Middlesbrough – another club with recent Premiership experience – are current favourites. Manager Gordon Strachan has bought in Kris Boyd from Rangers; if Boyd reproduces his outstanding goalscoring record in the Championship, he could be play a vital part in Boro’s promotion bid.

Although the clubs relegated from the Premiership shouldn’t be entirely written off, Burnley look the best equipped for a serious promotion challenge: Chris Iwelumo’s arrival from Wolves looks like a shrewd investment. Both Hull City and Portsmouth have off field issues that could hinder their efforts to make an immediate return to the top tier.

Two of the teams that reached the play offs last season should challenge for promotion places. Nottingham Forest were outstanding at home last season and Leicester City – where former Swansea City boss Paolo Sousa replaces Nigel Pearson as manager – look capable of maintaining their form from 2009/2010. Cardiff City’s prospects are unclear, but they should still be capable of a top ten finish, a prospect that both Ipswich Town and QPR will be hoping to achieve.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new arrivals from League One will perform. Champions Norwich City return after one season but may have to settle for a mid table finish; Leeds United will probably lead the division in attendance numbers, but their season may depend on how well new signing Billy Paynter adapts to the Championship. Millwall should avoid relegation but may have to be content with a bottom half finish in their first season at this level since 2005/2006.

A number of teams look as if they may struggle. Scunthorpe always seem to be punching above their weight but selling Gary Hooper to Celtic leaves The Iron without a proven goal scorer. Barnsley need to improve at home, Crystal Palace entered administration but eventually owed their survival to an outstanding away record that culminated in a win at Sheffield Wednesday on the last day of the season.

However, every club in the nPower Football League Championship will start on equal terms when the season starts on the evening of Friday August 6th, when Watford travel to Norwich City (7:45pm kick off, live on Sky Sports 3).

Newcastle were easy winners against a Peterborough side who are struggling for form and find themselves unceremoniously dumped at the bottom of the table, thanks to Roy Keane’s Ipswich picking up a point from the 1-1 draw with Reading.

West Brom who faced a recent dip in fortune found their way back to winning ways at Leicester, who despite the 2-1 loss remain in the dogfight for promotion play off places in sixth. Albion are clinging to Newcastle’s shirt tails in second place, two points behind the Magpies.

The game of the weekend in the Championship, for me anyway, was the clash between Welsh clubs Swansea and Cardiff. Cardiff have been scoring goals for fun as Ron Atkinson might say and were favourites going into the tie. Swansea have been doing pretty well themselves following the adjustments at the club following the departure of Roberto Martinez.

New manager Paulo Sousa has instilled a winning mentality into the Swans and before Saturday’s derby they were unbeaten in nine games, having conceded only ten goals and five points adrift of Cardiff but heading in the right direction.

Cardiff manager Dave Jones on the other hand has a team that had scored 31 goals, the division’s top scorers, and had just picked up the Manager of the Month award for guiding the team to third in the Championship.

On the day it was Swansea who came out on top in an enthralling encounter which they won 3-2, with two goal Darren Prately the player of the match.  It is hard to argue with the result, Swansea just having that extra edge throughout an excellent and exciting game, for a neutral.

Elsewhere, Middlesbrough continue their free fall from the top of the league, even Gordon Strachan needs time it seems, Crystal Palace taking three points from them with a 1-0 win.

As ever in the Championship, at least half of the table are within early sight of the automatic and promotion play off places, leaving the other half desperately trying to accumulate enough points not to be dragged into a relegation place.

Barnsley

It is the second defeat on the trot in the Championship and third in a week including the Carling Cup loss at Arsenal for the Baggies and has put a temporary dent in their attempt at marching straight back to the Premiership.

Barnsley, who are at the other end of the Championship table, were much the better team and deserved the win with a performance that belies their position in the league.

Michael Chopra scored four in Cardiff’s mauling of Derby County as the Welsh team found their early season form and thrashed Nigel Clough’s side 6-1.

Promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough and Preston were both beaten, the latter by lowly strugglers Reading who won away 1-2 and lifted themselves up the table but will need to build on this result to avoid a relegation battle later in the season.

Gareth Southgate was booed by the home crowd following the 0-1 defeat by Leicester who are now just one point behind Middlesbrough after an indifferent start to the campaign.

Roy Keane’s Ipswich were robbed yet again as Sheffield United scored an equalising goal in injury time to make the score 3-3. Ipswich had led 3-1 and will be disappointed at letting the game slip away, although one point is better than none.

Ipswich Town’s Simon Clegg was quick to dispel any rumours that Keane’s time at the club was coming to an end by issuing a statement to say there is no pressure on the Irishman.

