I actually fancy one of three teams to win the title and they’re in a shortlist of most bookies top five teams with the shortest odds. The other two on that list I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.
First up, I fancy favourites Middlesbrough.
Cast your mind back 12 months to this very same column and I predicted both Boro and Sheffield United would be going up.
It didn’t happen last season, but you can’t ignore Boro this time out. Last season Gareth Southgate’s poor start and some bad home form pretty much ended their promotion hopes before the clocks went back, but under Gordon Strachan, Boro stabilised themselves well towards the end of the season.
Boro are best priced 7/1 for the title with Stan James and I suggest that’s a good price. The signing of Kris Boyd is an excellent bit of business – I think he could have found a place in any team in the bottom half of the Premier League so to see him pitch up at the Riverside is great news for the Teesiders.
Boyd alone won’t take Boro up, but a proven goalscorer like him is who Boro have been crying out for over the last couple of seasons and with the likes of Leroy Lita and Scott McDonald too, Boro have some decent ammunition.
The second side I fancy to go up are Burnley, who are as short as 8/1 with some bookies, but you can still get on them at 11/1 with Sky Bet.
Burnley have managed to hang on to their entire Premier League squad so far, although rumours suggest Chris Eagles will move on before the end of next month. They played some great football at times last season and once Brian Laws gets them back in the regular winning mentality I think they’ll prove a match for most of the division.
I like Wade Elliot, Martin Paterson and Brian Jensen and I see a team that will be hard to beat, tough across the middle and full of goals. Plus they’ve got a serious slice of parachute payments to keep them going through the tough winter.
If they can keep the late summer vultures away from Turf Moor, this is a squad that could well be in the top flight again come August 2011.
The third side is Reading, a team who impressed towards the e
nd of the season under Brian McDermott, another team who’ve hung on to their players and who nearly made the play-offs last season.I am a big Reading fan and think they boast real quality, but again, they’ve got the same problem several of the decent sides at this level have – if they start well their players are natural targets for the teams at the foot of the Premier League. I’m thinking in particular Shane Long, a player I really rate – can Reading hang on to him all season?
Surely if they’re in the top two at Christmas Long as well as Jimmy Kebe and Jobi McAnuff will hang around. And why not? Why go and join a Wigan or Birmingham to scrap against the drop when you could be their yourself next season?
I’m making Boro, Burnley and Reading my three for the title and such are the odds you can back all three and still make a decent profit.
There’s always a couple of teams who fail to live up to the pre-season hype – last season I’m afraid it was Ipswich. This season I intend to swerve Nottingham Forest and QPR like a crunching Mark van Bommel tackle.
Forest flattered themselves towards the end of the season with their run to the play-offs and were rightly dumped out by a superb Blackpool side. It’s never easy for a team to be beaten like that to return in August with the strength to do it all over again and I don’t see Forest having such a good season again.
I’ve stated on a regular basis my feelings for Lee Camp – he is a complete clown of a keeper and when I hear talk of him playing for England I wonder if I’m missing something. Every time I watch him he does something wrong and for that one reason alone I could never back Forest to do anything. William Hill have them down at 7/1 to win the title. Forget it.
Same for QPR, who are around 9/1 with most bookies. We’ve been down this road so many times with Rangers in recent years. They’ve got the cash (apparently), they’ve got a decent manager, they’ve got this, they’ve got that. What they never do is seriously damage the top of the table and I don’t see anything changing.
Money doesn’t buy titles in this league, it’s a mixture of a decent midfield, a proven goalscorer and a defense that can take no prisoners. Rangers need a complete overhaul if they are to get out of this league and their squad is simply not even near good enough at the moment.
Avoid them like the plague.
PLAY-OFFS: Having dismissed Forest and QPR for the title, they are possible for the top ten and therefore they could still get promotion. But I don’t want to back either of them at 11/4 (Forest) or 4/1 (Rangers). I’ve given you the three teams I think will get promoted – Burnley and Reading are 4/1 to get promotion (be it automatically or via the play-offs) and Boro are 9/4.
But for a bit of variety I think it does no harm to stick a couple of longer shots in the mix. All we’re really looking for are teams that can make the top six. Last season Blackpool were a huge 25/1 to get promoted so sniffing down the lower reaches, Doncaster at 20/1 could be worth a punt, but more realistically, I would like to be on both Hull and Portsmouth.
