Ellerslie Echo

Remind Me Why We Do This Again?

Championship Matchday 3 – Coventry City (A)

As QPR fans, getting embarrassed and losing by big margins is nothing new to us. The revolving door of managers is nothing new to us. Relegation fights are certainly nothing new to us. Low effort, can’t be arsed attitudes from our players are nothing new to us. Wanting the season to be over before the first international break is nothing new to us.

Under Neil Critchley (I often have to remind myself that this spell happened), and then even more so under Gareth Ainsworth, I lost interest in the club. I barely attended matches, I would check the score and not even bother to watch the highlights. It was the most detached I’ve ever felt from the club. I didn’t care anymore. 

As much as I didn’t want to be there, I could appreciate the circumstances the club was under. No transfer budget, a poor and inexperienced squad coached by a long-haired Northern hippy who detested attractive football, academy players being forced into the side who are now playing non-league and don’t look out of place there – it wasn’t an easy job for anyone involved. So in hindsight, I can cut them a bit of slack. 

That’s not the case here. When Cifuentes came in, it felt like a new club. He’d kept us up and redeemed Ainsworth’s crimes against football. Then, given a whole summer, money was spent and it looked like we were building a competitive side (we weren’t). But was it his side? Sneaking in through the door behind Marti was CEO Christian Nourry. I won’t pretend to know the extent of Marti’s involvement in recruitment and what led to us parting ways, but it was quite clear who was in charge, and whose squad this really is.

This season, despite Marti’s needless departure, we’ve further strengthened, brought in another European manager, spent big money (relative to our previous windows) signed some well sought after players – Poku, Kone, Saito probably on his way back – and a big chunk of us fans have bought into the idea that we might actually be able to compete this year, with just a few gaps that needed, and still need filling before the window’s close.

Fast forward a few weeks to today. Three league games and one in the cup. 1 draw and 3 losses. A 7 (SEVEN) 1 loss in our third league game. After 2 months of pre-season to establish standards, a shape, a plan, and physically and tactically prepare, what do we get? Another barely fit squad, weak and tired. In our THIRD game of the season. How do you find the motivation to write about that?

Stephan won’t get the same patience that his predecessors had. The money spent, the promise, the hype, the calibre of players we’ve brought in. The club genuinely had me, and a chunk of other naive fans, believing we were capable of doing something this year. The Frenchman has been backed more than any, probably since Hasselbaink. He will undoubtedly have more pressure on him to get results. Whether it’s fair or not, the pile-on has already shown glimpses of beginning for Julian this season. 

I can and will pinpoint issues with his selections, his tactics, where he is responsible for our start to the season, and for this absolute drubbing. I’ll also highlight that he and our new captain, fan-favourite Jimmy Dunne were straight down the tunnel at full time, along with the majority of the squad who at most stood 50 yards away from the fans, giving them a half-arsed applause. Mbuenge, Cook, Kone, Smyth, and in particular 20 year-old Rayan Kolli, all deserve at least some credit for being the only ones man enough to face what remained of that bitter away end. 

What I won’t do after three games is make any actual statements about whether or not Stephan’s job should be on the line. That’s pointless. He stays – we probably struggle for a while longer but he gets to build a ‘project’ and we can make proper judgements. He leaves – we get another new, unproven manager in and start this whole process again. Ultimately though, as is the case for any manager that will come and go under this management team, this isn’t his side. He’s not the one in charge. The ones responsible don’t have to face the press, don’t have to face the boo’s, the abuse, the endless unanswered questions and frustration. Not until the North Korea-styled, heavily-censored fans forum that happens twice a year, of course. 

So, whether it’s down to Christian Nourry, Julian Stephan, Lee Hoos, Ben Williams, the medical team, Jude the Cat, I don’t really care. The point is that nothing has changed. We are soft, we are weak, we get bullied, we look uninterested, we look scared, we don’t want to be there. Hats off to Lampard and Coventry, a brilliant, well-coached side put together with proper footballers, proper athletes who want to win and will make sure you know about it. They didn’t have to get out of second gear and it wouldn’t surprise me if they had a 90 minute training match between themselves after this just to feel something. It certainly would’ve been more intense than the real thing.

7-1. That’s not a result you can find any positives in. That’s not something you can look at and mark down as an off day. That’s something that highlights deep, underlying issues from top to bottom. West Brom, Blackpool, now Coventry. Three of the darkest days in my lifetime as a Rangers fan, all occurring in the last 7 years. There’s been other, almost equally bad results if you look back further, but these ones sting more. These ones make you question why on earth you’ve ever bothered with the time, money, and effort, and whether or not you should find another hobby. The state of the goals as well, that’s what stings more. The state of the f*cking defending man.

Before the game, another Inside Training video was posted on the socials, captioned ‘Getting Set For Saturday’. I didn’t watch the whole 6 minute video, because quite frankly I’m sick to death of seeing clips of our players smashing shots in from 10 yards against no defenders and then watching us get walked over at the weekend. What does that do for us? Are we supposed to look at that and get excited? Go into the game thinking it’ll be a walk in the park? It’ll be interesting to see what he has them doing in the open training session – not that I’ll be there.

I can appreciate they aren’t going to share in-depth training footage or reveal any tactical preparation, but just do us all a favour and don’t post it at all.  Where’s the defensive drills? Where’s the intensity? Where’s the fitness training? It’s all too laid back, it’s all too casual, absolutely nothing about it said to me this was a championship team training for a game against play-off favourites. We aren’t fit, we can’t last an hour of football. Get in the gym lads. Get on the weights. Do a bleep test. 

I don’t need to say much more. No one wants to read another rant about the state of the club, the squad, what on earth we do in training and why, despite managing to hang on in 15th-20th, we look completely out of our depth every single year. It’s tiresome and like many others, I’m too fed up to get angry over it, so let’s get this match review over with. 

We’ll start with the selection. I said after Watford that I didn’t want to see a Cook and Morrison partnership again. That’s exactly what we saw. Amadou Mbuenge was dropped this time, after he struggled in a position that he was never employed to play in the first place. Esquerdinha was brought back into the starting 11 and Jimmy Dunne made his first start as skipper. They played in front of the trusty Joe Walsh.

All five were horrendous. I’ll go easy on the Brazilian due to his age and inexperience. He was defensively shocking but he isn’t the issue. Liam Morrison is still an important player but he’s not immune to criticism. If he plays rubbish I’ll call it out. Steve Cook needs to stop challenging twitter kids to races and realise that perhaps his legs actually are gone, sorry, that’s just the sad truth of it. I said in pre-season that I was worried about Dunne getting found out at right-back. This was that day. 

The passing from the back, which went down the right through Jimmy Dunne every single time, was slow, shaky and Cov barely had to press with any intensity in order for us to self-sabotage. They outnumbered us in midfield and they outnumbered us in and around our own box. They were barely trying and managed to completely shut us down and close us in. That was just on the rare occasion we had the ball. The first 10 minutes at 0-0 was spent mostly chasing it and watching them pass around our penalty area looking for a way in. I would’ve put my house on a goal coming, if I owned one. 

Then, when the ball made its way through our midfield and into our box, Haji Wright, unchallenged, finished off a move which began in Coventry’s half and consisted of three passes, with all involved granted the freedom of the city of Coventry. Like it was four fresh subs against tired legs in the dying stages of the game. This was the eleventh minute. 

I felt sorry for Varane having to play next to Sam Field, and in front of this back four. He did mostly what was asked of him, dropping deep to receive the ball, but had no help around him, and was outnumbered, which made him look poor, but there wasn’t much he could do, surrounded by players who don’t want the ball and are completely incapable of keeping possession of it. If I had a quid for every misplaced pass in our own half, I probably would own a house. 

By no means am I making excuses for them, but we all knew that the three of Matt Grimes, Victor Torp and Jack Rudoni were never going to be easy work. Arguably the best midfield in the league. However I can’t imagine a domination as bad as that against any other team in this division. We looked way off it, like we’d just come up from League One. 

We were informed of Chair’s injury maybe hours before kick off, and whilst infuriating to hear that another key player will be out, Kieran Morgan in the 10 excited most of us on paper, but this was the worst I’ve seen him play since he arrived. I’ll give him the same benefit of the doubt that I’ve given to the Brazilian, but he was poor. His passing was shocking, and his inexperience certainly showed – a confusing one after being our best player the week before. 

This was highlighted for the second goal, where, during our usual goal kick routine, the youngster, without looking forward or even remotely hesitating, played a lovely cross into our own box to find Rudoni, who put it on a plate for Brandon Thomas-Asante, with Cook not able to prevent his shot and Esquerdinha nowhere to be seen. The definition of schoolboy defending. I don’t think anyone, himself included, could explain to me what was going through Morgan’s head there. 

An early 2 goal deficit but not entirely irreversible, and despite the pure dominance, not a complete turnover just yet. There was still a chance, at this point, of restoring some level of dignity and maybe showing the same ‘fight’ that we did in the second half at Vicarage Road. We did get forward at this stage, with Burrell trying his best to create a sniff of danger, and Coventry struggling to clear their lines, finding Esquerdinha who collected the ball but took a wasteful wide shot from distance. What followed was disgusting.

35 minutes of pure bombardment, 11 professional football players against 11 five-a-side ballers who’d been plucked from Shepherd’s Bush Power League and thrown on the coach up to Cov. I’ve never seen a half of football quite like it. Players outright laughing at their opposition before half time. I hope that was humbling for our lot. It certainly was for the away fans. Cifuentes chants half an hour in. That’s what we’re dealing with here. 

The third, fourth and fifth all felt like punches in the stomach, one after the other, each one winding you more than the last. It was hard to even focus on what was going on. Before you had a chance to even reflect on what was happening, another cheer from the home crowd rang through your ears and the concourse got fuller and fuller, probably queuing as far back as the City centre. That’s a long queue for anyone who knows how deep in the middle of nowhere that ground is.

My description of these next three goals will be the same as those it’s based on, quick, effortless, and before you know it it’s 5-0. Again, in an attempt to play out from the back, in which our players were literally all strolling about the pitch like they were 2-0 up instead of down, Dembele lost the ball and made no attempt to recover it. Grimes then found Rudoni whose shot deflected from Cook into the top corner.

The fourth came from our second attempt at what you may call an attack, where in the opposition box, Dembele and Dunne made a joint effort this time to return the ball to its rightful owners, and it found its way back up the other end again, with Cook once again left to chase, and failing at it, the scorer of the second, who cut in to allow Haji Wright to slot home his second with a nice finish in the bottom corner. 

The fifth – a goal kick, a header won in midfield, the ball held up by Wright, and picked up by Torp, like there was no one around them, Field on the floor, Varane watching, Rudoni walking to the edge of the box and slotting it past Walsh like he wasn’t there. 43 minutes played. 5 goals scored. Not a sweat broken between the entire Coventry XI. My jaw didn’t pick itself up until it was grasped around a plastic cup containing a pint of sh*te lager that made its way down my throat as smoothly and quickly as the ball had through our midfield on more than 5 occasions this half.

What do you say to your players after that? What do you change? You give them a kick up the backside, take the sh*t ones off (preferably all of them) and make damn sure that it doesn’t continue after the restart. It did. It took 2 minutes of the second half. Some team-talk that. As for changes, Morgan was deservedly taken off, and we were saved, as Casper the lanky Danish ghost was on to take his place in midfield. Let’s hope we get 6 penalties ay? Kone was also forced to kit up as the struggling Esquerdinha made way for Field to drop into left back. Oh good.

It was Victor Torp who added his name to the list this time, after we failed to clear our lines, and he took a weak shot that should’ve been easy work for Joe Walsh, but ended up in the back of the net for 6-0. Walsh was also at fault for the next one 19 minutes later where the same player took a curling shot from distance and he may as well have been stood on the penalty spot. That should never be going in. It looks like a good goal because it was a very nice shot but it really, really should’ve been easy to deal with for a 6 ft 3 goalkeeper. 

Coventry could’ve, and should’ve, carried it on and made it double figures. But they were just taking the piss at this point. There was no need for them to embarrass us any further, they were content with just the seven goals on this occasion. 

In the 91st minute we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory (the opposition’s half) and won a free kick on the right wing. Dembele stepped up and to be fair, put in a cracking cross for Morrison to knock down to Kone for his first goal as a QPR player. A tap-in on the surface but actually a good finish that he had to battle for, and one that I doubt Celar would’ve even been there to attempt. In fairness, it was actually a very good goal. But I’ll refrain from giving them too much praise. They don’t deserve it. 

A dark day, followed by an apology from Stephan where he promised a difference in the approach to Charlton. I’d hope so mate. Thanks for clearing that up. Time to give the players some ratings.

Player Ratings:

Joe Walsh – 2/10 

How can you give a keeper that concedes 5 in 45 minutes, and 7 in 90, any higher than this? Especially when he was at fault for 2, maybe even 3 of the goals. Terrible on the ball, terrible in the attempted build-up play, and shocking in the sticks. Horrific. Not one redeeming feature, I don’t even know where the 2 has come from to be honest.

Jimmy Dunne – 2/10

Again. Captain, leader, legend? Okay James. I bet you’re gutted Wilder left Brammall Lane, aren’t you? Horrow show. Being a captain doesn’t mean just shouting and moaning at your team mates. You have to set an example. I’ve always adored Jimmy Dunne and he’s up there with my favourite players of all time. I was one of the ones screaming for him to get the armband, but no, this ain’t it. This isn’t what I want to see from my captain. Get a proper right-back in, and a midfielder/centre half who will LEAD. Straight down the tunnel after a performance like that, pathetic. 

Steve Cook – 2.5/10

Not sure why the extra half point, it just felt right given how poor those other two really were. But Cookie was hardly any better. Legs gone, nowhere near it. Supposedly our other captain, no leadership shown from him either. Stop dropping Mbuenge for him. I don’t care what wage he’s on. He’s not up to it anymore.

Liam Morrison – 3.5/10

Got an assist. A nice knock plucked from the air down to Kone. Defensively crap. I still like Morrison and think he’d look a lot better surrounded by capable defenders and protected by an actual midfield, but he still needs to be held accountable when he’s not good enough, and when seven goals are conceded, you don’t look much further than the defence.

Esquerdinha – 2/10

Completely out of his depth here. We knew he wasn’t the most defensive of full-backs but it’s still a large chunk of his duties. If you can’t do the basics you aren’t going to make it at any level as a left-back, let alone the Championship. He’s still young and raw, and has bags of talent so I’ll cut him some slack, but we need a proper left-back to get us out of this mess.

Jonathan Varane – 4/10

As mentioned, not the greatest, but the best of a bad bunch. It’s impossible to look good as a holding midfielder when your support network is Sam Field, Jimmy Dunne, Cook&Morrison, and a Kieran Morgan who decided he wanted to play for Coventry this weekend. He was made to look poor against a very strong midfield but this was by no means his fault. He doesn’t deserve to have to play with these teammates.

Sam Field – 3/10

Getting boring writing about Fieldy’s non-presence in midfield. He was better at left-back in the second half but still poor, particularly on the ball (shock). He’s really, really struggling this season.

Kieran Morgan – 1.5/10

Sorry, mate. You had a stinker. Worst player on the pitch after being the only positive and scoring a rocket the week before. Misplacing too many passes and literally putting a cross into your own box to set up a goal. Had to be hooked at half time he was that bad. Probably the lowest rating I’ll give to a player all season. 

Karamoko Dembele – 3/10

I’m starting to see why Dembele never made it at the highest level. Bags of ability, so good on the ball, but so weak, no physicality about him whatsoever. He’s made of toilet paper. I saw a few jokes on twitter and in LoftForWords about Dembele cramp minute bingo – it was the 80th minute if you were wondering. Got a 3 here because he put a nice cross in for the goal. Other than that, a completely ineffective performance. Not fit enough, not strong enough. When watching Arsenal, one thing is guaranteed – Saka limping at some stage in the game. With QPR, one thing is guaranteed – Dembele sitting down, cramping or holding his hamstrings. 

Rayan Kolli – 2.5/10

I’m not sure I saw him touch the ball. If he did, I’m sure he looked okay, so I won’t be hard on him. It’s not his fault his midfield are incapable of playing football or progressing up the pitch. He was by no means to blame for this performance but I can’t give a man that barely touched the ball any higher than what I have here. I still think he’s more effective up top than out on the left.

He only gets higher for being less crap – also special mention for being one of only two to actually go and talk to the fans, the other being Steve Cook. Incredibly humble and respectable for a 20 year-old and puts the other lot to shame.

Rumarn Burrell – 2.5/10

Tried his best to create a threat but completely isolated and was offered no support. How are you supposed to pose a danger or score goals when you’re completely surrounded by Blue shirts, and you have this lot behind you? It’s not going to happen. Another player unable to make an impact because of poor tactics, useless midfielders and shocking build-up play.

Substitutes:

• Richard Kone – 5/10 – Scored a goal.
• Amadou Mbuenge – 4/10 – came on and was instantly better than Dunne. Also straight over to the fans at full time. Needs to start over Cook with zero questions asked.
• Paul Smyth – 2/10 – I’m not sure it’s worth even rating the wingers in this game. They weren’t brought into play at all.
• Kealey Adamson – 2.5/10 – Kept a clean sheet! Not a left-back. Why are we playing him here, and not at right-back? Is he good enough? If so, use him! Get an actual left-back in.
• Nicolas Madsen – 2/10 – Better than Morgan. Still Madsen. No impact.

When I started this page, a question on my mind was, am I going to bother when we go full QPR and don’t win a game for weeks, or when we get absolutely turned over? Will I still be able to write about it? Will I lose interest? Will it all go out the window? I woke up Sunday morning with a slight hangover, remembered what had happened and went for a walk. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about the game.

I had a think about where I’d even start. I barely watched the game live. I hadn’t even gotten angry at this point. I didn’t have the energy. I was so fed up. I was numb. The fact that I’ve managed to write this up is probably a sign that I’ll probably still be doing this, no matter how bad it gets. So even if one person reads this, I’ll be happy. If one person manages to drag themselves back through the memory of this absolute horror-show, and read what I had to say about it, that’s a success. 

It’s not Stephan’s team. It’s his selection though, and it was a poor one. I don’t understand why Mbuenge keeps getting pushed aside for a man who can’t run. I don’t understand why Joe Walsh is in ahead of Nardi. I’m not convinced a French manager would drop a French goalkeeper with bags of experience for a 23 year-old who has shown no signs at all of being remotely better than him. That can’t be Stephan. That’s a business decision.

