The Championship Title Contenders

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With an exciting end to the 07/08 Coca Cola Championship season comes an imaginative beginning to the next. Birmingham City have come back down after failing to extend their stay in the premiership along with Reading and officially the worst ever premiership team points-wise, Derby County. From the lower reaches of League 1 have emerged Doncaster via the play-offs, Swansea who were League 1 champions and the once great Nottingham Forest who hope to start their long journey back to the Premiership. With plenty of teams possessing the skill needed to gain promotion to the country's top league, the coming season will prove to be a great one to watch.

QPR and Birmingham City are the odds on pre-season favourites to lift the trophy at 6/1 and given Birmingham's strong team and manager and QPR's large bank balance many see these as the only realistic outcomes. However, the Championship is a league of much uncertainty. Last season both Cardiff and Watford had top spot at times, only to slip down the league and miss out on even promotion. Unlike the Premiership having its usual top teams, the Championship is often regarded as a free-for-all, a wide open league which is anybody's to win. Crystal Palace and Sheffield United, both outside favourites on 11/1, will be looking to live up to their expectations and be crowned champions, but it will not be easy. Realistically there are ten teams which could mount a serious title challenge, but which ones do obviously remains to be seen.

With the idea of foreign investment now reaching English football's second tier, QPR have invested in new players, with the ambitious aim to be in the Champions league within four years. Their investors will see anything other than promotion a failure, and their players know this. Whilst the Premiership may be the most cash-rich league in the world, the Championships unpredictability and number of potential winners make it one of the most exciting and the coming season should not disappoint.