I know they’ve both come down from the top flight and I know they’ve both got money troubles, but they’ve still got decent squads and, yes that may change before the transfer window changes, but I would rather back proven talent than hyped-up wannabes.
Pompey – with David Nugent likely to lead the line - are a juicy 9/1 with Sky Bet to go up, while Hull are 13/2 with Bet 365. Take it from me, if they’re in the top six come May those prices won’t be anything like that.
If you don’t fancy QPR for the title and you’ve got the bottle, you can lay Rangers on Betfair at around 4/1 to go up – I’m doing exactly that so if you want to get on it, well, you’ll be in good company!
RELEGATION: Do yourself a favour and get on Watford for the drop right now. Money troubles mean they’ve been forced to lose some of their better players like Jay DeMerit and Jon Harley, they probably won’t get the likes of Henri Lansbury and Tom Cleverly back on loan from Arsenal and Manchester United, and have Danny Graham as their only real striker. A thin squad who’ve had a poor pre-season – it doesn’t look good for Malky Mackay’s Hornets at all. William Hill make them 11/4 for the drop, which is like buying money. Get on them before Friday as I think they may get an opening day tonking at the hands of Norwich.
Crystal Palace are the same 11/4 odds with William Hill and Scunthorpe, now minus Gary Hooper, are the shortest price side to go down at 15/8.
Portsmouth are 2/1 with Hills, but I would lay that all day long. A club like Pompey is a magnet for investment and if things really are looking that bad I say it’s far more likely they would get rescued than a Scunthorpe or Barnsley.
Take Watford and Palace as potential sides to go down but for slightly longer odds, something tells me the 10/1 on Leeds going down isn’t that bad a shout.
Leeds should have walked League One last season but really struggled to get out of that division and, despite their FA Cup heroics, I don’t really feel that Simon Grayson’s side are going to hit the ground running in the Championship.
I predict a slow start at Elland Road and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see Leeds in the bottom six all season. For that reason, the 10/ 1 on them going down needs to be taken.
TOP SCORER: It’s never easy picking the top goalscorer in The Championship and this year doesn’t look any earlier. But given my choice of teams to win the league I have to say I fancy Scottish striker Kris Boyd at Ladbrokes’ 8/1 to run amok in the scoring charts this term.
Behind Boyd in the pecking order are the familiar names like Town target Michael Chopra (12/1) Nicky Maynard (14/1), Rob Earnshaw (25/1) and David Nugent (25/1).
As I’ve topped Burnley for the title, I think I’d be partial to a flutter on another Scot, Steven Thompson who is a huge 66/1 with Ladbrokes to be top scorer. They pay a quarter the price each way – and that’s ending up in the top four.
Bookmakers don’t see any East Anglian striker troubling the scoring stakes – Norwich’s Grant Holt, who may miss the start of the season, is 25/1 while Connor Wickham, who also may have to wait for first team action, is the highest priced Town player at 50/1.
IPSWICH/NORWICH: I don’t think we’re going to see anything dramatic happening at Portman Road and Carrow Road this season with the return of the local derby the only real highlight.
It’s impossible to predict Ipswich to do anything at the moment as they go into this season with an ever-growing injury list, seven or eight players who don’t have a future at the club, transfer targets who don’t seem to want to come and a manager who chops and changes his team on a regular basis.
It’s far more likely will see the same kind of form of last season which means Ipswich will be hard to beat but won’t cause teams major problems at the other end. Roy Keane’s contracted to stay at Portman Road until the end of this new season, but you know as well as I do that a poor start could see him out by November which suggest that any money on Ipswich to have a successful season is far too risky.
Up the A140 Norwich (7/1 for promotion) come into the division after a superb first half of 2010 and they’ve been one of the busiest teams in the Championship over the summer with half a dozen new signings.
Star front trio Wes Hoolahan, Chris Martin and Grant Holt have all played in the Championship before, but have spent more of their careers below it, which must be remembered.
Norwich are the opposite of Ipswich for me – good going forward, but leaky at the back and I don’t see either East Anglian side ending up in the top half. Both sides have too much about them to go down, but I don’t see any point in backing either for promotion.
Some bookies have split the 24 teams in the Championship into smaller groups and you can punt on certain teams to win each group. The groups are made of teams with similar prospects – so, for example, Coral have placed Ipswich and Norwich in a group with Cardiff, Leeds, Hull and Bristol City. Think Town can finish higher than those other five? Coral will give you 7/2 they do.
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