Our best keeper is out on loan. Our second best keeper is on the bench. Our third best keeper is starting. Make it make sense. We have a week to get a left back, another centre half and a midfielder. In fact I’d get two midfielders in. As I’m proof-reading this, Isaac Hayden has just been announced. Thank the Gods. Just what we needed. One more please. And a left back. Saito is a bonus. 

This team isn’t ready. It’s a relegation side. Sheffield Wednesday are on their third season since promotion, their owner hates them. They haven’t been paying their players and can barely get an 11 together. They look way more comfortable at this level than us. It’s embarrassing.

Preston have won two games. Oxford haven’t won a game yet but look a better side than us. Hull do too. The three promoted sides are all more prepared for this league than us. Derby look comfortable, Sheffield United obviously aren’t going to stay at the bottom. There aren’t three worse teams than us. There isn’t one at the moment.

The midfield just isn’t there. We’ve let Jack Colback go and brought in no replacement. We have no leaders, no experience, no quality in the middle. Who are our leaders? Who’s captain material? Steve Cook was a good captain up until now, but he’s past it. I thought Dunne would make a great captain. I seem to be wrong. Who else? Field? Varane? Chair? No. None of them. Spineless. Pathetic. And it’s been the same for years. Hopefully Hayden is one of the answers to these questions.

We have some very very good players. But it isn’t working. We have a new promising striker who needs service. We have great attacking players, Poku, Chair, Dembele, Kolli. They’re capable of providing that service, but if they aren’t getting the ball, or getting support from a decent midfield, there’s no point in them being there either. They also can’t stay fit. It’s disgraceful.

Sort it out.

Man of the Match – Richard Kone

He scored a goal. That’s all there is to say. 

Donkey of the Day – Kieran Morgan

There cannot be another contender for donkey when someone plays a cross into their own box to set up a goal. Rookie stuff, one of the first things you learn not to do when playing football in school. Don’t play it across your own goal. He took that one step further. He had the ball on the wing, could’ve played a simple pass into the midfield, but decided to literally whip it in straight to Rudoni’s feet. Mental.

Coventry Star Player – Jack Rudoni

This is a name we heard years ago, when he was at Wimbledon, and Les Ferdinand was reportedly keen on getting him signed. We ultimately decided against it for whatever reason and he chose to sign for Huddersfield. Coventry eventually picked him up and he’s been one of the best players in the league ever since. It’s worth mentioning that Brandon Thomas-Asante terrorised our defence, as did Haji Wright, but the battle was won in the midfield.

Rudoni can do everything; defend, win headers, carry the ball, finish, tackle, pass, the lot. He was always going to have a field day against a midfield like ours, and being one of three players to bag a brace, he was definitely my man of the match. He absolutely ran the show. My one to watch was Victor Torp, who also scored two, and made easy work of it, but Rudoni was different class. Sofascore gave him a perfect 10. I’m so, so bitter we never snapped him up.

Up next:

Championship Matchday 4: Charlton Athletic (H) 

Score Prediction: QPR 1-0 Charlton

One to watch: Conor Coventry

Now that that’s out the way, we’ve got one more game to look forward to before a week off where I get to travel to Villa Park to watch England stroll around the pitch and put eight past Andorra, putting us all to sleep. I’m undecided whether I’ll start writing about England games or not.

Charlton have had a good window, nabbing some of League One’s best talents and raiding Luton Town, and so far it’s paid off with a fairly decent start to their first season back. 4 points from 9, only conceding 1 goal; a screamer from Abdul Fatawu of Leicester. Charlie Kelman hasn’t hit the ground running, he’s been given much less patience than the likes of Zan Celar have at QPR – dropped after just one game. He’ll probably come back into the starting line up to score his first goal at Loftus Road.

Charlton’s defensive solidity can be credited mainly to Lloyd Jones, Amari’i Bell and keeper Thomas Kaminski, with Josh Edwards at left-back also impressing. My one to watch, Conor Coventry, sits in front, protecting the back four and sweeping, bringing Sonny Carey, Greg Docherty and the wingers into play. Charlton’s midfield is by no means the same level as the Sky Blues’, but if a new face isn’t brought in by Saturday, it probably still beats ours. To caveat, Hayden now arrives, but whether he starts or not is another thing. 

That being said, I think Varane could have a solid game up against the pair of Carey and Docherty, but he needs support, and someone better than Field to help him out. I would say Morgan but I doubt he’ll be starting after this weekend. As for Conor Coventry, he’ll be rubbing his hands together knowing that Ilias isn’t fit. I imagine Madsen will be starting in the 10. He won’t be allowed the time and space he usually requires on the ball, and will likely be absent again. 

I don’t look forward to seeing our defenders up against Harvey Knibbs, either. He didn’t start against Leicester, I’m unsure why, but was a threat when he came on. I imagine he’ll start here, and whoever is tasked with marking him will have their work cut out. Mbuenge is definitely needed. Miles Leaburn and Charlie Kelman don’t concern me too much – I can’t see this being a high scoring game. 

For whatever reason, I think this will be the day we get our first three points. I have nothing to base that off. I’m just going to take Stephan’s word that things will be different in this game. Hopefully Kone starts, and gets the service he needs. 

Coventry will undoubtedly make easy work of Madsen but Charlton’s midfield doesn’t worry me too much going forward, and as I said I can see Varane having a strong game, given that whoever he’s paired up with is able to actually show, progress the ball and bring Dembele, Smyth, Burrell, Kolli or whoever it may be into play. We need to learn how to keep the ball for more than 30 seconds, and I think this is a good opportunity to do so. We need to get it forward and find Kone. I think he’ll score his second goal and seal the 1-0 win. 

Championship Matchday 4 Predictions:

Poor this week, 1 correct score and 3 correct results. Some shocks: Stoke winning at St Mary’s, Millwall’s keeper turning into an octopus and sealing 3 points at Brammall Lane, Preston beating Ipswich and Wednesday scoring twice to draw at Wrexham. Here’s next week’s predictions:

• Middlesbrough 1-2 Sheffield United
• Stoke City 1-1 West Bromwich Albion
• Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Norwich City
• Bristol City 2-0 Hull City
• Ipswich Town 2-1 Derby County
• Millwall 0-1 Wrexham
• Oxford United 0 -2 Coventry City
• Portsmouth 0-0 Preston North End
• Sheffield Wednesday 0-2 Swansea City
• Watford 1-2 Southampton

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. It’s much appreciated. Especially for one like this, that I really, really had to dig deep to write. See you next week.

You R’s.

More Of The Same?

Plymouth (A) – Carabao Cup 1st Round

It would be nice to be able to take the only cup competition the club has ever won more seriously than I do now, but it’s lost all meaning for me. Not just from the boredom of watching City/Liverpool/Chelsea play hot potato with the trophy – it’s effectively become a B-team competition and I just don’t see the need for two domestic cup competitions anymore. 

Of the two, QPR actually seem to go further in recent years in the Carabao than we do in the FA Cup (a competition we are seemingly allergic to) but with our patience wearing thinner and thinner with mid-table championship finishes, us fans’ interest in getting past the early stages has faded drastically as our focus remains on climbing the table. 

There’s a good 1,000 fans that probably disagree with that though, as I learnt from their disappointment with Stephan’s youthful team selection on Tuesday night as they travelled down for Plymouth away. In fairness, that’s really not a fun mid-week journey to make, so there’s some validity in their complaints, but Stephan has a squad of players to choose from, and has the option of picking from the kids, which, with our recent fitness record, can you blame him for doing so?

An average age of 21 made this lineup the youngest in our entire history, and it did look like we’d shrugged off the cup, especially with Dixon-Bonner starting – a player who I honestly thought was out on loan. He actually put in a decent performance in the 45 minutes where we were competing.

Despite the inexperience of the back line, Kolli, Bennie and Burrell all started, all three being (fringe) first team attackers, with Kolli being one of the most talked about players at the club and Burrell being an exciting new signing who lived up to what we expected of him in the first half, chasing down defenders and just generally being a nuisance both off the ball and on it.

Plymouth had most of the ball in this half but the young team showed great fight, and despite being peppered with shots and chances managed to keep them out. I was really impressed with Tylon Smith who looked very comfortable for a young defender, I’d definitely like to see more of him.

Rangers did manage to get forward, in a move which involved all three of the attackers I just mentioned, as Kolli played the ball to Dixon-Bonner to put in a lovely cross to Burrell whose header was saved but rebounded in by Bennie.  

The Rs were 1-0 up to everyone‘s surprise but it looked like reality had hit when Burrell put in a proper striker’s tackle in the box to bring down Tegan Finn and give away a penalty. The most experienced man in the squad, Paul Nardi, managed to save it though, and his first-half performance had us even more confused about his non-selection in the first team.

A great cross from Harvey Vale found Kolli at the back post who headered it nicely in from 3 yards, and the boys went into the break 2-0 up. I don’t think I’d be miles off by saying that I doubt even our strongest team would’ve been 2 goals up at half time based on our Preston performance. 

The second half is where a lot of fans seem to be understandably frustrated. 2-0 up from two nicely-created goals against the run of play, now it’s time to bring some experience on and see the game out. The issue is, what experience do we have in the squad? Our oldest midfielder is Sam Field at 27, Michi Frey, Jimmy Dunne and JCS are all still injured, and we let Morgan Fox and Jack Colback go. 

The only experienced player who was available was Steve Cook, who probably should’ve been in the squad, but wasn’t, and even then, his physical state has been questionable since his injury last season. This game’s outcome probably did more to highlight the lack of experience in the entire squad rather than expose Stephan’s poor tactical decisions on the day.  

Nardi answered our questions about Stephan’s preference for Walsh in the second half, as he failed to command his box at all. The Frenchman was at fault for the second Argyle goal and arguably the first, and then at 2-2, Lorent Talla decided he didn’t fancy marking either of the two men at the back post and Owen Oseni was gifted the winning goal, after the worst joint effort at defending that we’ll probably see all season. All three goals showcased what Nardi’s biggest downfall is – a refusal to leave his goal line. 

There’s probably a lot more that could be said about the young players who did themselves proud on Tuesday night, but the second half capitulation squashed any desire to talk much more about the Plymouth game, as we now bow out of another cup campaign and need not mention it for another 12 months. Here’s a brief player rating before I move onto the Watford game:

• Paul Nardi – 6/10
• Harvey Vale – 6/10
• Tylon Smith – 7/10
• Alex Wilkie – 6.5/10
• Jaiden Putman – 5.5/10
• Emerson Sutton – 5/10
• Daniel Bennie – 7.5/10
• Elijah Dixon Bonner – 7/10
• Jaylan Pearman – 5/10
• Rayan Kolli – 7/10
• Rumarn Burrell – 6.5/10

Subs:

• Cian Dillon – 4/10
• Lorent Talla – 4/10
• Kalen Brunson, Ashley Trujillo & Teddy Tarbotton – N/A, didn’t play enough

Championship Matchday 2 – Watford (A)

As underwhelming as our return to league football was last Saturday, we all came away impressed by a handful of performances. Namely Mbuenge’s MOTM debut, Morgan’s impressive right-back performance and Esquerdinha’s flamboyant first showing in West London.

Julian Stephan obviously saw Esquerdinha’s slightly weaker defensive work up against Thierry Small and didn’t fancy putting him through a roasting at Vicarage Road at the hands of one of their many pacey, physical attacking players, as he dropped him for Steve Cook and pushed Mbuenge into a position I don’t believe he’s played before. 

This did not pay off, as Mbuenge was a positional nightmare, looked uncomfortable on the left side, and didn’t have a very good time of it – he was hooked for the young Brazilian on the hour. Steve Cook, sadly, just isn’t in a good enough condition to play first team Championship football anymore. The partnership of him and Morrison was slow, and so far off it. 

Two right-sided centre halves who both lack pace, is not the ideal set-up when you go away to a team that has droves of fast, attacking players on both sides. This showed after 19 minutes of absolute horror football from the away side when Kayembe was able to play a ball through to Irankunda, who Morrison couldn’t get near, and who sweated it to Kjerrumgaard with very little challenge from the struggling Cook. 1-0 Watford.

My theory that Walsh was picked for his ability with his feet has been absolutely crushed in these first two games, with this game’s instalment of errors being an impressively crap clearance that couldn’t have been hit with any more accuracy towards a Watford player if he’d tried. 

This led to another attack, 4 minutes after the first, where Sissoko pinged a looping ball over to an unmarked Louza who whipped in a cross to reach the number 9 again for his second. Morrison didn’t fancy challenging for the header and Walsh brought out his inner Nardi by staying put on his line. Another stupidly easy goal. 2-0 Watford. This could be bad.

Both of these goals and the majority of Watford’s moves were enabled by a non-existent midfield two of Sam Field and Nicolas Madsen, who Louza, Kayembe and Sissoko made easy work of. Louza was my one to watch going into this game and he proved me right with an almost MOTM performance up until his red card with 5 minutes to go.  

Sissoko showed his experience and quality whilst Kayembe was the best player on the pitch for me for the majority of the game. The 3 absolutely dominated our 2 – it was quite embarrassing to watch. This midfield no-show was the most obvious part of our first half disaster-class and I don’t think anyone would like to see a double pivot of those two again.

Madsen hid the whole game – I’d urge you to go back and watch the full 90 at any point where Madsen was on the pitch and just focus on him for a minute or so. Watch his movement, watch where he finds himself, watch where the ball is and see if he is anywhere to be seen. Then you will realise that the man has absolutely no place in this side.  

Madsen’s passing accuracy was higher than I thought, at 69% – I’m sure I saw him pass directly to a Watford player on at least four occasions. As for Sam Field – he failed to do what we can usually at least rely on him to do – put in some good tackles and help the defence. He was useless at this and even worse on the ball, which is becoming clearer and clearer every week.

You’d expect then, for Varane to be put on at the break for Casper the Ghost (Madsen) but Stephan wanted us to suffer through it for another 16 minutes in the second half. Varane eventually made his return and instantly showed more promise than the Dane has in both games so far in his absence.

We did start the second half with only a 1 goal deficit, after Morgan did what no one else in the team is capable of trying and just twatted one into the top corner from the edge of the box just before the end of the first. A gift from Watford but one that I reckon 95% of our squad would’ve wasted.

Smyth was replaced, after a pretty ineffective first half, by Rayan Kolli who I’m not entirely convinced is best used out on the left rather than as a striker. He took a while to get into the game but once Esquerdinha came on, he was able to bring the Algerian into it and the two linked up pretty well. Kone came on for his debut after Burrell struggled to make an impact, unsurprising as a 5 ft 9 lone striker up against a back 3 of Kyprianou, Biakolo and Abankwah.

The debutant showed glimpses of what we hope is to come but was unable to find the net, however he definitely had a presence in and around the box, which hopefully is a sign that he is exactly what we’ve been missing going forward.

Kone’s effectiveness was tainted when Celar came on to pair up with him – The Slovenian had another non-impact and killed any sniff of goal threat that we may have had – again, running out of chances in a Rangers shirt.

Some decent football was played in this half and we saw glimpses of what this team is capable of doing on their day, but it wasn’t enough, and Watford were able to keep us at bay bar a few threats in their direction. Our two best chances, as usual, fell to the wrong people – with Sam Field being nicely found on the edge of the box only to hit it embarrassingly wide, and Morrison heading wide from 6 yards. Neither of these clips made it into the extended highlights on YouTube, thankfully for them.

Imran Louza saw red late on for a high leg on Varane, and somehow had a lot to say about it, storming off the pitch and smacking Stephan’s offered hand away as he went into the tunnel. This came too late for us to see any advantage though, and the game finished 2-1. A better second half showing was made redundant by an absolute horror show of a first half which deserved a much worse scoreline than the one it finished with.

Overall, I, along with everyone else who watched, the coaching team, and half the playing squad, came away relieved that it was only 2-1. Some of our players seemed semi-disappointed that they didn’t manage to scrape a point, which, after the first half, is quite funny, but they do deserve some level of credit for almost turning it around.

Our poor start to the season and life under Stephan continues, but it’s not time for alarm bells just yet. It’s another transition period, hopefully a shorter one, but it’s not going to happen overnight. That being said, we weren’t the only side in this game with a new manager after an underwhelming 24/25 season, so we can’t go TOO easy on the gaffer for this one – criticism and questions around selection are valid, but perspective is needed, and we can only hope that the second half was a sign of something being built, and that with the returns of Varane, Dunne, Poku plus whoever else we manage to drag through the door before the deadline, we may be able to look forward with excitement rather than dread. 

We can definitely see more tactical planning and adaptiveness than we ever saw under Marti (in no way a dig at the latter) so faith is required in these early stages.

Player Ratings:

Joe Walsh – 6/10

A lot of stick has been given to our new keeper since he became our ‘number 1’ in pre-season, some of it valid, some of it slightly exaggerated. He wasn’t great against Preston and he wasn’t much better in this game either, but he did pull off a handful of impressive saves which suggested to us why Stephan may have put so much faith in him. 

There wasn’t really anything he could’ve done about the first goal but he played a huge part in the second, in more ways than one – giving the ball away and then standing still for the unchallenged header. Overall another pretty poor showing redeemed by some strong saves.

Kieran Morgan – 7.5/10

I expected Morgan to have a tougher time of it in his, probably temporary, right-back role than he did last week, and he definitely did – up against Kayembe, Bola, Irankunde and then Baah in the second half against very tired legs. None being easy tasks for a 19 year-old playing at right-back for the second time in his professional career. He mostly did what was asked of him though, and scored what even the Watford twitter admin admitted was a rocket.

Liam Morrison – 5/10

Probably Morrison’s worst performance in a QPR shirt. I’m a big fan of his but he was well off it in this game – miles off of Irankunde for the first, and failed to challenge for the header for the second. Slow and shaky, he and Cook did not work together. I hope he will go back to being the most solid defender we have, and that this was just a blip, where he struggled to deal with a very fast and powerful attacking side, surrounded by make-shift full-backs and a captain on the verge of retirement, and protected by a midfield pair of donkeys.

Steve Cook – 5/10

A 500th professional appearance to mark a very respectable career, for a very important player in recent QPR history. However his age is clear as day now, and I think we are likely going to regret extending Cookie’s deal. I hope he uses this season to begin his transition into coaching, learning off of Steve Bould and using his experience to benefit the team from the dugout rather than on the pitch, because he just is not the same player anymore. I don’t think we will see a Morrison-Cook partnership again any time soon.

Amadou Mbuenge – 5/10

A frustrating one I’m sure for Mbuenge, being forced to play left-back after being the best player on the pitch in both centre-half and right-back the week before. This clearly isn’t his position, he was caught out of it multiple times and did not have the same influence over the side as he did against Preston. On the ball he wasn’t completely useless like some of his team-mates but defensively he struggled. Definitely not a left-sided player.

