The Championship Betting: Race to the Premiership's promised land starts here

Championship / Andrew French / 07 August 2008 / Leave a Comment

Andrew French talks us through the main movements in the Championship transfer market over the summer and offers his views on who will be in the promotion mixer come the end of the season. Then there's the small matter of the best bets from the opening day's fixtures...

In the days of the 'undisclosed' transfer fee, it is not easy to assess who has been throwing their cash around in the Championship.

And even those clubs that have deigned to tell us how much they have paid for their new talent aren't spending a fraction of what is changing hands in the Premiership. Perhaps, though, when assessing the relative chances of the promotion contenders, it's more a case of who hasn't left rather than who has actually joined.

Title favourites Birmingham City ([6.8]) have seen a good few millions-worth of players disappear out of St Andrews - we know that Patrice Muamba and Olivier Kapo fetched nearly £8m on their own. Yet the Blues are still justifiable favourites as they have wisely reinvested - the capture of Kevin Phillips, even towards the end of his career, is an astute one, and he will definitely benefit from having Marcus Bent around. The addition to the midfield of Lee Carsley also brings another player proven at the top level.

I can't get excited about QPR at [9.2] myself. Okay, they are probably the richest club in the Championship, and potentially in the country. Yet the rumours are that manager Iain Dowie and chairman Flavio Briatore have already dashed through the honeymoon period and are starting to suffer from some lover's tiffs. You have to wonder if summer signings of the like of Matteo Alberti and Samuel Di Carmine were at the behest of Dowie or his Italian boss.

One team long overdue some success (particularly if you listen to their 'we're a big club you know' fans) is Wolves. They have had everything a Premiership clubs needs for years: big ground, large fanbase, famous history. They've just been lacking one key element - a team that's good enough. They flirted with the play-offs last year, and with the addition of Chris Iwelumo, proven at this level, to the exciting Sylvain Ebanks-Blake, they look an attractive price at [14.5]. certainly some room for back-to-lay enthusiasts.

All three teams that were newly-relegated 12 months ago are still in the Championship, only one year they are available to back at far bigger prices. And rightly so.

Both the clubs I worked for, Charlton [28.0] and Watford [48.0], have undergone wholesale squad changes which are aimed more at rebuilding a relationship with the bank manager than restructuring the team. Watford's plight is so severe that some doom-mongers are predicting a relegation battle. I don't think it's that bad, but I can't see either them or the Addicks troubling the play-off places.

Sheffield United do interest me. They were really fancied a year ago after dropping out of the Premiership but it just never happened for them, despite a late rally under Kevin Blackwell following the departure of Bryan Robson. Like most managers, Blackwell has lost players he would probably have wanted to keep, but the capture of Darius Henderson from Watford is a good buy and the likes of Greg Halford and Matthew Spring have shown they are useful in this sphere. At a price of [13.0], they might be a bit skinny right now. I'd give it time as they might well make a slow start again and their price ought to drift accordingly.

Moving on to the opening day's fixtures and countless sides have come down to the Championship and are never to be seen again in such heady company (Bradford City anyone?) but on the eve of the new season I suggest that Derby's spending power and Paul Jewell's managerial prowess will provide a Pride Park elixir strong enough to fire them back up at the first time of asking.

So it's reasonable to assume that this hapless correspondent is plumping for County to beat Donny Rovers at home on Saturday? No I'm not because this, friends, is the Championship - the division where the improbable and the highly likely meld into one great kaleidoscope of ridiculously-impossible to call season-long list of results.

They're [1.82] to back if you think the headlines will read 'Crown Jewells' but wily old Sean O'Driscoll - with his merry band of promoted no-stars - is a canny operator and I can see a draw here, at [3.65] to back. Under 2.5 goals also looks tempting to me; a [1.86] opportunity. My overall feeling is, though, that Derby will get it more right than most more often and scrape their way back to another season of televised maulings.

However your first Championship betting opportunity of 2008/09 - in a match-by-match kinda way - is the Saturday luncheon fare to be served up by Birmingham City, at home to Sheffield United. Both armed with parachute payments, this pair of big city clubs have both recruited eagerly this summer, if not in quantity then certainly paying deference to quality - particular in Blues' case.

Seasoned (the sort of adjective you must use these days when talking of older players!) striker Kevin Phillips, now 35, knows where the net is in the top-flight, let alone the Championship, and won't be far off the Championship Golden Boot if he remains fit for Alex McLeish's Birmingham. I'll take a St. Andrew's home win here, at [2.04], since I fancy it'll take a while before Kevin Blackwell's relatively new-look side settles down.

While we're at it, there might just be a few goals in this one. There should be plenty of goalscorers on view - Phillips, James McFadden and Gary McSheffrey for Brum, Darius Henderson, David Cotterill and Billy Sharp for the Blades - so a slice of the Over 2.5 goals pie at [2.16] might taste a bit sweeter, result regardless, at about half past two.

South and east now to Suffolk -and if Jim Magilton's Ipswich Town can come anywhere close to repeating their scintillating home form of last term, they'll do more than all right this year. They've got former Premiership wannabes Preston North End at home this weekend and the [2.02] about them prevailing in front of their own Portman Road faithful is, in my opinion, not to be missed. You could write about both side's transfer activity on the back of the proverbial stamp, so with little having changed since last term, logic says side with the hosts.

The selection I hold in highest regard, however, is Bristol City to win at Blackpool. The Seasiders have brought in now fewer than 12 blokes over the summer - and, whatever boss Simon 'Larry' Grayson says - it'll take them all a while to remember each other's names, never mind 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. Gary Johnson's City, the beaten Play-Off Finalists, are a model of footballing consistency and, in Nicky Maynard signed from Crewe, have a sniffer or a striker to finish their good football off. Take them to prevail at around the [3.0] mark and for there to be at least three goals, it's [2.24] to back Over 2.5 goals.

And how about an upset? An upset by what yardstick, though, given the opening gambit about unpredictability. Well, given QPR's millions, you'd probably reckon they'd do for Barnsley at home in their curtain-raiser among the favourites to go up. But, again, I think it might be a while before it all clicks - if it all clicks, given the reported disharmony. So either back the Tykes at [6.2] or lay Rangers to a liability of [1.74] if that's your preferred modus operandi.

Sunday's TV game deserves an honourable mention. Remember, with no Premier League (though the Community Shield will of course be taking place on Sunday afternoon and here's a guide to the match if you fancy a bet http://betting.betfair.com/football/premiership/community-shield-man-utd-to-start-the-season-as-th-070808.html and a wonderfully rancid weather forecast for the weekend, you'll end up watching this one, whether you planned to or not!

Forest host Reading, starting at quarter-past one, and I think the odds of [2.6] for the Royals to make a winning start should be snapped up. I'd also dabble with one-nil to the visitors at [8.2] with Under 2.5 goals a [1.66] shot worthy of inclusion.

It might have the faux-friendly pre-match handshakes of the Premiership this season, but in every other respect the Championship remains eminently watchable because none of the teams are much better than the others!