More of the same in 08/09?

There are two ways to look at the Championship this season. Either you believe the league is the most competitive (i.e. best) it has been in years, or you think it is the weakest it has been in years. There isn’t an awful lot of middle ground.

Both viewpoints stem from the fact that this season more than any other any team really can beat any other, which is demonstrated by the likelihood that the team finishing in the final play-off position this season will do so with the lowest points total in years, whereas the team occupying the third relegation place will have the highest.

I’d better get it out of the way early on; I think the Championship in general is shocking this season. Very few teams have impressed me and although you would have got incredible odds on the top six being occupied in early April by Bristol City, Stoke, Hull, Watford, West Brom and Wolves - and with just five points separating the top five to boot - that doesn’t mean the league is particularly strong.

The best thing you can say about the Championship this season is that it is almost impossible to make any meaningful predictions. But has that stopped me? Not a jot.

Based on my last little session with the BBC Predictor (which is well worth a play if you haven’t had a go yet), our friends from down the road will finish sixth on 67 points. I have the Canaries down to finish fifteenth on 57 points - just ten fewer. The third relegated team (which at the moment I think will be Blackpool) have 51. I don’t have the stats to hand but I doubt there has been a season this tight for a long, long time.

The real question is whether or not next season will be any better. Let’s take a look at the likely runners and riders (bit late for a Grand National pun I know but bare with me I’ve not been very well) and try to find out:

The teams coming down from the Premier League are almost always instantly installed as favourites to bounce straight back helped in no small part by the parachute payments they receive, but in reality at least one such team struggles (see Sheffield United for further details).

Derby we know are already relegated and I’m expecting Fulham and Bolton to join the Rams in falling through the trap door. Based on my predictions the three relegated teams will be replacing West Brom, Stoke and Watford in the division. Overall I’d say the Championship gets the better end of that particular deal.

Stoke’s main aim you would think would be ensuring they don’t ‘do a Derby’, whereas West Brom and Watford should in theory be better suited to life in the top-flight this time around.

The leap from League One to the Championship would appear to be almost as steep if this season is anything to go by. Of the three teams promoted last season Bristol City have confounded everybody by currently sitting top of the pile. Unfortunately I think they are suffering from pre-promotion jitters at the moment, which is why I think they will ultimately miss out this campaign.

Scunthorpe have consistently struggled and Blackpool have been yo-yoing between the relegation zone and mid-table for most of the season, which is why believe they will both be doomed come 4^th May.

Replacing the Iron, the Seasiders and Colchester will most likely be Swansea, Carlisle and my pick of the play-off chasers, Nottingham Forest.

Swansea and Forest have Championship setups already at the Liberty Stadium and the City Ground, so I think it is fair to think they will do considerably better than Scunthorpe. Carlisle are a bit of a mystery to me in truth. They have done very well in League One, but would they be able to make the grade in the Championship? Who knows?

The eighteen remaining clubs are all pretty much of a muchness and will be separated by just 16 points according to my predictions come the end of the season. All the signs indicate that 2008/09 will be very similar to 2007/08, albeit hopefully with one significant difference - the Canaries challenging at the right end of the table.