Nicolas Madsen – 4/10

I’m tired of writing about this man, even a 4/10 is generous but I don’t want to embarrass the bloke. A total non-performance from Casper, I’m bored of it now.

Sam Field – 4.5/10

Field only gets an extra .5 on his midfield partner because he at least tries to have an impact on the game – getting himself in good positions and actually trying to benefit the team. Unsuccessful of course – shocking on the ball and squandering our best chance of the game, whilst failing to put in a single tackle. I reckon he could maybe work next to Varane if we fail to find a better midfielder, so that’s something, and I still think he’s worth keeping around, probably against my better judgement.

Ilias Chair – 6/10

I have to start this one off by pointing out how frustrating it is to turn to twitter after every game to see that, after running more than anyone in the side, dropping deep, carrying the ball, leading the press, working his socks off, and creating chances, people continue to pinpoint Ilias Chair as an issue. 

Watford was definitely one of Chair’s poorer games – he failed to create any real threat, made a few dodgy decisions, such as trying a Travela shot from the centre of the D instead of playing Kolli in a nice space, and his set-pieces were pretty stinking. 

However, he continued to keep his head up, cover more of the pitch than anyone else in his team, and try his best to keep us in the game. A weak performance by his standards but not one that stood out in comparison to those behind him.

Karamoko Dembele – 5.5/10

Another pretty non-impactful player in this game, had a few nice moves and touches but ultimately was never going to compete against a side as physical as this, especially when offered no support by the midfield. I do worry about the fragility of this man, and am starting to feel he’s only ever going to be able to manage 60 minutes every game. He lasted 80 in this one before cramp took him off but probably only due to the lack of options in his position, as Smyth had already started the game and been hooked. 

Paul Smyth – 5.5/10

A similar performance to Dembele where he failed to impact the game, although did put the cross in which the Watford defender cleared for Morgan to smash home, so that’s something. Smyth was subbed off at half-time for Kolli who definitely had a better time.

Rumarn Burrell – 5.5/10

Again, couldn’t really do much when isolated up front against a back 3 of big centre-halves. Runs about and presses a lot though, and I’m a fan so far, just didn’t see it in this one.

Subs:

• Rayan Kolli – 6/10 – Started poorly when he came on but linked up well with Esquerdinha and was involved in most of our attacks – should’ve been played in by Chair on the left side of the box for a good chance.
• Esquerdinha – 6.5/10 – Linked up well with Kolli on the left-hand side and made us a much more exciting team. Played a big part in almost turning the game around and making us look like a competitive side.
• Jonathan Varane – 6/10 – Instant improvement on Madsen, showed that his injury hasn’t impacted his ability and strength. Can’t help but feel the result would’ve been different had he started.
• Richard Kone – 6/10 – Had a presence in the box which is refreshing to see from a QPR striker. Had some nice touches, and some nearly-chances but ultimately came on when our team was dead and couldn’t turn our fortunes around.
• Zan Celar – 2/10 – Only played 10 minutes so it’s probably unfair to even give him a rating. Didn’t see him do anything on the pitch which is just not what you need from a striker you bring on in need of an equaliser. Squashed any momentum going forward and took Kone out of the game.

Man of the match – Kieran Morgan

Yes, I’m still going to give us a MOTM even when we lose, and on this occasion it’s Kieran Morgan. Another decent outing at right-back, even if he did struggle towards the end, but he’s mainly getting this for the goal. The only real positive to take away from this game, and probably our best player so far this season.

Donkey of the Day – Sam Field

For this one it was a choice between the same two players as the previous game – Joe Walsh and Sam Field. Walsh for giving the ball straight to a Watford player for the second goal and Sam Field for taking one of the worst shots I’ve seen from such a good position. This would’ve made it equal and literally anyone else would have at least got it on target – even Madsen. A pathetic attempt and very deserving of Donkey.

Watford star-player – Edo Kayembe

Imran Louza was my one to watch and he did run the show in midfield, and got a nice assist for the second goal, but saw red in the last 5 minutes and ultimately put his team at risk of throwing away 3 points. Therefore I’ve given this to the other Hornets player who stood out for me, Kayembe. He caused non-stop problems for us, finding Irankunda on multiple occasions and just generally terrorising us in the middle of the park and around our box. A brace from Kjerrumgaard arguably makes him deserving of this but I was more impressed by the midfielder’s performance than the number 9’s.

Up next:

Matchday 3: Coventry City (A)

Score Prediction: Coventry 3-1 QPR

One to watch: Viktor Torp

I’m not quiet about my love for Jack Rudoni and how bitter I am that we never snatched him up after reportedly watching him for a while at Wimbledon. However it would be boring of me to just pick my favourite Cov player as the one to watch, so I’ve gone with one of his midfield partners. 

Sofascore have Torp down as man of the match from their dramatic 5-3 win at Derby this weekend – based on the stats I think this is generous, but on the eye he’s a very good box-to-box midfielder whose work rate is his best attribute.

I worry about our midfield against a 3 of Torp, Rudoni and Grimes, and quite frankly think it’ll be another painful one to watch, where we don’t get anywhere near the ball. Their work rate both defensively and going forward just worries me and we don’t really have the quality or the engine in the middle to compete with it. I think even Varane will struggle, whether he’s sitting on his own, or put next to one of our double-pivot from Watford. 

Each one of the front three that started at Derby got themselves a goal, so that doesn’t fill me with confidence either. Van Ewijk got two assists from right-back, which scares me against whoever our full-backs are on the day, and Bobby Thomas scored a scrappy goal from a set piece, which also worries me, especially based on our defensive efforts this weekend. I think we’re in for a beating here, but Jimmy Dunne’s return will be CRUCIAL, not just for his aerial ability but for his leadership which has been massively lacking so far this season. 

It’s unclear whether the new skipper will start, but if he doesn’t I wonder whether Morgan can continue in his place, as he may be required in the middle next to Varane, if Vale isn’t the choice. That means Adamson makes his first Championship start against one of the most exciting teams in the division. I don’t think I want to watch that one.

The one thing giving me some hope is that they did concede 3, and were losing at the start of the second half, but the fight they showed to get back in the lead and finish with a two-goal surplus is something that we just haven’t shown so far. 

Cov will want it more than us, and they will show more quality than us. Lampard has them playing some nice football. I hope Kone gets a full start but I’m not sure this will be the best game for him to make his mark, and if he doesn’t score – I fear that meltdowns may begin. I think this may just be one we have to sit through and firm the loss. I don’t have a good feeling about it.

Championship Matchday 3 Predictions:

I started the season off well with 3 correct scores and 3 correct results (forgot to do a Millwall/Norwich prediction) This week I got 8 results right, that’s some acca! But not a single score was correct, thanks to Wrexham’s late constellation goal. No one would’ve predicted Preston to beat Leicester either. Here’s my predictions for next weekend:

• Charlton Athletic 0-2 Leicester City
• Hull City 2-1 Blackburn Rovers
• Swansea City 1-1 Watford
• Birmingham City 2-0 Oxford United
• Coventry City 3-1 QPR
• Norwich City 2-1 Middlesbrough 
• Preston North End 0-1 Ipswich Town
• Sheffield United 2-1 Millwall
• Southampton 2-1 Stoke City 
• West Bromwich Albion 3-2 Portsmouth
• Wrexham 3-0 Sheffield Wednesday

Thanks for reading. Tune in next week for a Cov (A) review and Charlton (H) preview.

You R’s

Ready or Not, here it comes

It’s hard to gauge where we’re at going into this season. Pre-season is a strange old thing where you’ll look comfortable against top opponents then get outplayed by a non-league club, or where players get tried out for a whole summer and look as if they may have a breakthrough season, to then not play a single league game. 

It’s also hard when you’re watching your team play, not to look into the results and performances and overanalyse. Pre-season is all about trying new things and assessing the squad, but us fans obviously manage to forget that every year. Regardless, there were some positives, and some not-so-positives to take away from this summer, and I’m just personally ready for the real thing to start again – but I’m not so convinced that the club is..

The R’s return from Europe was marked with a friendly against Cardiff at the training ground, which, due to the 2pm kick off on a week day, I was unsurprisingly unable to watch. Initially going 2-0 down in the first half, we managed to pull it back and finish on a draw.

To start with, Stephan trialled a double pivot with Sam Field and Harvey Vale – I doubt that will happen again when Varane is fit. Field continued his run of horror-shows, with his feet sticking to the ball in the middle of a sandwich between two Cardiff players on the edge of our box to give a goal away within 10 minutes. 

This was followed by a characteristic Ruben Colwill screamer, which not much could be done about. We did manage to get a response in the first half when the ball bounced off a defender’s shin for Dembele to drill home first-time from the edge of the box. 

Cardiff scored a third in the second half but this was given offside – I think because there was a player obstructing Walsh’s view? Either way we got away with one and managed to find an equaliser when Madsen played a lovely first-time ball on the half-volley through to Bennie, who made a good run to then lay it off for his mate Pearman to finish. 

A game which started badly looked as if it was going to be one of those ‘oh well it’s only pre-season’ kind of results but we managed to salvage something against a team who will likely be coming back next season anyway. 

The Saturday that followed then saw us return to Loftus Road to premier the return of green and white hoops in front of a fairly unbothered South Africa Road and a small crowd of drunken Dutch men who probably sounded a lot louder to me due to the empty ground. 

Heerenveen finished 9th in the Eredivisie last season, top of the bottom half, so I wasn’t expecting it to be an easy game but I was expecting slightly more from them. Rangers weren’t any better, and started with a familiar story – the midfield struggling to string more than two passes together whilst being wide open off the ball. 

Ilias Chair at false 9 is unfortunately a set-up we may genuinely have to see on occasions this season if we don’t resolve the striker issue. He’s almost completely taken out of the game when played here which is just frustrating for him to be a part of and painful for us to watch. 

Dembele started out on the left and effortlessly pinged home a screamer with his weak foot into the top corner – proving again to be the stand out player for us going into the season. Poku posed a threat down the other side but couldn’t quite get his delivery right, not that there was anyone to receive it if he did. 

Larkeche started at left back and got the assist for the first goal, before Kealey Adamson got the Santos treatment in the second half, being forced to play on his opposite side – an odd one since Esquerdinha seems to be raring to go, and the young Brazilian put out an interesting tweet after full-time, which I’ll touch on shortly.

It’s fair to say left-back didn’t go well for the Aussie, he was getting run all over the shop. Giving the ball away in midfield for the equaliser (from a weak Morgan pass, mind), repeatedly getting beaten down his side, and having the ball knocked around him like he was a mannequin, he certainly did a good job in emphasising our need for a left-back. 

Field and Morgan had a poor first half but definitely improved in the second, with much better movement and passing on show. Despite the equaliser we actually looked in control of the game for a short while and responded only 2 minutes later with a terrific long ball from Walsh to Bennie who cleverly lobbed the keeper on the bounce. 

As it’s pre-season, Stephan had to change things around, and this was where the game went a bit stale, as expected in a friendly. The rest of the game was about giving game time to some of the younger lads, during which we also saw some living proof that Rayan Kolli exists. He was put out on the left but not given good service, with almost every attempted ball in his direction failing to reach him, stifling his impact. Sutton looked hungry on the right but again had no natural finishers to support him. 

Lorent Talla, Alex Aoraha and Tim Akindileni were brought on and the two midfielders’ lack of first team experience was clear. Akindileni looked fairly comfortable on the ball and showed again his love for a diagonal pass, but was defensively shaky.

The equaliser came with 18 minutes to go when Adamson was beaten with a simple pass again followed by some pretty sleepy defending from his teammates, which meant a shot off the bar led to the ball falling at Jimmy Dunne’s feet without him realising, allowing the scorer to finish with no challenge. 

A 2-2 draw is probably fair for what was a typical friendly – nothing was at stake and that was how the game was treated, showing in both teams’ performances.

Brentford came to town after this, that lot were always going to be up for it and obviously sold out their allocation – why not? A huge day out for them.  

Anyway I was unable to attend due to the Gallagher brothers’ reunion finally reaching Wembley. Admittedly I could’ve attended both but I wasn’t going to let a friendly against our biggest bogey team in my lifetime drain any excitement in my body and ruin the mood. Therefore I have very little to go off for this one – and after speaking to fans of both sides, it doesn’t sound like it was one to write home about, or read up on either. 

Despite losing the core of their team and their manager, I wasn’t expecting a good result. I’ve always hated playing Brentford. It’s tiresome. So When Nathan Collins put them 1-0 up inside 2 minutes, I switched off mentally and expected a battering. 

From what I’ve heard though we held our own for the rest of the game against what I’ve been told was 90% route one, expected from a team who’ve just given their set-piece coach the manager’s job. It does sound like it was another toothless one from us where we still seem to lack the grit and physicality that’s been such an issue the past few years.

I will go easy on them here however, as 1-0 against a mid-table Premier League team is not bad going – they’re always going to not only out-play you but physically dominate you, and if it wasn’t Brentford we’d lost to, no one would be too bothered.

A lot of the post-game chat contained panic about our need for a new left-back ahead of Larkeche. I can’t comment on his performance in this game but I can say that if he is our starting left-back then we will probably have some problems. He’s been alright from what I’ve seen of him so far but a loan spell in Scotland may as well be a League Two loan so I’m not sure he’s developed enough to be a starter. 

Overall, there’s not much to say about the Brentford game, so I won’t bore you with any more on that. That concludes the rest of pre-season, so what follows is an assessment of the squad, going through every player and what I think of their potential impact, giving an overall review of areas we need to improve and where we are strongest. 

Despite a handful of shockers over the years we have historically been very lucky with goalkeepers. Paul Nardi definitely supports that statement and played a huge role in keeping us up. He has his flaws but he was never one I expected to be dropped, and despite having two talented young keepers behind him, I never questioned whether or not he’d be number 1 for at least one more year. 

It baffles most of the fanbase, then, why Nardi is being pushed aside for a 23 year-old keeper who’s made less than 30 professional league appearances. Joe Walsh has bags of potential but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. He‘ll still be finding his feet and it’s just an added risk that we didn’t need. 

We’ve seen hints of route one tactics in our own pre-season performances, and Joe Walsh’s kicks have come in handy a couple of times, including the assist for Bennie. So my guess is that Stephan sees more ability from Walsh with his feet for playing long balls and/or playing out from the back. But that is all it is, a guess.

Moving into defence, taking a deeper look at our options I’m slightly more concerned than I was when I posted my last piece. It’s pretty clear that Jimmy Dunne will be starting at right-back – obviously understandable after his performances as of late, but there’s every chance of this backfiring or an injury popping up, then our only natural option behind him is an Aussie who’s played one season in the A-League.

Dunne’s influence on the team not just as a leader but tactically is unparalleled, with his vocalism, strength and aerial prowess, so for now I’m not too concerned about this spot as long as he stays fit.

Amadou Mbuenge was a signing I was happy with, especially on a free transfer, and I assumed he was intended to slot straight in at centre half where Cook’s fitness held him back. However I’ve since heard that he can also play right-back and there’s whispers of this being a potential plan for him.

If this is the case then I’m even more confused why another central defender hasn’t been signed – Jimmy Dunne can be used here but it’s not where he’s at his best, and we basically stayed in the division because of Ronnie Edwards’ heroics, so while I can accept that finding someone close to his ability would be near impossible on our budget, I thought an effort would at least be made?

Kealey Adamson is another option at right-back but I genuinely have too little knowledge on him to be able to evaluate whether or not I think he’ll be good enough for us, so I have nothing to say on that front other than PLEASE BE DECENT. 

Steve Cook deserved another deal, and I hope he sticks around post-retirement to transition into coaching. I know he’s not ancient but after his injury last season, he just isn’t the same. I thought his role this season would be more of a dressing room influence rather than regular minutes, but as it stands he’s looking to be a starter – the only real justification for this probably being how much we’re paying him.

Next to him is likely to be Liam Morrison. This is probably the selection that the biggest chunk of the fanbase agrees with – solid defensively, calm on the ball, and capable of pinging good diagonal passes (which may be a tool used more frequently under the new boss), we are visually and statistically a better side when he plays. 

As defenders become more involved with ball possession, Left-footed centre-backs become increasingly important and valuable in the market. We already have a very good one in Jake Clarke-Salter (JCS). If you came to Loftus Road for the first time on the off-chance that he was playing – you’d question what on earth a defender as good as him was doing wasting his time at a club struggling in the Championship. 

It will come as no surprise that the answer to this conundrum would be his injury record. Since joining, the most games he’s managed in a season is 33. Last season he played a third of that. The even more worrying part is that it’s not just one recurring injury, it’s a mix of different ones – Calf injuries, hip issues, hamstring tears, the geezer’s muscles are tied together with dental floss.

This will obviously be more depressing for himself than anyone else, as if not for this he’d have had half a chance of competing with Levi Colwill for a spot in Chelsea’s back line. Two seasons ago when he was a regular, if he and Cook played together you knew not many goals were being scored (unless from set-pieces). It was arguably the best CB partnership in the division. 

Morrison slotting in next to him over Cookie would make for a very strong fix, but we just cannot rely on JCS to get a solid string of games together. Tim Akindileni has been utilised a bit during pre-season, grabbing a long-ball assist against Stevenage and getting more minutes in other games, but at only 17 you’d expect him to be sent out on loan rather than being given much responsibility for us just yet. 

On the left side is where more issues arise. Releasing Kenneth Paal was one that most saw coming and there were few complaints about, but that was over two months ago, and no replacement has been found. Ziyad Larkeche was on loan at Dundee last season where he scored 3 and assisted 3, and leaves as a name in the fans’ good books from what I can gather. I don’t actually think he’s been too bad in pre-season but many seem to think otherwise, and as mentioned earlier I can concede that he is not a starter at this level. 

When you hear that your club has signed a young Brazilian left back from Fluminense who’s been on Barcelona’s shortlist, your ears definitely have a little twitch. That’s why when Esquerdinha signed, some (including me) assumed he’d be the upgrade on Paal – even if only signed in January as a Development Squad player who’s likely never even been to Europe, let alone England. 

The 19 year-old (correction on my last issue where I said he was 18) has barely featured in pre-season, which boggles the mind when there may as well be a job advertisement on Indeed for ‘capable championship left-back’ at the club. If he’s too good for the dev squad, but not rated by the coaching staff – why is he here? A sentiment I think he shares, with his ‘Será que eu volto?’ (‘will I come back?’) tweet that was swiftly deleted.

