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).

Blackpool one step closer to Premier League

A second half hat trick from Blackpool striker D J Campbell stunned Nottingham Forest in last night’s second leg Championship play-off at the City Ground.

Twice coming from behind, Blackpool’s counter attacking game proved decisive as Forest’s unbeaten home run of 20 games disappeared along with their chance of a place in the Premier League.

The writing may have been on the wall prior to the game as Blackpool were the last team to win at Forest and have now beaten their rivals in all four of this seasons games.

Nottingham Forest had scored the early goal in what many critics assumed would be a tight low scoring game, and for seventy odd minutes there was little sign of what was about to happen.

Forest appeared to grab a hold of the game on 66 minutes when Earnshaw put them back in the driving seat to make the score 2-1, but within minutes Blackpool had levelled the score 2-2 on the night.

The tie went in Blackpool’s favour with two goals in quick succesion leaving Forest with a mountain to climb and although they did score another to make the final score 4-3, it was little consolation.

Blackpool’s 6-4 aggregate win takes them to Wembley for the play-off final, where they will meet Cardiff or Leicester for the chance to make next seasons Premier League.

derby county

Derby County have been fined by the Football Association for a second time this season, once again they were charged with ‘failing to control their players’, on this occasion the charge refers to the Championship game against Swansea at Pride Park on February 20th.

County had denied the charge but were found guilty at a disciplinary hearing. The club were fined £50,000.

Swansea were also fined for their part in the melee, but their fine was only £15,000 with half of that suspended.

Derby were found guilty of the same charge involving their two matches against local rivals Nottingham Forest earlier this season and have already been fined £65,000 on those counts.

The Commission chairman stated:

“The Commission was deeply concerned that this was the third occasion in a period of eight months that Derby County FC have been charged with a similar offence. Furthermore, the Commission felt the incident could have easily been avoided by stronger restraint from players from both clubs.”

Newcastle close in on promotion

Newcastle United moved even closer to fulfilling their dream ambition of returning to the Premier League after just one season away, following a hard fought victory over Nottingham Forest last night.

Promotion could be confirmed as early as this coming weekend if results go in favour of the Magpies and they beat Peterborough and Forest lose to Bristol City.

Nottingham Forest’s purple patch now seems a distant memory, despite the team putting up another brave and gutsy performance at St James’ Park they once again ended the game with nothing to show for their endeavours, stretching their run of away defeats to seven.

Newcastle remain unbeaten at home this season and had the better of the chances in the first half, but amazingly the game remained goalless up until the 71st minute, when substitute Shola Ameobi grabbed the opening goal.

Jose Enrique added the second very late in the game after everyone and his dog had chances for Newcastle to seal the win, but Lee Camp in the Forest goal was superb at keeping them at bay until Enrique popped in the first goal of his career.

It was a close game and Billy Davies will take heart from his teams performance, but I can’t really see them winning an automatic promotion place now and they may have to settle for the play offs, where they already lead the pack.

Newcastle have got stuck in from day one in the Championship and have been favourites for the title all season. I have to say it will be no more than they deserve if they grab promotion this weekend, if not, it is only a question of time.

Newcastle had an early chance to equalise when they were awarded a penalty following a hand ball by Damion Stewart, but Danny Guthrie’s soft spot kick was easily saved by the Rangers keeper Radek Cerny.

Wayne Routelege and  Ben Watson were particularly impressive as QPR threatened to add to their one goal advantage, but Newcastle fought their way back into the game during the second half and Marlon Harewood, on loan from Aston Villa, levelled the score with twenty minutes remaining.

The Newcastle striker had a chance to steal the points minutes later but could not quite direct Jonas Gutierrez’s cross goalwards.

Both managers spoke after the game about the strength and quality of the Championship this season and seemed content with a share of the points.

In last nights other Championship game Nottingham Forest beat Scunthorpe 2-0 in a hard fought battle, their first back to back wins this season. Luke Chambers and Dexter Blackstock scoring the goals.

city ground nottingham

Both Nottingham Forest and Derby County have been charged by the Football Association for failing to keep their players and officials in order in last weekends lively encounter which ended in a 3-2 victory for Forest.

