finish of 5th; the season before, they finished 19th, avoiding relegation by just two points. It's not looking great for the U's. Elsewhere, having narrowly avoided relegation on the final day last time out, Plymouth Argyle have looked to Wayne Rooney in their hour of need. Personally, I'm not convinced that one will work out, but we'll see. Blackburn Rovers are my other tip for relegation this year. Having lost manager Jon Dahl Tomasson in February after a very public falling out with the board, John Eustace was tasked with steering the ship at Ewood Park. Since then, Blackburn have slid further and further down the table, eventually finishing 19th, 3 points clear of the red line. The real worry here is if Sammie Szmodics departs before the end of the window, which may well be necessary, as their owners V H Group are currently unable to provide any funds to the club. Szmodics, who has been linked with clubs such as Ipswich, Leeds and Everton, won the golden boot in the Championship last year, netting 27 of Blackburn's total 60 goals. The next top scorer for Rovers was Tyhrys Dolan, with 5. The mood around Ewood Park is not one of optimism as we head into the new season.

Another team to keep an eye on is Sheffield Wednesday, as Danny Rohl looks to continue to work his magic under their infamous chairman and owner, Dejphon Chansiri, who at any point could very easily decide to pull the plug on Rohl or indeed Wednesday itself, amidst mass fan discontent. Against this backdrop though, Rohl was able to save the Owls from relegation last year, to the surprise of many, as Wednesday were in the relegation zone uninterrupted between matchday 2 right up to matchday 44, and it took them 14 tries to win a game, finally beating Rotherham at the end of October. A run of 6 unbeaten kept Wednesday up, and with a flurry of incomings on free transfers, the mood around Hillsborough has finally started to improve.

Finally then, we come to my beloved Queens Park Rangers. After a quite frankly harrowing ordeal under Gareth Ainsworth, the club brought in football genius and overall stud Martí Cífuentes, with exceptionally-named Xavi Calm by his side as assistant. The R's struggled to put together some momentum, and for a long portion of the season the general consensus was that we would be going down. However, some better performances and incredible moments (thank you, Jimmy Dunne) saw QPR stay up comfortably in the end. Now, the mood is one of cautious optimism. You never want to get too hopeful with Queens Park Rangers, but the manager is quite simply too good for this level. He has managed to cultivate a much better atmosphere within the squad and he is loved by the fanbase. Some astute transfer business including the arrival of 21-year-old centre-back Liam Morrison, who has enjoyed the most insane career trajectory I think I've ever seen in football (Celtic-Bayern Munich-Wigan-Queens Park Rangers), and half-brother of Raphael, defensive midfielder Jonathan Varane, alongside the removal of deadwood has left the R's looking somewhat of a competent football club. Most importantly, we have a goalkeeper who's first name is not Asmir. It remains to be seen whether new centre forward Zan Celar can hit the ground running, as goals have been few and far between for us, with not one player registering double figures last year. A comfortable mid-table finish without relegation worries would be ideal, and any more would be a bonus.

Well, there you have it. I wonder just how wrong I'll look in May next year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gameweek 1 Predictions

At the end of every Championship weekly review, I'll provide a list of the upcoming fixtures, and predict a winner, specified in bold (no bold = draw). I guarantee the one week I get them all right, I won't have put an acca on.

FRIDAY

Preston North End - Sheffield United

Blackburn Rovers - Derby County

SATURDAY

Hull City - Bristol City

Leeds United - Portsmouth

Middlesbrough - Swansea City

Millwall - Watford

Oxford United - Norwich City

Queens Park Rangers - West Bromwich Albion

Stoke City - Coventry City

Cardiff City - Sunderland

SUNDAY

Sheffield Wednesday - Plymouth Argyle

MONDAY

Luton Town - Burnley