On a pitch as small as Loftus Road’s it’s important to have competent midfielders who can play in tight spaces when in possession and keep a solid structure out of it. Ainsworth didn’t really care about this as his style of football belonged in the 1950s so Marti inherited a midfield that was NOT capable of the Spanish, Cruyff-style tactics he tried to impose on them. 

The Club made an effort to work on this with some recruitment but last season we may as well have just coned off the centre of the park as if it were a training drill where the non-hooped shirts were given possession of the ball and the hooped ones just shadowed them. 

Sam Field being our oldest midfielder at 27 is alarming, and raises more questions about the likely release of Jack Colback. I don’t like to speak badly of Fieldy as he genuinely has been one of my favourite players since joining and has been crucial to us when it looked like we were in the mud. Not once has he hidden when the majority have, and he’s always pulled his socks up and been there when things got scrappy. 

He just can’t be trusted with the ball at his feet. This will sound harsh and over-the-top but It’s quite impressive for a man with such a lack of technical ability to have made it to a level of football this high. It speaks volumes about his grit and determination that he’s managed to become a key player for a Championship side. 

However I think we’ve moved past this now. In my last issue I said we were a better team with him in it – this was because we actually did have a better win rate in games with him in the side than without. So I’m not saying sell him, he’s still useful and can even drop into centre-half when asked. I just don’t think a team can climb the table in a division that has seen such a rapid rise in possession-based, fluid football if their most senior midfielder isn’t comfortable on the ball. 

A *cough* Isaac Hayden *cough* would be the perfect middle ground between Field and Varane when it comes to ability, work-rate, defensiveness, strength and experience, and would make me a lot more confident going into the season. 

Jonathan Varane will arguably be our most important player this year. There were times last season where I felt so confident in his ability to protect his defenders that my heart rate would stay completely the same when attackers were marching with the ball towards our box – a rarity at Loftus Road. I don’t understand how he’s so much stronger than everyone else, players just bounce off of him. 

Strong he may be, but his back will give way if he continues to carry the midfield the way he does. The Frenchman has improved massively on picking the ball up on the half turn and moving it forward but he still needs someone next to him who can do the same thing and offer him support. Field is great for winning duels and slide tackles but if you want to play the ball through the midfield and find your attackers you need someone better. 

A Hayden-type player, next to Varane, would give us so much more structure, both in and out of possession, and would solve a lot of issues. If we don’t get this, Harvey Vale is probably the best option. He may not be a 6 but he is brilliant for carrying the ball forward so if it’s a case of working with what we’ve got, I want to see him next to Varane, and that could work – we are still yet to see it. The youngster just isn’t as defensive, or experienced as someone like Hayden (that’s the last hint I’ll drop). 

Vale is versatile enough to cover for Chair, Poku and Dembele, too. On top of a cracking left foot and solid technical ability, it’s very evident through his dribbling and passing that he was a captain at an elite academy set-up. Left-back is apparently another one of his positions but Stephan doesn’t seem to think so. His best position is clearly as an 8, entrusted with ball progression and a strong passing range, whilst creating chances where possible.

With all this being said, I do think a lot of these issues could be solved by keeping Jack Colback. He is almost the personification of everything I’m asking for here – comfortable on the ball, good on the half turn, strong in the tackle – an experienced, clever midfielder. He does have discipline issues but sometimes you need a player like that. It doesn’t look likely however, that he’ll stay and if the club can’t agree a deal with him then it is what it is.

I wrote about Nico Madsen in my league predictions but I’ll give a brief rundown of what I said – if he could use his size, develop a bit more of a footballing brain, and build his confidence, he could solve a lot of issues for us and progress in his own career. Technically, he could easily be one of the best players at the club, but in game situations, he’s been a passenger so far.

If he does work on those attributes, he could be like a new signing this season. I definitely don’t think he’ll be trusted with the defensive side of things, the bloke barely made 5 tackles last season. But if he can figure out how to use his technical ability to benefit the team, then his passing range and end product could become very useful tools for us. So far though, the only thing he’s really been good for is taking penalties, and he’s only taken one. 

Kieran Morgan has been such a bonus since making his debut against Coventry. No one had heard of him when he came on at 1-0 down, until he changed the game and scored the equaliser on the volley. We haven’t looked back since, with him becoming a regular in the side. 

His lack of experience shows on occasions, but his confidence on the ball and desire to drive forward is refreshing to see. He’s always looking up, which isn’t typical of a QPR midfielder as of late, and looking for options, looking for Chair, looking for wingers, looking for the strikers (if there are any). 

Morgan could definitely improve the quality of some of his passing, as well as his decision making –  he does get a bit cocky at times and gives the ball away attempting complicated balls or rushing his passes, but that will come, he’s 19 and going into his second professional season. 

It’s just exciting to see someone so young look as comfortable as he does at this level, I’m used to our academy being a feeder club for non-league so, to see someone come through and become a vital player is just brilliant (even if we did nab him off Spurs).

As seen in pre-season, there are a couple of young midfielders aiming to follow in Kieran’s footsteps, one of which I don’t think is far off being ready to break through – Lorent Talla. We haven’t seen much, if any of him competitively in the first team, so he and Alex Aohora both need loans, and aren’t ready this season, but I’d definitely keep an eye out for them in future. 

The man probably most grateful for Morgan’s sudden appearance is Ilias Chair. Before, he would always have to be the one receiving the ball from way deeper than he needs to be, and carrying it forward to create whatever he could. 

With Morgan playing behind him, it’s relieved a lot of pressure on him to be the only one grabbing the ball, scanning for teammates, whipping balls in or driving to shoot himself. The benefits of this are pointless when Chair is forced out on the left of course. Harvey Vale, as mentioned, is also useful support for the little man and I think the two of them will compliment each other well, if they don’t get in each other’s way that is. 

Ilias Chair is Rangers through and through. If not for Dunne’s obvious leadership qualities it would be between the Moroccan and Sam Field for the armband – both of them have been here through a lot of miserable periods and never hidden. Neither have pushed for a move (from what we know) or thrown their toys out the pram when things haven’t gone their way. They’ve put their heads down and done everything they can for the club. 

Chair hasn’t hit the levels that I thought he would, partly due to injuries, external issues and being forced into unnatural positions, but at least it’s meant we get to watch him at Loftus Road for longer than we thought. 

Ilias has been the one player that’s dragged me through the turnstiles in the years since Eze left. He’s unquestionably important to us and those that look at his low-ish numbers of goals and assists and say he’s not good enough, or have a pop at him for chopping or cutting in too much when his teammates offer no options or support, quite frankly don’t know what they’re talking about. He’s always been the one to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and try and win, there’s no way we’d be in this division without him. 

Reading all of this, you’re probably thinking, ‘well, how do you want our midfield set up then?’ And the truth is I don’t know. Stephan is one who likes to adapt his tactics to availability, the opposition, or match scenarios, so as long as we have enough profiles and the right variety of attributes to enable this, we should see improvements, but right now there are a couple of things missing. 

Karamoko Dembele unfortunately missed the majority of his first season in west London, due to a knee injury that required surgery, before which he was proving to be a very good signing. The young attacker didn’t manage to slot back in with ease after his return, but in pre-season has been undeniably our best player.

Dembele is capable of playing on the left but it’s probably third in his list of best positions, with 10 being first. Poku is similar positionally but offers more pace and strength. I assume with the fluidity of Stephan’s tactics, these two and Chair will rotate according to where the circumstances require them, playing off of each other and covering all three positions. 

Whatever the plans are for these three, I’ve said a few times now that we won’t be shy of chances, we just need the right man in front of them to tie it all together. Poku is probably most effective on the right, and loves an assist. Dembele and Chair are both best down the middle but can drift off to the left if it’s asked of them, though I think if any of these three will be based out there it’ll be Dembele. 

Speaking of the left-wing, we were kept in the dark all season about whether or not Koki Saito’s loan was to be made permanent until our questions were answered with a goodbye post addressed to all of the loanees. While his output took a while to come to fruition, he was a very skilful player who defenders struggled to handle – if he learnt how to get the ball into the box without running it off the byline half the time we’d have been laughing, and it’s a shame he won’t be developing at QPR.

Out of our current options, Rayan Kolli is my pick to play up top but if we do bring someone else in, it could work with him out left instead of Koki. I’m not sure what’s going on with him, we see him in short bursts and then all traces of him disappear again, so I don’t want to get my hopes up that he’ll be a regular this season.

If the case is that he is a regular, this offers us a lot more attacking threat. He’s quick, skilful, makes clever runs and can beat his man, all complete with his composure in front of goal. He can cross and has bagged some assists which is why he could work out wide, and even up top he isn’t afraid of a header and made an excellent leap to cushion it down for Field’s second against Oxford at home. 

The handful of goals that Kolli did score last season were all the kind that the strikers we’ve had of late would’ve struggled to score. They’d be fairly simple for established goalscorers, and he definitely made it seem that way in his case. The young Algerian is an exciting asset if whatever issues off the pitch that are slowing his exposure to professional football are resolved. 

Daniel Bennie deserves a mention, he benefitted from last season’s injury crisis when he had to suddenly step up with no warning. The Aussie is also one of the only players from the Premier League Cup winning squad to now be in the first team.  He struggled last season but he is slowly starting to impress me with his running, which has led to a couple of goals in friendlies now, and I think he’s one to watch when it comes to the left-wing or even up front. 

Poku on the right solves a lot of issues from last season, hopefully he can live up to the hype. It’s rare we manage to sign a player when there’s strong competition, but I’ve heard we’ve been watching him for 3 years now and credit where it’s due to the club for being able to pull it off. I’ve not seen as much of him as regular watchers of League One but he looks like a very solid signing who will take us up a notch. 

Behind him is Paul Smyth who, whilst lacking any kind of significant output, can come on for the last 20 minutes of a game and cause absolute chaos for defenders. He’s evidently not as skilful as a Poku or a Dembele but if you watch us week in week out and don’t just use stats to form your opinions you can see that he is definitely of use to us. He did put a nice cross in against Toulouse which is something we rarely see from him, so if he’s able to add this to his game he could be even more useful. 

I’ve left the best till last. Strikers. I’m getting bored of writing about this issue – I’ve only posted three pieces since starting this page up and it feels as though I’m only ever talking about our lack of strikers. So forgive me for repeating myself, but it is alarming that we play our first game on Saturday and don’t seem to have a fit striker for it.

Michael Frey has a lot of attributes that you want in a striker – he’s actually better at finishing than an outsider might think, he’s strong, and whilst not young, and built like a brick shithouse, he does not stop running. He’d be perfect in a front 2 but we don’t have the facilities to provide him with that partner.

I may be wrong but I don’t think we ever saw a front 2 of Kolli and Frey, and if we did it wasn’t for long. That could work with Kolli’s pace and skill and Frey’s poaching ability, but even Frey isn’t fit going into this first game. 

Call me mad but I still haven’t written off Zan Celar. If he leaves, he leaves, we’d have lost a striker who scored 2 goals in half a season. However I actually had faith that we still hadn’t seen the best of him and that he could be of use. If he isn’t happy then fair enough, and we should part ways, but he’s a prime example of how tough this division can be.

Alfie Lloyd needs a loan, that’s something I don’t need to give any justification for. Great effort levels and lovely guy but simply not good enough. That leaves us with – oh wait we sold League One top scorer Charlie Kelman without ever giving him a league start and haven’t replaced him yet. 

I’m only half joking – he’s a good signing for Charlton and we did not treat him well in my opinion, so I’m happy he’s made a name for himself despite not getting a fair crack. You could argue Rumarn Burrell is the replacement – and you know what? fair enough. I like the look of that signing. He offers something raw and different and I’m excited to see him make an impact. Will he start for us though? Can we rely on him to score 10+ goals? I doubt it.

I’m not one to entertain transfer rumours until official announcements are made. I’m not Fabrizio Romano, and quite plainly I find gossip about fees and add-ons and contracts and release clauses dull, tiresome and boring. So I mainly try to stick to football. 

However, when you’re going into a season with no striker and all you’re seeing is rumours, what else do you talk about? Richard Kone is the one that everyone wants, but who knows if Nourry is able to strike a deal there. The other one, that‘s apparently almost a done deal is Pape Meissa Ba, who looks like a profile we could do with but doesn’t have the best scoring record – he, like Frey, scored quite a few goals in a lower level European league, then joined Schalke and didn’t have a good time there, so looks to now be destined for White City. 

Whether it’s these two, just one of them and someone else, or neither of them, we are getting desperate, and I really thought we’d have this sorted by now. We are lucky that Preston are in a similar boat to us, which is something I’ll get to, otherwise we’d probably be looking at another opener like Watford away, or West Brom at home.

That rounds up our squad going into the season, I’ve missed a few names out, such as Jaylan Pearman. He’s fresh and I think it’ll take time for him to be first-team ready, but I definitely see potential in the youngster. 

Taylor Richards also featured at the start of pre-season until he got a knock. I saw potential in him as late as 2023 but I think it’s too late now for him to redeem his QPR career. He managed 5 games on loan at Cambridge and it just hasn’t gone well for him in football, so if he can get involved, great, he’s got bags of ability, but I’m not holding my breath.

In every weekly issue, I’ll be finishing up with a preview into the next opponents, one to watch from their team, and a score prediction. I’ll also be adding predictions for the rest of the fixtures elsewhere. As it’s the first game of the season, not much can be said, but here’s my preview for Saturday’s opener.

Up Next:

Matchday 1: Preston North End (H)

Score Prediction: 2-0 Rangers

One to Watch: Milutin Osmajic

I’ve got Preston tipped to go down this season, they’ve lost a few key players including last season’s top scorer Emil Riis, and a handful of other important figures. They were the third lowest scorers in the division last season so I’m not expecting this to be a goalfest. Daniel Jebbison on loan is a good pull, he might cause us some trouble if he plays, but my one to watch is Milutin Osmajic. 

The big Montenegrin scored on his last visit to Loftus road after Cook pulled up leaving him through on goal, which we eventually cancelled out and managed to win 2-1. He is the exact kind of player that always causes us problems, the only player on our team that will be able to handle him physically is Jimmy Dunne. I just have a feeling that he will bully us and cause problems, especially from set pieces. 

Preston are a big side overall and where we better them technically, we’ll have to outsmart them rather than beat them in the air or try to physically compete. Luckily, this is one of the only games as it stands where I can see us being in control in the middle. I just don’t feel very concerned looking at their midfield, so I think we will run the show in terms of possession, chances and overall dominance.

I don’t want to jinx us on the first day but I just don’t feel worried about this one. I’m doubtful about Preston’s squad’s suitability to Heckingbottom’s high press, attacking football. As for us, turning up to a season opener without a starting striker is not great, So as I said, it won’t be a high scoring one, but I think we have enough about us to cruise past this lot, so I’m going 2-0.

As for the rest of the opening fixtures, here are my score predictions: 

• Birmingham City 2-2 Ipswich Town
• Charlton Athletic 1-0 Watford
• Coventry City 3-0 Hull City
• Southampton 2-1 Wrexham
• Middlesbrough 1-1 Swansea City
• Norwich City 1-1 Millwall
• Oxford United 0-1 Portsmouth 
• Stoke city 0-0 Derby County
• West Bromwich Albion 2-0 Blackburn Rovers
• Sheffield United 1-0 Bristol City
• Leicester City 3-0 Sheffield Wednesday

Thanks for reading, check-in next week for a review of the Preston game, plus predictions for the following gameweek. I’m on holiday for the cup game at Plymouth, so while I’ll still be watching on my phone, I’ve left out a preview and prediction for it because I simply haven’t had time. League games will get priority until we reach further stages of the cup. 

You R’s.

The Championship is a league that’s made a name for itself as an unpredictable and entertaining one, but the more money that’s pumped into the game the less this remains the case.

The relegation battle and overcrowded play-off race carry most of the weight in terms of entertainment value, rather than the peacocking contest for the automatic spots, which are, more often than not, determined by whoever can snatch up the most key players from clubs lower down the pecking order who can’t afford to turn down their parachute-funded offers, or Premier League loans, who treat the championship as their personal playground.

Symptomatic of my bitter nature as a football fan, when the wheels of the barely-roadworthy wagon that is QPR’s form start to fall off, as they quite often do, my interest in the fortunes of any of the other competitors in this quagmire of a division begins to deteriorate.

It’s also quite difficult to be clued up with every club’s injury record and who’s been fit and who’s not, nor is it easy to follow other club’s pre-season campaigns, so forgive me if I’m not up to speed on those. 

Consequently, my contextual knowledge varies from club to club, and my predictions, breaking each team down into the three areas of defence, midfield and attack, will be predominantly based on some rushingly-acquired research.

With this in mind, there may be some hot-takes here and there, chiefly inspired by hunches and little factual evidence. Without further ado, here is my 1-24 prediction for the 2025/26 championship season.

1. Southampton

We’re off to a flyer here with this one. You’d be forgiven for closing this piece now after the way this lot performed last season, and if momentum had anything to say about it, they’d be sat rock bottom here as well. Off the back of conceding 86 goals and losing a whopping 30 games, self-belief will be at an all-time low. However, I’m confident in Southampton’s ability to bounce back and walk this league if things work in their favour.

In their play-off winning campaign of 2023/24, Russell Martin managed to assemble what seemed like a very well-drilled team. Rangers weren’t too bad when the Saints came to town, but never looked like scoring, and the visitors didn’t seem to even step out of second gear, strolling through a 1-0 win in what felt like a casual kick about for them. Whilst they weren’t the most exciting team to watch, they certainly made easy enough work of the division and eventually took advantage of a Leeds side whose annual collapse was in full swing by the time the two clashed at Wembley.

Needless to say this slow, negative style of football doesn’t always translate at Premier League level, as was certainly the case here, and Martin was subsequently sacked around Christmas. He was replaced by a fella whose name I can’t remember and reckon most Southampton fans have probably forgotten too, and to be fair to him, getting anything out of that team last season would’ve been an impossible task for even the biggest managerial names. He failed to bring anything to the table and they finished on a disgraceful 12 points.

This summer they have appointed the well sought after young manager Will Still. Almost every club in the championship with a managerial vacancy was after this bloke and I’m fairly sure we even had him in for an interview ourselves. I won’t state the obvious about his career so far, but it’s fair to say he’s had an interesting journey into management, and has an intriguing CV for someone who’s barely any older than some of the players he’ll be coaching on the south coast. 

Known for overloading his attack and playing a high line, putting intense pressure on his opponents, the 32 year-old broke the record for the longest unbeaten run in Ligue 1 just a few years ago but it seems this run didn’t buy him a huge amount of time at Reims, as a run of form in the opposite direction towards the back end of 2023/24 led to a ‘mutual’ parting of ways. Still spent last season at Lens, where he narrowly missed out on Europa Conference League qualification, before deciding to return to England this summer.