Coventry staged a late comeback to take all the points from their visit to Watford, trailing 2-1 the Sky Blues scored twice in the last ten minutes or so to seal the win 2-3.

Bristol City beat Blackpool 2-0 who are now both on 16 points just outside the play off places which is becoming very congested with five teams on the same points.

Crystal Palace were held to a 0-0 against visitors Sheffield Wednesday, the same result as at Doncaster who entertained Swansea. The bottom of the table clash between Darren Ferguson’s Peterborough and Plymouth was won by the south west team 1-2, their first win of the season.

Newcastle have the chance to stretch their lead to five points at the top of the league when they take on QPR tonight, while Nottingham Forest will host Scunthorpe in the other game.

The apology will not change the fact that Crystal Palace lost three points to City, who’won’ the game 1-0. Freddie Sears had clearly scored on 30 minutes but both referee and linesman both missed that the ball had crossed the line as it fired back out off a stanchion.

Rob Shoebridge, the referee involved in the blunder has been withdrawn from officiating Tuesday’s Championship game between Plymouth and Cardiff as a result of the error.

Warnock is also angry at the Bristol City players and manager, who he feels should have done more;

“The body language of the Bristol players and the fans should have told the referee it was a goal. If it had been at the other end of the pitch, there would have been a riot. Refs make mistakes but morally I felt Bristol should have let us score a goal there.”

Bristol City manager Gary Johnson hit back, saying;

“We knew the ball had gone into the net, but we got word the ref said there was an infringement so there is nothing more we can do. It happened to us twice last year and it is very disappointing and you have a little moan and you get on with it. I can understand Neil being disappointed but you have to choose your words these days.”

“But nobody has cheated, nobody means to make mistakes and we had a perfectly good goal on the day ruled out for offside.That happens. It will happen to us many times and to Palace many times and you are aggrieved and you have got to get on with it.”

To rub salt into the tender wound for Palace, City scored the winning goal in the 89th minute to ensure the three points.

Bristol City won with a last minute goal on Saturday to beat Crystal Palace 2-1 in the first leg at Selhurst Park.  And tonight they came from behind to win by the same score line in extra time with a wonderful goal from Lee Trundle.

Bristol City go through to the Championship Final at Wembley on Saturday 24th May where they will face the winners of tomorrow (Wednesday) night’s game between Hull City and Watford.  Hull will be favourites to progress after a convincing 2-0 win last Sunday at Watford’s Vicarage Road.

As with the other play-off semi final, Watford v Hull City, the teams are going to be fairly evenly matched but will be looking at the play-offs with very different psychology.

While Bristol City’s recent performances and results in recent weeks saw them drop out of the top two at the final hurdle to lose an automatic promotion place, Crystal Palace recovered from a poor start to the season to claim a play-off place under the excellent guidance of promotion past master, Neil Warnock.

Crystal Palace thumped Burnley 5-0 to cement their place in the play-offs and only lost one of their last 12 fixtures.

Bristol City, on the other hand, won only two of their last 11 Championship fixtures.  Though they did beat Preston in their final game by a convincing three goals to nil.

I am going to have a beat on a Crystal Palace v Hull City Coca-Cola Championship Play-off Final, with Crystal Palace joining West Brom and Stoke City in the Premier League next season.

First-half goals from Soares (23 minutes) and Fonte (45 minutes) were enough to give all three points to Crystal Palace, as they held on to take all three points. Whelan pulled one back with five minutes to go for Stoke, but it wasn’t enough.

Crystal Palace now find themselves in the top six for the first time this year, inline for the play-offs.

In the post match interview Neil Warnock said:

“It’s not easy coming to Stoke, you know you are going to be very physically tested throughout [...] I thought we played some great football at times and we scored a couple of good goals too, which helped [...] we were positive and I’m proud of them as the tackles were flying in. It was a great win, I love winning like that.”

Crystal Palace have made a sensational rise from relegation possibles to play-off contenders under the guidance of seasoned and out-spoken manager, Neil Warnock. The meteroic rise up the table is similar to a couple of seasons ago when Ian Dowie managed a similar run of victories that ended with Crystal Palace winning the play-off final victory and promotion to the Premiership.

The top six in the Coca-Cola Championship table are separated by a meagre eight points, and below Crystal Palace are Wolves, who have sneaked up to seventh, only a point behind Palace with two games in hand.

Crystal Palace took the lead midway through the second half with a Lee Hills volley; and when Palace keeper Julian Speroni made a double save from Bradley Orr’s penalty with just seven minutes remaining Neil Warnock’s men looked like they were going to come away with all three points.

But deep into stoppage time, a header from Jamie McCombe rescued a point for Bristol City.

Bristol City stay in third place, one point behind Stoke City and Watford.