The trouble, which had been brewing throughout the game, kicked off when Forest’s Nathan Tyson waved a corner flag bearing the Forest badge at the opposing supporters.

Derby players quickly surrounded Tyson and a tussle ensued, resulting in most of the players and some officials from both clubs becoming involved in the highly charged brawl.

Forest manager Billy Davies said that he did not see Tyson provoke the trouble, but reminded anyone who cared to listen that Robbie Savage had waved a Derby scarf around the last time they met at the City Ground, and no-one complained about that, “We never complained about it or made a fuss because we understood that Derby should enjoy the victory they had here.”

Derby boss Nigel Clough said that he was in the changing room at the final whistle and could not comment on the events leading up to the brawl. Forest had led the game 3-0 at half time, but Derby fought back in a fiery second half bringing the score to 3-2 at the final whistle.

Both clubs have until September 18th to appeal against or accept the FA charges.

Blackstock becomes the eighth signing to be made by manager Billy Davies during the summer and has always been high on the Forest managers list of targets.

The former Southampton and Plymouth player will find himself as one of six strikers at Forest, where competition is going to be very keen for a starting place. Blackstock’s good friend and team mate at Southampton, David McGoldrick joined Forest earlier in the summer and DeleAdebola is also a new addition. They will be fighting for places with last seasons strike force of Robert Earnshaw, Nathan Tyson and Joel Garner.

Exciting times ahead for Forest without a doubt.

The 19 year old was bought by Spurs from Cardiff in January 2008, but has made no secret of his desire to join Forest, after his successful loan spell. “I wasn’t interesting in moving anywhere else. There was never a temptation to look at other clubs who were supposedly interested.” says Gunter.

Forest have been pursuing McKenna all summer and had been rebuffed by Preston on three occasions before agreeing a deal worth £750,000 for the 31 year old. McKenna has signed a three year contract with Forest despite being a one club player since the age of 14. He has played 469 games in his time at Preston, and says, “It was a massive change for me , but I think it was time for that change.”

McKenna added “Coming here has given me a new lease of life and I’m really excited about that challenge ahead.”

The hammering leaves Nottm Forest just one point above the drop zone with eight games left to play this season. There is no doubt that they are in a relegation battle and more performances like this one will see them go straight back to League One.

In fact, the display from the Forest players was so bad that Billy Davies has revealed that his first priority after the game was centred around ‘apologising to the travelling fans’.

The former Preston and Derby boss admitted that his team showed a ‘lack of desire and commitment’ throughout the 90 minutes. Overall, he said that he was ‘very disappointed’ with the Forest players who appeared to ‘lack a will to win’.

Elsewhere in the race to stay in the Championship, there were important wins for Blackpool, Norwich and Watford. Charlton lost again though and Southampton had to settle for a draw at home to Queens Park Rangers.

As things stand, Charlton are the team propping up the table and considering they are 13 points from safety, they will already be planning for next season in the third tier of English football.

Other than that, it could be very tight indeed with two teams from Blackpool, Plymouth, Norwich, Nottingham Forest and Southampton likely to join Charlton in being relegated.

It is very likely that it could go down to the last couple of games, so we are in for an exciting and tense few weeks at the bottom of the Championship table.

The former Derby manager has already brought in Aston Villa midfielder Isaiah Osbourne until the end of the season and it seems as though he is far from finished as he looks to give his relegation threatened team an injection of fresh faces.

One of the men Nottm Forest hoped to sign was Reading striker Leroy Lita, although it is understood that he has turned down a move to the City Ground. It does seem certain though that a forward player is very much Billy Davies’ priority.

Speaking about the transfer situation, Billy Davies admitted that he has been in talks with a club ‘about a striker’ and that there ‘could be another two’ in the near future.

It certainly seems as though the Nottm Forest boss is going to be constantly ‘working on new signings’ whenever he can as he looks to build a squad capable of avoiding relegation straight back to League One.

Nottingham Forest currently sit three points outside the relegation zone after securing a fantastic win at Reading over the weekend. However, they know that there is still a lot of work to do and that is why Billy Davies is trying to bring in new players.

Overall, it seems likely that Nottingham Forest could feature a lot in Championship football betting news between now and the end of the season, for bringing in new players and for their fight against relegation.