Southampton haven’t had a huge squad turnover this transfer window, which is why a lot of predictions likely have them continuing last term’s form into this one. They have done some business though, bringing in 6 foot 4 striker Damion Downs and 6 foot 5 centre half Joshua Quarshie, both from the Bundesliga, clearly keeping in mind the physicality of this division. Additionally, the likely sales of Aaron Ramsdale, Tyler Dibling and Mateus Fernandez may enable them to throw around a lot more cash in the closing stages of the window. 

The goalkeeper position will need to be filled, but defensively I don’t think they need much improvement, with plenty of centre half options to fill what will likely be a back 4 such as such as long-serving Jack Stephens, Jannick Bednarek, Nathan Wood, and the addition of Quarshie as mentioned. QPR academy graduate Ryan Manning is a technically solid option at left-back, whilst Yukinari Sugawara and James Bree will compete for the right-back spot.

St Mary’s will also welcome back a fair few faces from loan spells, such as Ben Brereton-Diaz, Samuel Edozie, Adam Armstrong, Shea Charles and Ronnie Edwards – the latter three already having spent last season in the championship. 

As is unanimous among QPR fans, Southampton are incredibly lucky to have someone like Ronnie Edwards returning to their set up, and they’ll be thankful for their foresight in poaching him from Peterborough last year. I have little if any doubt in my mind that the defender, who shows unnatural levels of confidence in his ability on the ball for a defender of his age, will be a starter for them eventually this season, if not immediately. I can’t stress enough how highly rated he is among R’s fans. 

I’m sure you’d get a similar response if you asked any Sheffield Wednesday fan about Shea Charles, too, and he will likely slot straight into Southampton’s midfield and bring some championship experience, and extra quality. He will be joining Will Smallbone and Flynn Downes, to create a nicely balanced midfield.

Adam Armstrong will hope to bring back his prolific form from 2023/24, and with any luck he and new man Damien Downs can combine to form a successful big-man small-man style partnership. Whilst Cameron Archer has struggled to adapt to premier league football, he can still be a valuable player in the championship, and good back up for whoever ultimately leads the line. 

One more attacking addition would be smart to add a few more goals, and a right winger or two, to fill the gap that Tyler Dibling will likely leave. Left winger Samuel Edozie was pretty useful the last time he played at this level, but bringing in some competition for him would also be a good move.

On paper, Southampton already have a very concentrated squad with a plethora of players who have experience at this level. The fresh blood they have brought in, and the core of their current bunch could easily amalgamate into a very competitive squad, but Will Still definitely has some sifting through to do if he wants a tight-knit group and a clear, structured squad. With the combination of a new manager bounce, fresh start, and a wealth of players at their disposal, I see no reason why Southampton can’t beat the other obvious contenders to the title this season, therefore I’m sticking them in the top spot.

2. Sheffield United

The Blades were unlucky not to make the jump last season, after an impressive campaign which petered out towards the business end, drifting away from TWO centurions in the automatic spots and culminating in defeat at Wembley at the hands of Sunderland. Chris Wilder stepped down in June and Ruben Selles has taken his place, an appointment that, despite a disappointing tenure at Hull where he was (harshly) relieved of his duties, is strong in my view. 

Selles is popular among Reading fans despite constant challenges and an inability to sign any players making it impossible for him to save them from relegation to league one, and it’s good to see him get a chance at a bigger club where he can make a name for himself.

Assuming they manage to keep hold of them, captain Jack Robinson, Anel Ahmedozvic, Femi Seriki, Harrison Burrows and goalkeeper Michael Cooper make up what is, in my eyes, already one of the best back lines in the league this season, so I doubt the losses of last season’s loanees Harry Souttar and Alfie Gilchrist will hinder them too much. 

Depth in this area is something they could, and seemingly are already working on, bringing in Bulgarian right-back Mihail Polendakov from his native league and promising 20 year-old centre-back Tyler Bindon who has been immediately sent out on loan by Nottingham Forest after joining from Reading. Sam McCallum also remains, to provide strong cover at left-back.

In terms of midfield, I doubt many Blades fans will be optimistic about Gustavo Hamer’s future until the window slams shut, despite Selles stating that he plans to keep him. The Brazilian-born Dutchman is clearly too good for this level and I don’t think any players will be looking forward to facing him twice again this season. Despite his ball-carrying, agile nature, Hamer played mostly on the left under Wilder last season, as opposed to his more central role at Coventry, a role which I believe he was initially assigned at Brammal Lane. 

The impact of Hamer’s potential departure depends on where Selles aims to dispatch him, as United have managed to swoop in and secure the services of Louie Barry for the season, who offers pace, skill and a goal scoring instinct on that left side, so if he does stay, I imagine he’ll revert back to central midfield. 

Last season’s midfield consisted mostly of Vinicius Souza sat next to one of either Sydie Peck or Ollie Arblaster, the former being the preferred option of the two. These were sat behind Callum O’Hare in the 10 and this was a set-up that flowed well. The ball was passed around the Rangers half like it was their own back garden when they came to Loftus Road last season, with our boys chasing them around for the majority of the game. Palace loanee Jesurun Rak-Sakyi appeared 35 times on the right-hand side with Andre Brooks being his competition, both performed well and I’m sure the latter will be excited to call that position his own this time out.

In attack, Tyrese Campbell, Kieffer Moore and Tom Cannon are the three strikers that the manager currently has to choose from. Campbell has been one I’ve wanted in hoops for a long time, and I was very jealous of that signing. He chipped in with 11 goals and 2 assists in 36 games last season, an output lower than what I had hoped for him, but the highest of the three mentioned. Moore only managed 5 goals but he looks to be off to Wrexham anyway, and £10 million Tom Cannon only netted once since joining in January. 

It’s been very quiet on the striker front in the window, so it may be the case that Cannon will have to work on bringing out the player that we saw in his loan spells at Preston and Stoke if he wants to contribute to a promotion bid.

Overall, Sheffield United have a squad more than capable of achieving success this season, and with no points deduction issues hanging over their heads this time, they may be filled with more confidence after their marginal shortfall last season. 

Defensively solid and fluid in midfield, if the Blades can do everything they can to improve their strikers’ goalscoring output, I see no reason why they can’t compete for automatics.

3. Ipswich Town

All summer I have had a gut feeling that Ipswich were going to struggle this season, I’m not entirely sure why, but losing captain Sam Morsy, striker Liam Delap and winger Omari Hutchinson definitely justified that hunch. 

I desperately wanted to predict the tractor boys to do a Luton and go down again, and I was close to doing so, just to see what the reaction would be, but looking at the rest of this league, I see very few that look any better, and there is no real argument I could conjure up for putting this lot down there. 

I doubt many Ipswich fans were overly fussed about where they finished last season, still high on the buzz of back to back promotions and being back among the big boys. However, their 22 point finish would have surely killed some momentum, so McKenna will have to do what he can to restore the attitude that radiated through the squad after their leap from league one.

Defensively, Dara O’Shea has just penned a new 5 year deal, with him, Jacob Greaves and Luke Woolfenden being joined by Cedric Kipre on loan from Reims, who R’s fans will remember for punching the ball off the line and getting away with it for West Brom the season before last. He brings championship experience, physicality and aerial strength to the side. Elkan Baggot also returns from a loan spell at Blackpool in the division below, but with the queue of defenders lining up ahead of him, I can’t see him getting many minutes this season. 

There is a solid level of depth in this area, and I expect them to have one of the lower numbers of goals conceded in the league, despite letting in 82 in the prem. Between the sticks will be one of either Alex Palmer and Arijanet Muric, both solid options at this level.

Ipswich do have a somewhat lopsided defence when it comes to full-backs. Attacking-minded Leif Davis remains their primary left back, who played a key role in achieving promotion, but the only back-up in that position is Connor Townsend, who only managed 6 outings last season. 40-year-old Ashley Young is an interesting signing, he can cover both sides and bring invaluable experience, whilst Axel Tuanzebe and Ben Johnson can also fill in at right back.

There is enough defensive ability here to contribute to the formation of a comfortable top 6 side, but it doesn’t excite me enough to put them in the top 2. On paper, I doubt defence will be the main concern for Ipswich fans going into this term.

In the middle of the park, Sam Morsy’s departure to Kuwait will be a big blow, but one that new man Hayden Hackney will be looking to soften. Jack Taylor and Jens Cajuste were both regulars last season – the Swede has now signed permanently. The pair of them will be thankful to be joined by the former Boro man. Kalvin Phillips returns to parent club West Ham, and former Rs midfielder Massimo Luongo has joined Millwall, so a couple of depth signings in this department could also be wise. 

On the wings, Omari Hutchinson looks set to be the heir to Bryan Mbeumo over at Brentford, but this won’t leave much of a space for new recruits on the right-hand side, as Ipswich have players who can switch between both flanks, such as Chiedozie Ogbene and Jaden Philogene, with the latter returning from a long-term knee injury. 

On the left, Mckenna has Jack Clarke and Wes Burns to choose from, both capable left wingers at championship level, though I imagine Jack Clarke will be first in line, with a proven championship record. Nathan Broadhead is set to move back to his native Wales at Wrexham. 

Sammy Smodzics should be a key player this season, playing either as an attacking midfielder or up front. He will look to create a high level of attacking threat, and if his 2023/24 form is anything to go by, a lot of goals. 

Currently hoping to apply the finishing touches are Conor Chaplin, who definitely knows how to score goals in the second tier, Ali Al-Hamadi, who spent half of last season on loan at Stoke, and George Hirst, assuming they all remain at the club. 

Ipswich will likely use a large chunk of the money from the sales of key players to invest in a Liam Delap replacement, as I am sure is a top priority for them.

While many have justifiably pinned Ipswich as favourites to gain automatic promotion, something is telling me that they will fall short. I was buzzing for them when they won their last promotion, it was a phenomenal achievement, but I feel they’ve had their moment in the sun now, and if they don’t hit the ground running in August, then this could be a challenging season. Kieran Mckenna knows how to succeed in this league however, and I doubt he will allow them to fall much further than around 3rd or 4th.

4. Coventry City 

Another one I have potentially higher than some is Coventry. The sky blues often seem to either marginally miss out or drop off towards the season’s close. Because of this, recency bias often has me giving them a lower prediction than they‘re capable of. This season however, I am going to give them their flowers and try not to make the same mistake. 

Coventry raised a few eyebrows last November with their dismissal of Mark Robins, and I for one was apprehensive about the appointment of Frank Lampard in his place. The former England captain shut me up though, taking them to a 5th place finish and losing in painful fashion in the play-off semi-final to eventual winners Sunderland. 

Cov have brought in Carl Rushworth on loan from Brighton in the absence of Oliver Dovin whilst he recovers from a knee surgery – the 24 year-old only played 2 games last season at Hull but played a full season at Swansea the year before, so does bring a degree of championship experience.

In front of him, I can’t see a new centre half being brought in, with Bobby Thomas, Joel Latibeaudiere, Luis Binks and Liam Kitching all still around. This makes for a good balance of left and right-sided defenders, plenty of height and physicality plus the technical ability of Latibeaudiere.

Jay Da silva and Milan Van Ejwik remain at the club as left and right-backs respectively, with Jake Bidwell and new signing Kane-Kesler Hayden providing the competition. 

Midfield is where I get quite excited about this side, but the Club will have to fight off interest for key players this window. Skipper Ben Sheaf has been linked with moves away, his leadership and influence would be a loss, and the versatile, left-footed Jack Rudoni, a player who I am largely keen on, has deservedly been the subject of interest from a handful of Premier League outfits. Rudoni’s ability to recover the ball from deep and progress it forward whilst offering creativity, aerial presence and goalscoring threat via late arrivals in the box, all enabled by his high work rate, means he fits a mix of profiles not matched by many. 

Matt Grimes, Viktor Torp, Jamie Allen and Josh Eccles complete what is a midfield stacked with quality, and if Coventry do manage to use the potential target of promotion to convince them all to stay, they won’t require any strengthening in this area. 

Lampard did Carry Robins’ preferred set up into the remainder of the season, mostly opting for a back 3 with wing-backs providing the width, but the signing of defensive left-back Miguel Angel Brau perhaps suggests a transition to the 4-2-3-1 which was seen on a few occasions in the run-in. When set up like this, wingers Ephron Mason-Clarke, Haji Wright and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto become more useful, contributing with 11, 13 and 10 G+A last season respectively.

Up front, Ellis Simms failed to replicate his 2023/24 purple patch last season, but Wright can also be trusted to lead the line. Norman Bassette and Brandon Thomas-Asante also failed to hit solid numbers so it will be interesting to see what Lampard has planned in this department. 

Coventry have one of the best squads in the league in my view, and need little reinforcement, so if they hit the ground running and keep a good level of momentum throughout the whole season, they could finally make a return to the premier league a reality. It’s only because of the financial advantage of the teams above them, their own lack of attacking depth and track record of falling at the final hurdle that I don’t have them even higher.

5. Birmingham City

It’s not often that some of the happiest fans in the division are those of a club who are relegated from it on the final day, but this oddly seemed to be the case for Blues fans in 2023/24, whose club were bought by American investors who promised financial backing in a division where FFP and PSR have less of a strain, if any, on transfer business. 

Confidence was high going into last season, and there was very little doubt that they would march their way back to where they came from with sheer arrogance, which they did. Bringing in at least 20 new signings (including loans) and smashing the league one transfer record for Jay Stansfield, their squad was laughably over-qualified for 3rd tier football. They‘ve continued this level of spending this summer, adding 9 new faces to the squad already. 

It’s hard to say who will make up Chris Davies’ preferred 4-3-3, but on paper there are enough names to inspire confidence at St Andrews. Ryan Allsop between the sticks will be guarded by a selection of Christoph Klarer, Phil Neumann and Krystian Bielik, all three providing height and aggression and the skipper bringing quality on the ball. Dion Sanderson could also potentially make a return to the side.

Right-back Ethan Laird will likely be competing with another former QPR player in Bright Osayi-Samuel, who arrives from Fenerbahce, where he predominantly played as a wing-back. Whether the Nigerian international is intended to be an attacking or defensive signing, or perhaps both, is yet to be seen. On the opposite side, Alex Cochrane will complete the back line, with Alfons Sampsted also making his loan permanent.

With possession being a key factor in last season’s success, the midfield will have to have a smooth transition to Championship football. Japanese defensive midfielder Tomoki Iwata will likely sit deep, and his fellow countryman Kanya Fujimoto arrives to compete with Icelandic international Willum Thor Willumson in attacking midfield. South Korean Paik Seuong-ho and Scotsman Marc Leonard also remain as midfield options. Tommy Doyle has made the short trip down from Wolverhampton to spend the season on loan, bringing premier league experience and some extra calibre.

Demarai Gray has also returned on a free transfer to offer pace, experience and quality down the left-hand side, and Keshi Anderson, Scott Wright, and Emil Hansson provide depth on both flanks, but another right winger wouldn’t go amiss.

The striker department is strong, with Jay Stansfield hoping to add plenty of goals, and experienced, former Celtic goalscorer Kyogo Furuhashi will be looking to form a dangerous partnership with the highly-rated and thus-far prolific youngster. Lyndon Dykes is also guaranteed to score a brace in front of the Loft, so lump on that when the time comes. Alfie May has decided to stay in League One, opting to sign for Huddersfield, so they could do with maybe one more, just to provide support for the main men.

Birmingham City have kept a lot of talent from their league one holiday, but have not messed around with adding the level of quality needed to compete in this league. They will likely sign a few more, and solidify their status as a contender for the top 6 this season. The Blues are definitely on a lot of fans’ radars as a team to look out for. Statements are looking to be made, and I have confidence that they will succeed.

6. Leicester City

I’m not optimistic about Leicester’s chances of an immediate return to the first tier, with the likelihood of a 9 point deduction and a so far silent transfer window. At the time of writing, not one new signing has been made. There has been one big arrival though, in Marti Cifuentes, with a compensation package being agreed with QPR for his signature. 

There’s a huge split between the R’s fanbase on Marti’s time at the club and the reasons behind the breakdown in his relationship with the board, but I am a subscriber of the idea that QPR would most definitely be a league one side had the Spaniard not stuck around last season, even if I can acknowledge that he had plenty of flaws. 

Despite having more backing in the market than most in recent years at QPR, I do think that with a stronger, more experienced squad, Cifuentes will have a better opportunity to implement his Cruyff-inspired possession-based football than last season’s midfield disaster, but time is running out for him to add to his roster and the club don’t look to be getting out their cheque-book out of fear of further scrutiny. 

Working in the Foxes’ favour is the fact that they have managed to keep hold of the core of their 2023/24 title winning squad, which was evidently too good for the championship. Of the 21-man squad that clinched the title at Preston in the penultimate game, 13 remain at the club, and they now have the added quality of the 8 permanent transfers they made last summer. 

Whilst Steve Cooper and then Ruud Van Nistelrooy failed to get the best out of this bunch or leave any lasting impact on the Premier League, the playing squad will feel much more comfortable at this level and, with a few additions, will no doubt be one of the stronger performers. However a run of 3 wins in their last 24 games will definitely have morale at rock bottom so lifting his players’ heads up will be the first of many challenges for the new boss.

Defensively, the 80 goals Leicester conceded last season will need to be at least halved if they want to challenge. Yannick Vestergaard, Wout Faes, Caleb Okoli and Conor Coady all remain as Leicester players, with the addition of Harry Souttar returning from a semi-successful loan spell at Sheffield United. Whoever ends up being the preferred partnership will likely be supported either side by Ricardo Peiera, James Justin, Woyo Coulibaly or Victor Kristiansen on the flanks. 

Wilfred Ndidi and Harry Winks both bring a proven quality that Leicester were able to use to their advantage last time they came down, Hamza Choudhury returns from Sheffield United and the addition of Oliver Skipp last season completes what is a very defence-heavy midfield. Creatively, Stephy Mavididi and Abdul Fatawu both had successful seasons in 2023/24, and now they will have Bilal El Khannous to play with, who could excel in the 10 role. Kasey Mcateer is also available on the right-wing.

Leicester will have to do better than Patson Daka if they want to score a decent amount of goals, though. He remains their only centre forward but does have wider players Bobby Decordova-Reid and Jordan Ayew to potentially compete with. Academy product Wanya Marcal failed to get much game time at DE Graafschap last season, and will probably be sent back out on loan. With the farewell of Jamie Vardy hitting hard, a new striker is surely a must.

