Championship / Mike Norman / 14 July 2011 /

You should consider more than who has bought who when assessing which clubs will go well in the Championship this season. Sometimes it can be about the previous season and what you've already got says Mike Norman.

The Championship is often regarded as the hardest division to escape from. On paper this season looks no different but, after a few hours of careful study, I've unearthed some useful trends that should point us in the right direction when selecting our clubs to follow.

One of the most glaring trends from recent seasons is that clubs that were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the previous campaign have a terrific record at immediately returning to the top flight via automatic promotion. Of the last 16 clubs to finish in one of the top two positions in the Championship, exactly half of them were relegated the previous season. In fact, from the 2006-07 season to the 2009-10 season, six of the eight clubs that were automatically promoted were playing Premier League football in the season that immediately preceded.

What's even more noticeable about those relegated clubs is that they achieved automatic promotion immediately thanks largely to retaining the majority of their best players, and this is a huge pointer to the chances of West Ham going back up.

If half of the last 16 clubs to be automatically promoted from the Championship had just been relegated from the Premier League then what about the other half? Ignoring QPR and Norwich from last season for a moment, they had all finished in the top eight of the Championship the season before. QPR finished 13th in 2009/10, Norwich were promoted from League One, but both these clubs match some other recent trends which will become apparent.

Using the previous season's league positions as a form guide then, we can deduce that we should be looking for a club that either finished in the top eight of the Championship or was relegated from the Premier League. That leaves us with West Ham - available to back at [5.4] in the 2011-12 Championship Winner market - Birmingham [13.0], Nottm Forest [15.0], Reading [18.0], Blackpool [21.0], Leeds [21.0], Cardiff [21.0] and Burnley [36.0].

Strength of playing squad is obviously a huge factor, but perhaps more important is having a striker that can score close to, or in excess of, 20 league goals a season. QPR had the excellent Adel Taarabt last season (19 goals), whilst Norwich had Grant Holt (23). And in previous seasons Newcastle had Andy Carroll (19), Wolves - Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (25), West Brom - Kevin Phillips (22), Reading - Dave Kitson (22), Wigan - Nathan Ellington (24), whilst Stoke had two strikers who scored 30 league goals between them.

Predicting who will get 20 or so goals this season is not easy, but you would certainly think that West Ham's Frederic Piquionne is capable, whilst the likes of Shane Long (Reading), Robert Earnshaw (Cardiff) and Marlon King (Birmingham) are all proven strikers at this level and will score plenty of goals if remaining - in Long's case especially - at their current clubs.

Managers offer few clues as there's been a range who had little or no experience at this level before gaining promotion (Paul Lambert and Chris Hughton for example) and those who had lots of experience like Steve Coppell, Steve Bruce, Neil Warnock and Mick McCarthy. West Ham's appointment of the vastly experienced Sam Allardyce offers plenty of encouragement to those who fancy the Hammers for an immediate return to the top flight however.

West Ham fit the bill perfectly for me as the likeliest winners of this season's Championship. They have a strong playing squad, an experienced man in charge, a striker that has the potential to score goals, and they've very recently been a Premier League outfit. They tick all the boxes in other words when comparing them to clubs that won automatic promotion in recent years.

And so too do Reading, who are my second choice as a club to win automatic promotion, especially if holding on to the excellent Shane Long.

It would be folly not to mention Leicester. A club that finished 10th last season under Sven-Goran Eriksson and one that has invested - similar to QPR last term - strongly in an attempt to win automatic promotion. David Nugent is a terrific striker, capable of scoring 20 goals a season, but for me, their odds of [5.7] to win the division look a tad too short.

Recommended Bets

Back West Ham at [5.4]
Back Reading at [18.0]

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