Overall, Leicester City do have the resources to succeed this season, but with the points deduction and adjustment period to Marti-ball, they will have a handicap, not to mention the run of form they ended last season on. Some work is required to find some goals from somewhere, but I think a play-off finish is still likely.

7. West Bromwich Albion

West Brom looked to have started last season on fire with a 3-1 away win at Loftus Road, and a Josh Maja hattrick kicking their campaign off, followed by a run of 4 wins and 1 draw in their next 5. This fire slowly began to die however when the goals started to dry up, and they drew 10 of their next 14. Some wins dotted around the remainder of the season allowed them to stay within touching distance of the play-offs but ultimately wasn’t enough as they finished in 9th. 

After goalkeeper Alex Palmer was poached in January by Ipswich, West Brom were left with Josh Griffiths and Joe Wildsmith as their options between the posts, with the younger of the two (Griffiths) looking to keep the number 1 spot. The Baggies’ defensive record last season was about what you’d expect for a team in their position in the table, conceding 47 and having a +10 GD. 

West Brom have wasted no time strengthening their defence with the signings of ball-playing centre-back George Campbell from Montreal, and the more old-school style defender Nat Phillips, a strong signing off the back of a successful loan spell last season where he played a key role in maintaining Derby’s championship status. 

These two additions suggest to me that new, unproven manager Ryan Mason intends to form a trio at the back, potentially with Torbjorn Heggem, as the pair of new boys both played in that set up at their respective clubs last season. We will wait to see if I’m right on that. The long-serving pair of captain Kyle Bartley and R’s youth product Darnell Furlong both remain, the latter can also form part of a back 3 if not playing as a right-back. 22 year-old Caleb Taylor could also be in with a shout as he returns from a loan at League One Wycombe. Callum Styles could easily make a good wing-back but on the right-hand side they will need to find a more attacking-minded player. 

Going into midfield, West Brom have let John Swift go to Portsmouth after falling out of favour last season. Alex Mowatt, Jayson Molumby, Ousmane Diakite and youngster Isaac Price form the midfield base, with Tom Fellows, Jed Wallace and Mikey Johnston offering creativity and dynamic threat. 

Johnston signed permanently last season after coming on loan from Celtic the season before, where he caused untold amounts of problems for defenders, something I witnessed first-hand when he came to Shepherds Bush and made easy work of our defence, cutting in from the left and smashing home a screamer before shushing the R block 25 minutes in – he wasn’t in my good books after that. A very exciting player however and one that I would love to have at my own club. 

As mentioned, the goals started to slow down as last season progressed, with Josh Maja’s electric form coming to an abrupt end when a calf injury ruled him out for the second half of the season. Bringing in Adam Armstrong on loan didn’t make for a successful emergency plan, as he only managed 3 goals and Maja still ended the season as top scorer. Norwegian target-man Aune Heggebo joins to offer something different to the Nigerian as Mason hopes for more success in this area. 

West Brom definitely have what it takes to achieve a top 6 finish and could easily take Birmingham’s or even Leicester’s spot, but based on the slog that last season turned out to be, and the fact that this is Ryan Mason’s first season as a first-team manager, I don’t have them down as quite ready yet to make the step-up, but they very much could prove me wrong. 

8. Millwall 

It’s rare I take Millwall seriously as a footballing establishment rather than a bare-knuckle social club but their consistent top half finishes make the possibility that they may actually be one impossible to ignore. Alex Neil took over from Neil Harris at the midway point last season where his side looked to be gradually falling from the top 10 and instead used counter attacking football and a flat 4-4-2 to turn their form back around and achieve an 8th place finish, missing out on a play-off spot by 2 points. 

January’s sale of Romaine Esse to local rivals Crystal Palace, as well as Zian Fleming’s permanent move to Burnley have given Millwall a bit of cash to play with this summer, and they started by making Josh Coburn and Zak Sturge permanent players. 

Defensively they haven’t strengthened too much but if Japhet Tanganga stays at the club then they have little need to. The former Spurs man reportedly wants to leave but if it doesn’t happen he is easily one of the top centre-halves in the division, and in the absence of club legend and former captain Shaun Hutchinson who now departs, he and Jake Cooper would form a partnership that very few could bully. Wes Harding and Tristan Crama also provide back up for them. 

Millwall finished in the top 4 for clean sheets for the second season running, with the help of Danish goalkeeper Lukas Jensen, who managed 14 last term. Danny McNamara missed 33 games through injury but will hope for an instant return to the line-up, and Joe Bryan will continue to start at left back with Sturge as his student. 

The Lions have added Massimo Luongo and Michael Doughty to their roster, both on free transfers. The pair of them both bring bags of experience. Midfield commander Casper De Norre will be full of confidence going into this campaign and will be one of the first names on the team sheet but after the departures of George Honeyman and George Saville, who’ve both dropped down a division, strengthening is needed in the centre of the park where the rest of their options lack experience.

Doughty will bring his usual work-rate on the left side whilst Luke Cundle and Femi Azeez can alternate between both wings. Millwall also have a queue of young talent, particularly wide players, aiming to break through this season. 

Up top, Mihailo Ivanovic played a key part in his team’s second-half resurgence, finishing the season with 12 goals. He and Josh Coburn form a strong front 2 with Duncan Watmore also remaining at the Den. If the form he ended the season on continues into this one, Ivanovic could easily hit 20+ but as I said previously, extrapolation like this is not always a safe bet when it comes to football. 

I have Millwall staying put in the same position, mainly due to their squad being mostly the same as it stands, barring a few faces moving on and leaving gaps in the squad. There’s still time for them to make some signings of course, and with their extra budget they likely will, but I just can’t see Millwall being any better than those I have above them. That being said, they are definite dark horses this season – and who wouldn’t want to see Millwall make some noise in the Prem?

9. Middlesbrough 

Michael Carrick had a very positive start to life on Teeside, but after an underperformance last season, was let go this summer to make way for the adaptable Rob Edwards, who will have a point to prove after his failed re-build attempt at Luton post-relegation. He used long-ball esque tactics at Luton and there’s a potential this may continue looking at the squad he’s inherited.

Boro undeniably have some talent in their squad, hence the use of ‘underperformance’ to describe last season’s 10th place finish, and their first addition of the summer was centre-back Alfie Jones from Hull. He will join up with captain Dael Fry, Rav Van Den Berg, Darragh Lenihan and George Edmunson to complete a long line of centre halves. 

Jones will expect to slot straight in to improve on his new club’s 56 goals conceded from last season. Neto Borges has been popular at left-back, and his main competition Alex Bangura is still struggling with injury. Luke Ayling remains the only natural right-back at the club, which I’m not sure fans are overly excited about, but he’s the kind of hard-working, passionate character who typically excels in an Edwards side.

Hayden Hackney looks a promising player in defensive midfield, he’ll be a big loss after his £20million move to Ipswich. Dan Barlaser, Aidan Morris and Riley McGree make up an okay midfield, but not one that fills me with excitement, so new signing Abdoulaye Kante will hope to make a difference. 

Finn Azaz is the standout player here, the Irishman bagged 12 goals and 11 assists last term. Delano Burgzorg and Sam Silvera on the left-wing didn’t put up the most memorable numbers last season, and on the right, Morgan Whittaker failed to make his mark after joining in January, but anyone who watches the championship knows what he’s capable of – show him on his left, whether close-range or from distance, and you’re toast. 

The return of loan-star Ben Doak to Liverpool is a huge loss – he single-handedly ended Hevertton Santos’ short-lived QPR career – and the 19 year-old has a very high ceiling, his pace and skill will be difficult to replicate in the market. 

I’m a big fan of Tommy Conway, and at 22 he still has plenty of time to develop, if he receives good service he can better his tally of 13 goals from last campaign. The goals didn’t come for Marcus Forss last season, so if Edwards plans to keep him, he’ll have work to do to rebuild his confidence, and I would suggest getting in an extra striker as they are lacking in prolific options. 

Middlesbrough disappointed last season and from what I can see on paper I don’t expect a huge improvement, especially if their transfer business so far is anything to go by. Recruitment is crucial, particularly in attack, and a few key players will need to focus on increasing their output if this lot are to get anything out of this season. 

10. Norwich City

I was massively unimpressed with Norwich last season. Johannes Hoff Thorup had a decent squad and one that I expected to make a stronger challenge for the play-offs. From March to the end of the season they only managed 2 wins out of 12 and ultimately finished in the bottom half, only a point above QPR.

Borja Sainz had 15 goals by November and then only managed 3 for the rest of the season, signifying the drop-off from Norwich. He’s obviously a very talented player though and has now been sold for a big fee to Porto. Liam Manning arrives from Bristol City to hopefully fix whatever issues led to this drop-off, and to be fair, work has been done to improve the squad.

Angus Gunn was an obvious place to start in terms of weaknesses, and three new goalkeepers have been brought in, including Vladan Kovacevic from Sporting Lisbon. Jakov Medic and Harry Darling are two good grabs, one bringing strength and the other strong leadership qualities. Jose Cordoba is the left footed option and Shane Duffy’s experience is still beneficial.

Jack Stacey keeps his right-back spot ahead of Kellen Fisher after grabbing 6 assists and 2 goals, whilst aggressive captain Kenny McClean, Ben Chrisene and Lucien Mahovo are the options at left-back. This defence contains a good balance of youth and experience.

The club were obviously impressed by Jacob Wright’s loan spell and have made it a permanent deal. He, Amankwa Forson, Anis Slimane, Gabe Forsyth and Liam Gibbs make up a stacked midfield with Marcelino Nunez being the stand out player. The box-to-box midfielder is a technically gifted, progressive player who will suit Liam Manning’s style very well, and can also chip in with goal contributions.

Out wide, experienced Jeffrey Schlupp joins from Crystal Palace whilst 21 year-old Papa Amadou Diallo makes the switch from Metz to potentially learn from him. Matej Jurasek of the same age arrived in January to play on the right but has been kept out by injury so far. Emiliano Marcondes put up decent numbers last season from attacking midfield, and teams up with the 19 year-old Oscar Schwartau and 21-year old Ante Crnac to supply creativity. 

Josh Sargent looks set to return to the Premier League but big money signing Mathias Kvistgaarden looks a solid replacement, and Crnac can also be deployed as a striker. With these two and the prolific attacking midfielders to supply them I expect a lot of goals from this Norwich side, and definitely see an improvement this season. 

11. Bristol City 

I was confused how this side managed to reach the play-offs last season and their performance over 2 legs against Sheffield United proved they weren’t ready. Liam Manning played a pivotal role in their top 6 finish and without him there’s a potential for a drop in form. 

I recognised the name Gerhard Struber when they announced his appointment, and upon searching, realised it was from his time at Barnsley, where he took them from relegation fodder to the play-offs in two seasons. He has since had unsuccessful spells at two Red Bull clubs, first in New York and then Salzburg where he lost out on the Austrian title. His most recent work was a promotion campaign with Köln, where I struggle to see a fair reason behind his sacking. 

I imagine Robins fans will be mostly referencing his time in South Yorkshire for their assessment of their new head coach, and I see it as a good pull. But I also am of the opinion that this City team overachieved last season, and won’t repeat it this time.  

Manchester United prospect Radek Vitek has been brought in on loan to step in for Max O’Leary who is out through injury – the Irish international made a series of mistakes last season such as the one that allowed Paul Smyth to score from the half way line at Ashton Gate. Former R Joe Lumley also joins to compete for the spot. 

Another former Rangers man in Rob Dickie (they definitely have a type) was a regular in the back line with a mixture of Luke McNally, Cameron Pring, Zak Vyner, Haydon Roberts, George Tanner and Mark Sykes in what rotated between a 3/5 and a 4 last season, a switch that Struber also likes to make. However I haven’t let the similarity in formations distract me from the difference in style between the new and the old, with the Austrian leaning towards high press and intensity as opposed to the possession-based style from last season. 

Bristol City have poached Plymouth captain Adam Randell to sit in defensive midfield beside Max Bird. Jason Knight has attracted premier league interest but is yet to sign elsewhere, and Joe Williams can also chip in. This midfield will be linking up with Scott Twine, who struggled to make an impact last season, and top scorer Anis Mehmeti. The Albanian is more than capable of responding well to the high intensity and will be a good fit again this season. 

The two attacking midfielders know how to finish but did lack the creativity that Manning needed to perfect his philosophy last season, so maybe with a heavy metal approach they could both be more effective. The Robins have clocked onto the influx of talent from the Japan and brought in Yu Hirakawa to bring more attacking threat to the right-hand side, and they have a handful of young wingers and attacking midfielders hoping to get given some chances in the first team, such as Elijah Morrison on the left wing who broke into the side last season. 

Nakhi Wells’ departure to Luton would’ve robbed them of 10 goals, but they’ve been quick to bring in Preston top scorer Emil Riis Jakobsen whose physicality makes him a good fit for the new gaffer. 

One player whose technical ability, or lack of, didn’t quite suffice in a set-up built on ball possession is QPR academy graduate Sinclair Armstrong, whose pace and power make him a nightmare for defenders, which could suit Struber to a tee, but don’t expect many goals from the young Irishman, as his composure in front of goal is something that requires a lot of work.

Last season’s near-success was not reflective of the overall quality of the squad in my honest opinion, and as mentioned before, if not for the management of Liam Manning, they would’ve seen a more modest finish. That being said, there is quality dotted around the squad and new signings could change my mind, but the transition period from keep-ball to a more direct style will slow them down, at least briefly. 

 12. Queens Park Rangers

It’s always hard to predict your own team’s league position, even in spite of the predictability of QPR’s finishes post-Warburton. If you’re a neutral, or a pragmatic Rangers fan, pick a number between 15 and 20 and you’ll likely see a parallel between your notes page league table and the actual one. However, where’s the fun in that? 

As this is a newly-conceived QPR page, this is actually my first and probably only opportunity to review last season. Therefore this section will be chunkier and filled with more waffle than the rest. Most predictions I’ve seen have us sitting in and around the bottom 8 but, probably against my better judgement, I have slightly more faith going into this season. 

Going into 2024/25 there was a bit of a buzz around the place after an active summer window and the Marti Parti being in full swing. Our form since the Spaniard’s appointment in November 2023 had not just infatuated Rs fans but hype-believing neutrals placing us higher than perhaps logic would have us deserve. I was realistic (and cynical) enough to admit that football doesn’t work like that, and extrapolation of form over fractions of a season isn’t always a reliable metric to base predictions on. 

That being said, I still had an ounce of optimism in me and, after tipping us for relegation the year before, settled for a humble 11th place finish, under the brave assumption that without being too ambitious, the final result would leave less of a sting in May. As it turns out, even that was too much to ask, as the boys were sat bottom in November, and looked even more doomed than was the case at the time of Ainsworth’s booting 12 months prior.

Injury crises in every department, poor squad depth, inexperience at championship level oozing out of the new recruits and a lack of physicality, collectively had us sniffing around the bottom 3 for the majority of the season. The ’great’ escape was made a little easier by Southampton dangling the olive branch that was Ronnie Edwards, which we grasped with both hands and were therefore able to breach the surface. 

At a certain point a decent finish looked likely, but reality hit and the low-block away from home tactic (WHY?!) came to bite us in the backside at Coventry where a late winner flattened any sniff of momentum. From this point, we were ready for the season to end, but it wasn’t until a Lucas Andersen screamer took home 3 points from Preston that we were actually able to take a breath.

The summer period has been an interesting one which has seen us appoint a new manager in Julien Stephan. I have delved into the new arrivals and pre-season campaign in my pre-season round-ups, but one thing I did fail to mention is the whole garden-leave, Adios Marti and Bienvenue Julien situation. The managerial appointment is a key focus here, as if it wasn’t for the previous one, we would likely be gearing up for another trip to Kenilworth Road in the league this season.

From what I’ve been able to gather about the new boss, he’s worked with some exceptional young talents who are now scattered around the landscape of elite European football, whilst achieving success along the way, such as a Coupe de France, beating a Tuchel PSG side in the final containing likes of Mbappe and Neymar, and a brief European stint.

The Frenchman likes a high-press similar to that of his predecessor but has his teams much more direct in possession, which is already ticking boxes for me. He can adapt his formations and tactics to what’s available to him, opting for a 3-5-2 at Strasbourg but not exclusively throughout his career. 

There was a solid foundation for the club to build on going into this window, so getting the finishing touches of the squad just right was important. The goalkeeper situation has a lot of fans puzzled, with Paul Nardi looking to be out of favour behind Joe Walsh. 

Defensively, full-backs were a priority and the left-back issue is still yet to be resolved – Esquerdinha and Ziyad Larkeche share very limited experience. Jimmy Dunne will lead the team from right-back with Keeley Adamson bringing something new.

Steve Cook unfortunately looks to be on his last legs and Edwards is irreplaceable, but bringing in Amadou Mbuenge who is strong in the tackle but also good on the ball, was a smart move – I like the look of him already despite being under 6 ft tall. We still can’t rely on Jake Clarke-Salter to stay fit so 17 year-old, 6 ft 4 Tim Akindineli playing a lot in pre-season suggests that Stephan plans for him to be the left-footed option as I doubt Morgan Fox will be at the club still. Liam Morrison has barely put a foot wrong so far and I’m sure he’ll be the most important figure in this back line. If last season is anything to go by, we will need one more to avoid being forced to scrape the barrel when injuries hit.

At first I was sceptical about the competence of Jonathan Varane, but he adjusted well in the end and was vital for us. His absence has been stark in pre-season so making sure he’s fit for Preston is a priority, and there are a lot of fans who reckon he needs support in that area, perhaps in the form of Isaac Hayden? (Just a suggestion) particularly after watching Sam Field struggle in every friendly so far. 

Kieran Morgan was a lovely surprise last season and the fact that he’s so important to us already hints at a distinguished career. Watching us in pre-season, we still seem to be getting overrun in this area so some strengthening is definitely needed.

I won’t hide my disdain towards Nicolas Madsen last season – I still struggle to see where he fits into the side. He frustrates many because he has such good technical ability, but has ceased to make an impact, and I can’t work out whether it’s a matter of effort or confidence. He did look much better towards the end of the season and has shown glimpses this summer but I have a hunch that as soon as the going gets tough again, he will go missing. I hope he proves me and the rest of his critics wrong. He supposedly can play 6, 8 or 10 but so far I couldn’t pick one out of those three where he’s best suited or could fill a hole.

Jack Colback remains to make a decision on his future, despite being a walking yellow-card he is a very useful, gritty but technical player to have in your ranks. I’ve pointed out before that I’d like to see the versatile Harvey Vale deployed as an 8, I don’t think he’s defensive enough to sit next to Varane but he’s definitely able to collect the ball from him and carry it forward, Stephan has played around with him so far but hasn’t placed him too deep so I think he agrees. 

The former Chelsea youngster can also play as a left back but hasn’t played there for us either, hopefully suggesting an intention to bring one in. We also have a handful of young midfielders that are slowly being exposed to first team football, such as the third Aussie of the squad Jaylan Pearman, Alex Ahora and Lorent Talla.

Ilias Chair is one of my favourite footballers of all time. That’s a warning from me over the excessive praise he’ll likely receive from me during the season. The new gaffer has stated his intentions to put him back in the 10 – a relief, as watching him waste away on the left was infuriating but not something I blame Cifuentes for, as he had very little choice. 

Kader Dembele and Kwame Poku also point here when asked where their best position is, but the new Senegalese man performed well on the right-wing last season and was signed to play this role. Dembele is a tricky one as we are still yet to see his full potential due to injury, but he is a skillful player and has been the stand-out in pre-season, so whether he’ll play on the left or not is a question on everyone’s minds.

I’d bite your hand off for a permanent Koki Saito deal but I doubt that has any legs. I’ve always said that Paul Smyth should be used as a super-sub rather than a starter, as despite a poor end product his pace is very useful against tired legs and defenders often struggle to prepare for him. 

QPR originally sold Charlie Austin to Southampton 9 years ago. We still haven’t managed to find a striker anywhere near as good as that and I’ve lost faith that we ever will. We’ve wasted so much money over the years on strikers that just haven’t cut it, bar a few anomalies that didn’t stick around long. Zan Celar seems to want out after an ineffective debut season – he’s injured anyway. Alfie Lloyd is a league one player at best and Michael Frey, my favourite of our choices, is not enough to provide the goals we lack. 

Rayan Kolli may be played as a left winger this season, he’ll excel either there or up front – I don’t care as long as he’s given a fair crack for once, I’m sick of people pretending that he isn’t our best attacker. Daniel Bennie is one to watch – he’s slowly adapting to English football and his running has been impressive in pre-season. 

I’ve seen a few rumours about various strikers and I understand that 15+ goal ones are incredibly costly and hard to come by, but our track record with this position is seriously, seriously bad. Romarn Burrell is a name I’d never heard until the club sprung his surprise announcement on us – I’ve now read and watched a lot about him and think he will be useful, even if he’s not intended to be first or even second choice. We’ve clearly worked on where we were lacking in terms of pace, so I’m slowly gaining a bit of confidence.

I think most non-QPR fans have probably looked at our goalscoring record and understandably deemed us not good enough for the top half, but we have one of the most creative arrays of attacking players I’ve seen at the club since Eze’s departure, and I don’t think people realise how much service our strikers will be getting, all it takes is the right man to make the right runs, get in the right spaces and finish it all off. 

While we have made an effort to work on it, we still seem like a weak side who get easily dominated, not just in midfield but physically too – this is definitely something that needs more work. A striker still remains as top priority, and a left-back. Potentially a midfielder and centre-half would also be smart, but I prophesize us having an okay season, and actually see us as potential dark horses, but I need to be reasonable and not let my bias cloud my judgement.

13. Stoke City

Stoke manage to keep themselves busy every summer, whilst somehow, seemingly, doing it within their means. But it never seems to work. Since 2020/21, the Potters are yet to finish a campaign higher than they did the previous one. In fact they’ve fallen from 14th to 18th in that time, dropping down a place in each of the last 3 years. 

After Steven Schumacher was sacked before even getting a chance to decorate his office, their time under Pelach had them struggling near the bottom.  

Mark Robins was a strong appointment at the midway point but not one I was sure matched with a club of Stoke’s operational style if their activity since relegation was anything to go by. 

In the latter stages of his 7 year stay, Robins nearly achieved wonders with Coventry on a much lower budget amid a handful of issues which almost deemed them homeless, so it’ll be interesting to see if, after having half a season already, and now an entire pre-season, he can inspire a similar level of hunger at the Bet365, after keeping them up on the final day. 

Stoke still have one of the best keepers in the league in Viktor Johansson so that’s one area Robins won’t have to worry about. The former cov man is another one who loves a back 3 or 5, but only deployed it on a few occasions last season.  Junior Tchamadu is a young defensive right-back who will continue to develop, and on the left side, Eric Junior Bocat will have experienced new signing Aaron Cresswell to compete with. 

Maksym Taloverov only joined Plymouth in January, but after an unsuccessful late survival bid, joins a long list of departing players from Home Park this summer. It would be good to see the big Ukrainian pair up with Bosun Lawal, who arrived from Celtic last season but due to injury, didn’t make a start until the final day. Ben Gibson and Ben Wilmot formed the partnership last term but 62 goals conceded suggests a leaky defence. 

Moving into midfield, Wouter Burger leaves for Hoffenheim, leaving Lewis Baker, Ben Pearson and Tatsuki Seko as the options to support Jun-Ho Bae in the 10, a skilful and exciting young player who will be key for the Potters this season. He will have Million Manhoef on his right, who also put up good numbers. Sorba Thomas joins as back up but they do look weak on the left. Therefore a defensive midfielder and a left winger should be top priorities.

I struggle to see where the goals are going to come from – new signing Robert Bozenik only managed 5 goals in 33 games in Portugal last season, so on paper I’m not sure this doesn’t inspire me. Young Divin Mubama arrives on loan from Manchester City, he’s barely made a professional appearance, but Ryan Mmae and Sam Gallagher aren’t going to trouble these two much for a spot. 

Stoke’s defence is where I see the most promise, they’ve clearly worked on trying to slash their number of goals conceded, but some replacements in midfield are also required and I’m not convinced by their strikers. That said, I think Mark Robins will instill a good culture among the squad and I can see them being a lot better off this time out. 

14.  Wrexham

This was due to be my biggest hot-take until I did a bit more research. Most fans have probably accepted that Wrexham will be safe this season, and for a time I was even confident enough to give them a top half finish and risk ruining my reputation before I’d even earned it, but I assessed their aging squad, bottled it and dropped them down a few places. 

The fact that 2 of the 3 promoted sides look unlikely to struggle is probably ringing alarm bells at many of the usual suspects (QPR being one) who often hover above the bottom 3 and bank on three others being more of a mess than themselves. Since Reynolds and McElhenney took over, the north-Welsh side have turned up to every division they’ve taken part in with a team that belongs in the one above. That obviously won’t be the case here, but it means that they join this party well-equipped to have a good time. 

Phil Parkinson prefers a 3-5-2 or variations of it – Max Cleworth, Eoghan O’Connell and Thomas O’Connor were the three most used centre backs but they also have Lewis Brunt and Dan Scarr and they have now added Conor Coady, a pretty mad signing for a side who’ve just come up to the championship. He’ll bring quality, leadership and bags of experience.

Ryan Barnett and James McClean mostly played as wing-backs – last season’s skipper is 36 now and I doubt he is intended to remain first choice this season, confirmed by the addition of attacking left back Liberato Cacace, who has appeared 86 times in Serie A and earned 33 caps for New Zealand, picking up 2 goals and 4 assists during Empoli’s relegation last season. 

Wrexham had 6 goalkeepers contracted to the club last season, and have now let 4 of them go, bringing in Danny Ward to complete the more traditional set up of three goalkeepers with Arthur Okonkwo and Callum Burton. 

Defensive midfielder George Dobson will be looking forward to getting his first taste of Championship football since a sporadic spell at Sunderland 4 years ago. The Red Dragons have also brought versatile Bolton captain, and one of the better league one midfielders in George Thomason up with them.

 Lewis O’Brien has been on many clubs’ shortlists but has decided to join Wrexham too. Andy Cannon tore his cruciate last season and Oliver Rathbone has picked up an ankle injury during pre-season, so the two new boys will likely slot straight into the starting XI. 32 year-old Matty James also has a few years under his belt in the championship.

Parkinson has been scanning the market for wide attacking players, and Nathan Broadhead looks set to return to his native Wales – he was popular among Ipswich fans from their consecutive promotions but wasn’t given enough of a chance in the Premier League, and after considering his options for the future, it looks like Wrexham are going to smash their transfer record for the 27 year-old. His potential right-sided counterpart is currently Ryan Longman but I see them upgrading. 

Going forward, Elliot Lee will have a point to prove this season, whilst Josh Windass swaps Yorkshire for Wales – a solid attacking midfielder at this level. As I write this there are 9 strikers at the club who played last season, but I’m not convinced of any of their potential to make the step-up. My pick of the bunch, Sam Smith, has only played 8 championship games, and 6 out of the other 8 are aged above 29, the oldest being Steven Fletcher at 38. Between the whole department, 29 goals were scored in 167 combined appearances last season, so Ryan Hardie will hope to make an impact after joining from Plymouth. I assume that a handful of the others will be offloaded in due course. 

This is a section I’ve had to come back to edit a few times now due to added context and new arrivals – I’m sure there’ll be a couple more such occasions before I put this out, and I fully expect them to further bolster their squad after I’ve finalised it. I can only say what I see though, and as someone who doesn’t watch a lot of League One, that isn’t much. 

Based on the Hollywood ownership, the climb  they’ve managed to make from the National League and the momentum that’s come with it, whatever you may think of it all, I am inclined to give them more credit than I usually would. Even if I turn out to be wrong and they really struggle, seeing the American/Canadian pair get a humbling would still put a smug grin on my face, so it’s a win win.

15. Swansea City 

Staying in Wales, I have the southerners a place below in 15th. It’s also been a busy summer for Alan Sheehan during his first transfer window as permanent gaffer, with 5 key signings spread across each area of the pitch. The former care-taker manager is new to being a head coach so hasn’t got much of a CV to reference in this prediction.

Lawrence Vigouroux got 14 clean sheets last season, so will be a mainstay again this year. Sorting out their defence played a huge role in achieving a top half finish and losing Harry Darling could be costly. Ricardo Santos from Bolton does seem to be a similar profile of player, but is 5 years older and lacks any championship experience. Captain Ben Cabango stays and Cameron Burgess joins on a free from Ipswich. It’s unclear what the preferred formation will be or who will be favoured. Josh Tymon is a productive left-back who ended the season on 7 assists and right-back/wing-back Josh Key completes the back line. 

Midfield was also one of the Swans’ strong points last season, dominating possession against most of their opponents, particularly under Luke Williams. Club legend Joe Allen retires and last season’s successful loanee Lewis O’Brien will be missed as he opts for North Wales instead. This makes way for the promising signing of Ethan Galbraith from Leyton Orient, whilst highly-rated Gonçalo Franco, Melker Widell and Jay Fulton all currently remain. 

The width has potential, with Ji-Sung Eom and Ronald now being joined by Zeidane Innousa from Sweden. Ollie Cooper failed to post good creative numbers last season so I think a new number 10, where O’Brien often filled in, should be top priority. 

Not much improvement is needed up front, either, with Jerry Yates, Liam Cullen and Zan Viptonik bagging 28 goals between them last season. Whilst maybe not promotion form, those are solid numbers, at least compared to those around them. With goals not really being an issue, it’ll be interesting to see whether new teenager Bobby Wales from Kilmarnock will be of any immediate use.

Swansea are capable of finishing much higher up the table and have the quality all over the pitch to do so. However a lot of the teams they were able to outperform last season have strengthened and with the added competitors in the two Hollywood clubs I think the Swans are one of many that will find it more difficult this time around. 

Whilst focusing on improving defensive solidity, and succeeding in doing so, Alan Sheehan’s tactics last season were bound to be somewhat of a continuation of Luke Williams’ possession-based style, and it’ll be interesting to see, given a whole summer, how he will make his own stamp on the side and whether he‘ll start to develop and adapt his own long-term philosophy. As he is very fresh to management it’s hard to say how he’ll set up his side and I think he will face more challenges now than he did as interim. 

16. Portsmouth

All of the clubs I have in 15th down to 18th feel slightly harsh but, someone’s got to be there, and when it comes to mid-table, it’s so hard to pick which ones deserve to be higher than the others. Pompey started pretty badly last season and didn’t pick up their first win until October, which of course was at Loftus Road. Some mixed form followed and they were able to finish stronger than they expected in 16th, exactly where I think they’ll end up again.

John Mousinho knows how to instil a good culture into his dressing rooms and that certainly played a massive part in keeping Portsmouth safe. His team consisted of a healthy balance of youth and experience, with Matt Ritchie, Isaac Hayden and Josh Murphy all having strong influences over the team’s fortunes. 

At the back, captain Marlon Pack had to step back into centre-half in the absence of Conor Shaugnessy due to various injuries, and mostly had Regan Poole alongside him, with Ivan Bowat also missing the whole of his debut season due to a knee injury.

Only 24th placed Cardiff conceded more goals than this injury-struck defence last season, so without any new-recruits so far I can’t see them having much better luck. 21 year-old Hayden Matthews signed from the A-League in January but only managed 6 appearances, he will be looking to play a bigger part here.

Connor Ogilvie is both defensively and offensively good enough to keep at left-back, and Zak Swanson has impressed in spells whilst having Jordan Williams to compete with. So I think Pompey are fine for starting full-backs, with 19 year-old Aussie Jacob Farrell looking to provide back-up to Ogilvie on the left.

4-2-3-1 can be one of the most balanced and effective formations if you have the resources to make it work. It was enough last season but with most teams around them strengthening, Portsmouth will need a reshuffle. 

Hayden played a big part in keeping the Rs up in 2024, and from what I’ve seen he’s also popular among Portsmouth fans, so it’s frustrating that Newcastle continue to hog him. West Ham’s Freddie Potts also returns to his Premier League club, leaving a gaping hole in defensive midfield, and putting last season’s formation in danger of collapsing. 

John Swift joins but is more of a box-to-box, and whilst not afraid of a tackle, Andre Dozell also lacks the defensive capabilities of the two loanees. This may create an opportunity for former PSG and Dortmund youngster Abdoulaye Kamara at only 20 years old if they don’t get another one or two in. 

Out wide, another young Aussie has been brought in to play out on the right in Adrian Segecic with the aging Matt Ritchie likely to hand over his position over the course of the season. Florian Bianchini joins on loan from Swansea, a right-sided player who i think will be looking to play a forward role, bringing pace and direction to possibly improve his scoring record on the south coast. Speaking of which, Josh Murphy managed an impressive 7 goals and 14 assists from left wing last season and will look to carry on this form. Harvey Blair is another young winger who, if not loaned out, will hope to make an impact.  

That brings us onto the strikers, where Colby Bishop and Callum Lang scored 21 goals between them last season, solid numbers which I can only see increasing. A fifth young Australian player in Thomas Waddingham joined in January, scoring 1 in 5. He will look to break through and compete with the two goalscorers for a proper shout. 

Overall, defence was Portsmouth’s biggest shortfall last season, with injuries causing them constant issues. If luck is more forgiving this season these issues may improve but one or two emergency signings might be needed. In midfield, having Marlon Pack back in his natural position would be a good start in creating something more stable, where losing two weekly starters returning from loans will weaken them. In the goalscoring department they look fine and I don’t think relegation will be much of a worry. 

17. Blackburn Rovers 

I wasn’t expecting to have last season’s 7th best team drop 10 places, especially after only just having wiped the egg off my face from having them bottom but due to a couple of outsiders I have higher up (My own team being one), whenever I tried to keep Blackburn higher up the table, some of the teams who made way looked out of place lower down. Granted, this isn’t a great justification for having them this low and with that in mind I hardly expect Rovers fans that have clicked on this link (not that there will have been any) to continue reading, but looking at their squad, I don’t hold much hope for the Lancashire side.

Whilst the squad does contain hints of quality, I do think John Eustace was a massive part of Blackburn’s form last season. I wasn’t inspired by the hiring of Valerian Ismael but he did manage to keep them within touching distance of the play-offs, and I wonder how strongly he will drill his aggressive high-press into his squad this season. 

Since both managers emphasise defensive discipline, breaching their back line wasn’t easy, and only 5 teams conceded less goals last season. Aynsley Pears was one of the strongest stoppers in the league, with 13 clean sheets and a 71% save percentage. His back-up, Balazs Toth fared well while he was out injured too, keeping 2 clean sheets in his 5 appearances. 

This summer some major cracks were starting to form in last season’s wall. Danny Batth was poached by Eustace at his new club Derby and Hayden Carter’s injury situation doesn’t seem to be improving – however Sean McLoughlin arrives from Hull to bring height and left-footed passing ability. He will pair up nicely with Dominc Hyam to form an aerially dominant partnership. Scott Wharton, brother of Adam, can also fill in on the left side, but outside of this trio, depth looks thin in this area. 

Owen Beck also fancied reuniting with Eustace as he’s gone out on loan to Derby this time, leaving Harry Pickering and Yuri Ribeiro to potentially fight for his spot at left-back, although a double signing from KV Kortrijk includes Dion De Neve, who can play as a left wing-back, and right-back Ryan Alebios to compete with Callum Brittain.

Blackburn were ranked around mid-table for average possession last season, highlighting inferiority in midfield compared to the teams around them. New signing Sidnei Tavares will aim to bring some structure to the side, protecting his defenders and linking up with Captain Lewis Travis, Sondre Tronstad and John Buckley. Adam Forshaw also looked decent after joining in January and may do a job – their own version of Jack Colback if you like. 

Andreas Weimann also seemingly preferred Eustace’s management to Ismael’s, as he returns to his former club Derby, leaving Todd Cantwell as the only attacking midfielder, who managed 7 assists and 3 goals last term but will be lacking in support. 

Cantwell will be supplying Augustus Kargbo, Yuki Ohashi and Makhtar Gueye up top, all three filling different striker profiles and offering unique qualities. With 6 ft 5 Gueye being able to bully defenders, hold the ball up and finish from close range, Kargbo and Ohashi can play off him, making runs in behind or creating opportunities of their own. 

Only 15 goals between the three of them in a combined 88 appearances suggests this needs some work though, and if not a new signing, then perhaps young Harry Leonard will be looking to break into the side. 

Whilst solid in defence, Blackburn seem to lack creativity and losing key man Andy Weimann with no sign of a replacement so far will only widen this gap in the squad. The goals didn’t fly in last season so Ismael will need to bring his high-intensity, counter-attacking reputation into fruition to increase output. 

The Venky’s seem to want to do the bare minimum to help with the playing squad, filling holes but not adding much fresh quality, and I therefore can’t see them doing too well this season, lagging behind whilst everyone else improves.

18. Watford

Watford are the latest club to drift into Championship obscurity after wasting parachute money, failing to finish within the top 10 once since coming down in 2022 – probably something to do with sacking every manager before giving them a chance to build anything of note. Paulo Pezzolano becomes the 7th boss in that period, and 13th since 2019.

Tom Cleverley did an okay job with a poor squad and notably didn’t lose at home for 15 games between the back end of 2023/24 and mid-way through last season, and even if momentum seemed to drop off and results began to worsen, his sacking was seen by many as harsh but not surprising given the club’s track record. Squad morale seems to be low amongst this lot, and I can’t see it improving quickly.

Some effort has been made to improve the playing squad, with various positions being looked at. Goalkeeper Nathan Baxter arrives from Bolton to take Daniel Bachmann’s place, but no new centre-backs have been brought in, leaving big Mattie Pollock questioning who his partner will be next season. 

James Abankwah may as well be a permanent signing as he returns on loan from their Italian sister club Udinese, as Ryan Porteous looks to be on his way out, after spending the second half of last season on loan at Preston. Kevin Keben is the only other current option, with the young Cameroonian only having played 6 games for the Hornets so far.

Marc Bola arrives on a free from Turkey to potentially compete at left-back with James Morris and right-back Joao Ferreira returns from a loan spell at Braga. Caleb Wiley’s loan from Chelsea has also been extended for another year at left-back and Jeremy Ngakia remains the first choice on the right-hand side.

One player that really impresses me every time I watch him is Giorgi Chakvetadze. The Georgian initially seemed to me to be a number 8 but due to his playmaking ability, mostly plays higher up, and his versatility is just one of his strengths. He carries the ball well, has a good passing range and is one of those players whose feet the ball seems to stick to, but he also induces fear when driving into the attacking third or scanning for options around his opponent’s penalty area. His presence is always known on the pitch and I have him down as one of the best in this squad.

As a QPR fan, I love a skillful Moroccan attacking midfielder, and Imran Louza is another who I enjoy watching but stress when he has the ball in my own team’s half of the pitch. Contrary to his attacking nature, Louza is deployed as a deep-lying playmaker rather than a 10, and is capable of donning the armband and commanding his midfield. 

Edo Kayembe, Tom Dele-Bashiru and the experienced Moussa Sissoko remain in the squad, with Hector Kyprianou joining from Peterborough, and youngster Pierre Dwomoh maybe getting a few more run-outs this season. 

Kwadwo Baah managed 4 goals and 3 assists last season, before missing half of the season through injury – He’s a dangerous player on the left wing but can also play elsewhere in attack. Another Moroccan has been brought in on the opposite side in Othmane Maamma, a promising young attacker from Montpelier who can play on the left as well. Watford fans may also be excited by the arrival of Nestory Irankunda from Bayern.

Tom Ince has failed to produce for years but still offers experience for the other wingers and forwards. Vakoun Bayo returns to Udinese but swaps with the Italian club’s new signing Luca Kjerrumgaard who comes the other way – the Dane netted 22 times in his native league last season. Vivaldi Semedo makes the same trip but on a permanent basis, having very little professional experience but impressing in the Portuguese second tier.

Watford have quality in their squad, there’s no doubt about that. The midfield should adapt well to what I have gathered will be controlled, possession-based football under the new gaffer, who likes the 4-1-4-1 used on occasion by Cleverley, and there are plenty of goals within the attack.

It’s the defence where I feel Watford will be let down. Conceding 61 goals last season, and so far not adding any new faces, suggests an already weak centre-back depth will continue to leak goals this season, voiding the potential goal threat up the other end. 

A mix of low morale and lack of identity due to constant managerial shifts and a high squad turnover every year, have influenced my decision to have Watford dropping further down the table this season. I just can’t see it being an enjoyable one for the Hornets despite obvious quality in areas.

19. Charlton Athletic

Charlton made a late charge last season to end up where they did, and did well to dismiss Leyton Orient in the play-off final. The south Londoners have yo-yo’d a bit in the past but under new ownership I think they are going to adapt well this time round – meaning, if I’m proved correct, that all three promoted teams will stay up. 

A dislike towards Nathan Jones comes natural to me as a QPR fan but credit where it’s due on laying the foundations for Luton’s eventual promotion to the premier league, and after changing Charlton’s fate from potential relegation to eventual promotion he has already made some good additions to his squad to enable them to compete – Charlton have not messed about with upgrading their squad. 

Experienced Championship goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski has been signed from Luton, to likely slot in ahead of Will Mannion and Ashley Maynard-Brewer. Alex Mitchell, Lloyd Jones and Macauley Gillesphey all stay from last season where they conceded only 43 goals, whilst Reece Burke has also signed from Luton. 

Full-backs have been purchased with right-back Joe Rankin-Costello joining from Blackburn – he is capable of providing assists and chipping in with goals. A third Luton player also joins in left-back Amari’i Bell. Kayne Ramsay and Josh Edwards also both remain. Last season saw a shift from a back 3 to a 4-2-3-1 so it’ll be interesting to see how these full-backs are deployed.

Connor Coventry has been the stand out player for Charlton and one that they will do well to keep hold of. The holding midfielder played a key role in promotion and will also be crucial in survival. Terry Taylor, Sonny Carey, Greg Docherty form the rest of the midfield along with Luke Berry who had an impressive first season in South London.

The addition of Harvey Knibbs is one that should excite Addicks fans. 14 goals and 6 assists last season is a solid record in league one so I hope he can carry that into the championship. Tyreece is also favoured among fans – he and new signing Rob Apter are two exciting wingers who did well last season and will be eager to make a name for themselves.

The signing of Charlie Kelman is an interesting one. Based on last season you’d think they’d got themselves a steal – but there are mixed opinions amongst QPR fans. Some think we’ve had their pants down out of revenge for Macauley Bonne, and some think he should’ve been leading the line this season, or at least competing with someone else. I’m yet to make my mind up but he was clearly unhappy. I wish him well and am optimistic that he can succeed with Charlton. 

Matty Godden will be happy to welcome his new partner, with he and Kelman now being 1st and 6th top scorers in League One last season. Gassan Ahadme missed half of last season but only managed 1 goal in the half he was fit. Miles Leaburn has potential but is still raw. 

If Kelman and Godden can bag at least half of the goals they managed last season then they should be fine. With these two linking up with Knibbs and the two wingers, I expect goals and will be surprised if the transition takes too long. This is a squad that works well with Jones’ direct style of attacking football.

Charlton have definitely been smart this summer and have nicely prepared themselves for a step-up in difficulty. There will be somewhat of a transition period however, even if only brief, due to a lack of championship experience in their squad. 

They’ve improved in defence, already have a decent midfield and have a pretty exciting, hungry attack. Therefore I’m sure they will be safe this season but will surely struggle at points, and time will tell if Nathan Jones’ theatrical personality will start to be a hindrance rather than a help. 

20. Derby County

John Eustace to Derby County was inevitable, I just don’t think anyone expected it to happen in the way it did. Leaving high-flying Blackburn in the middle of a play-off bid to fight for survival at one of the worst sides in the division was an interesting career choice but each to their own.

Eustace has had a fairly strong start to his short managerial career. Before Blackburn, he first made a name for himself as a coach at QPR, then got his first top job at Birmingham where he was sacked in 6th place to make way for a disastrous Wayne Rooney spell that ended in relegation. 

Paul Warne typically preferred a 3-5-2 which Eustace also initially opted for but after a 4-0 smashing in his first game against a QPR side that were struggling themselves, switched to a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3 which contributed massively to their turnover in form. 

Defensively one of the better teams near the bottom last season, Danny Batth joins to bring even more experience to an already aging defence, containing Callum Elder, Craig Forsyth and Matt Clarke, while January’s signing Sondre Langas has undergone knee surgery. 

Ryan Nyambe has been linked with moves away, and Kane Wilson is out injured, so right-back is an area that needs work. Owen Beck has been brought in on loan at left-back – he impressed at Blackburn last season. 

Kenzo Goudmijn often held the fort in midfield last season, likely forming a double pivot this season with Ebou Adams – the former being a more technical player and the latter a strong leader who loves a tackle. David Ozoh has also extended his loan for another year and could see more game time.

Ben Osborn and Liam Thompson make up the rest of central midfield, with Andreas Weimann returning to the club to bring some creativity. Corey Blackett-Taylor is still struggling with injury and the only right-sided winger I can see in their squad is Joe Ward who only managed 7 games last season – this suggests to me that maybe wing-backs could be brought back into play again, but that’s a complete guess, and new wingers could still be brought in before the window’s close. 

Attacking reinforcements have been added – Goudmijn’s long lost twin brother Carlton Morris joins – he’s a player I’m surprised hasn’t already played for the Rams. Patrick Agyemang (no, not that one) comes over from across the pond for a big fee and Rhian Brewster joins from Sheffield United to also join up with Kayden Jackson. Lars-Jorgen Salvesen remains sidelined with a knee injury. 

Brewster’s scoring record isn’t a memorable one, and Agyemang is relatively unproven, so whether or not this attack can score enough goals to take Derby higher up the table is tough to say.

Overall, Derby do have some decent quality – the double pivot of Goudmijn and Adams will be crucial in deciding their fate – this is a midfield pair that could potentially get into most sides outside the top 6, and their influence is massive.

Defensively average and unproven up top, this side will probably just about be okay, but that’s about it. Eustace will have work to do but he is capable of achieving something with this side, and Derby fans will be thankful to have him in the dugout. 

21. Oxford United

QPR vs Oxford at Loftus Road last season was one of the worst games of football I’ve seen for a long time. Neither team looked like they wanted to win and if not for some Sam Field heroics it would’ve ended 0-0. That being said, although uninspiring, and not up against one of the stronger sides in the division, the yellows looked comfortable enough, and did manage to compete in the majority of their games last season, even when form started to drop and relegation loomed. It could be said that if not for Gary Rowett’s late appointment after Des Buckingham’s sacking, things may have gone differently. 

Whilst Oxford ranked among the weaker sides for goals conceded, Jamie Cumming still managed 13 clean sheets last season, impressive for a debut championship campaign. Michael Helik was a good signing to make in the January window, and definitely helped in ensuring his new team’s safety. Left-footed Ciaron Brown and Captain Elliot Moore are both physically strong defenders who provide tough competition for Helik. All three are good in the air and capable of chipping in with goals too. 

Helik’s former Huddersfield teammate Brodie Spencer has signed at right-back and Jack Currie returns after having a strong season on loan at left-back for Leyton Orient. These two are both young full-backs who did well at league one level. They will be looking to learn from experienced pair Greg Leigh and Sam Long. Leigh is a more offensive left-back who scored 6 goals last season, making him joint top-scorer, and Hidde Ter Avest also filled in at right-back for much of the season. 

Rowett is another who prefers a 4-2-3-1 so new Dutch defensive midfielder Brian De Keersmaecker will likely slot straight in next to Will Vaulks ahead of the young Alex Matos. This will hopefully allow long-serving Cameron Brannagan to push forward a bit. Not much needs to be said about his importance to this side, a technical and energetic midfielder who can carry the ball and create chances out of nothing, whilst having an occasional fondness for set-pieces.

Tyler Goodrham, who allegedly has family ties to QPR, is a young player i’d have loved to see us go in for – he will link up well with highly-rated youngster Luke Harris who arrives on loan from Fulham to offer more creativity. 

One of my favourite former Rangers players, Matt Phillips, was underwhelming last season, Przemyslaw Placheta often had to play on the right to offer any threat, and Karamoko’s older brother Siriki Dembele brought pace on the left. 

Mark Harris, Ole Romney and Tom Bradshaw only managed 7 goals between the three of them last season, which, even adding the 3 goals from the departed Ruben Rodrigues, has to be one of the worst outputs of all the attacking departments in the league. 

The high profile signing of Nik Prelec on loan from Cagliari doesn’t excite me either – he only managed 6 goals in 33 games on loan in the Austrian Bundesliga last season, so goals are definitely going to be a shortfall for Oxford if they don’t bring another striker in. 

Overall, Oxford may just about have enough to keep them in the division, but are definitely in danger of relegation. Gary Rowett has a decent CV when it comes to this division with mostly top half finishes on average, but this is arguably his toughest gig yet (other than his interim spell in Birmingham) and he will have his work cut out to get this squad any higher than the bottom 6.

22. Hull City

Two clubs this season have been put under transfer embargoes. They are both in my bottom 3, the first being Hull. The Tigers have appealed this decision and await a response but even if successful, there’s barely any time to improve going into this season. 

Liam Rosenoir was harshly sacked after failing to reach the play-offs in 2024, and  the club didn’t learn their lesson, going through two more managers last season. First Tim Walter, then Ruben Selles was sacked after 5 months despite doing what he could to save a team devoid of confidence, who hadn’t won for 14 games when he took charge. 

New Bosnian manager Sergej Jakirovic has a decent win rate of 59% throughout his career so far, and has won domestic trophies in various countries, but this is his first job in England and with Hull’s recent track record, if he doesn’t hit the ground running he will be under the cosh.

Hull did manage to get a handful of bodies through the door before the ban came into place, such as centre-halves Semi Ajayi and Akin Famewo. These are both good defenders at this level and solid additions to a struggling side. They join Charlie Hughes and John Egan to add some depth and quality, I imagine both are intended to start after Alfie Jones’ move to Middlesbrough and Sean McLoughlin’s to Blackburn. 

Ryan Giles returns from a loan at Middlesbrough, whilst Cody Drameh and Captain Lewie Coyle are the current starting full-backs, with Matty Jacob leaving on loan. These three are decent full-back options which could help form a back four capable of staying up.

Gustavo Puerta also made his loan permanent before the embargo – the agile young Colombian seems to be popular and will be important. His fellow countryman Steven Alzate leaves for the MLS so bringing in John Lundstram on loan from Trapzonspor was needed. Regan Slater and January signing Eliot Matazo provide depth behind them. 

Out wide, Hull were convinced they’d made Louie Barry’s loan permanent before complications relating to the embargo situation. He only managed 4 games last season anyway. This leaves Kyle Joseph and Liam Millar on the left, Abu Kamara and Mohamed Belloumi on the right, with Kasey Palmer, Matt Crooks, Harry Vaughan and new signing Reda Laaloui as attacking midfielders. 

Joe Geldhardt returns to Leeds after playing a key role in Hull’s survival. These players will need to fit nicely into the likely 4-2-3-1, with some of them probably expecting to be used as false 9s, looking at who they have ahead of them. 

Lundstram’s teammate in Turkey, Enis Destan, also joins on a free – he didn’t score a goal last season in 18 games. He and Kyle Joseph are currently the only out and out strikers and so I’m not sure how Jakirovic’s attacking football will work out with two goalless forwards. 

Hull underperformed last season and in my opinion, were a little better than the 21st place finish they achieved. They should have stuck with Selles and i expect he will be successful with his new club, but I actually like the new appointment – an attacking-minded coach who has achieved success in his career. 

Unproven in English football, I think he could turn things around at Hull if he’s given enough of a chance, but due to a few factors, such as a transfer embargo, a weakened midfield and a goalless attack, I’m not sure they have enough about them to stay up this time. Hull probably have a better squad on paper than Oxford, but the yellows have the benefit of a winter transfer window, plus what is left of the summer one, and showed glimpses last season of being a comfortable championship side.

23. Preston North End

I initially had Preston to be top of the bottom 3 based on the situations at the other two clubs, but when putting Preston and Hull’s squads side by side, this is the one that inspires me the least. 

I fail to understand why Ryan Lowe was given a whole summer to be sacked after one game last season, and Paul Heckingbottom was a good replacement but he didn’t have much to work with, so staying in the division was the main focus, and one he achieved by a single point.

Preston have tried to make the most of a low budget with 8 permanent signings (6 on a free) and 1 loan signing. Daniel Iversen joins in goal, with 4 full-backs – Thierry Small and Andrija Vukcevic on the left, and Odeluga Offiah and Pol Valentin on the right. Brad Potts and Andrew Hughes are both also full-back options. 

PNE have Liam Lindsay, Lewis Gibson and Jordan Storey at centre-back, with Jayden Mighoma returning to Brentford and Ryan Porteous’s loan expiring. For a team whose defence has played a big part in keeping them in the division this long, I’m not sure this is enough to keep them afloat again.

Ben Whiteman, Ali McCann, Jordan Thompson and Stefan Teitur Thordarson make up the okay midfield and not one that ranks highly amongst the others in the league – young Noah Mawene may be hoping to break through this season but not much is known about him. 

Mads Frokjaer-Jensen’s output from attacking midfield was average last season, getting 5 assists and 2 goals. Preston mostly use wing-backs so wingers are not something that they see as a priority, with Liam Brady and Jeppe Okkels being the left-sided options and no natural attacking/midfield options on the right. 

As the third lowest-scoring team in the Championship last season, losing top scorer Emil Riis Jakobson is the last thing Preston fans would’ve wanted, but I’m sure they saw it coming. This leaves Will Keane and Milutin Osmajic as main options, with Daniel Jebbison arriving on loan from Bournemouth and 33 year-old Michael Smith from Sheffield Wednesday on a free. 

Whilst Osmajic can bully defenders and Smith is capable of finishing, Daniel Jebbison will likely be the runner, offering bursts of pace enabled by his young age and Premier League experience. Will Keane’s scoring record doesn’t warrant much conversation.

Overall, a thin squad, a low budget meaning reinforcements aren’t as possible as they may have hoped, and a lack of attacking quality have Preston down as one of the worst sides on paper this season. Heckingbottom is another aggressive high-press kind of manager but I just don’t see the squad, on paper, matching up to those tactics. It’s a defensive squad with not much to shout about. Therefore, I think Preston will struggle and ultimately lose out.

24.  Sheffield Wednesday 

Credit where it’s due on not just Danny Rohl but the Sheffield Wednesday players on what they’ve managed to achieve despite hideous circumstances. Being in with a shout for play-offs for a big chunk of the season to end up in mid-table is not something anyone, probably even their own fans expected, even with the run of form they ended the previous season on. 

Dejphon Chansiri is everything that’s wrong with football club ownership and I won’t go into too much detail, partly because it’s hard to cover everything that’s wrong with the club at the moment, but also because I realise that he’s not worth the effort it would take to research and include everything he’s said and done in here. So I’m going to keep this mainly squad-based. With a 3-window transfer embargo, this is shaping up to be a tough couple of seasons for the South Yorkshire club.

There were two men who, from what I saw of Wednesday last season, had the biggest influence over this team. Firstly, the obvious Danny Rohl, who looked for a short while like he might stay, but ultimately escaped. The second is Barry Bannan, who despite looking like a 40-something 5-a-side player with no knees, manages to trouble even the best teams in this league, running the show in midfield, driving forward and creating chances whilst chipping in with goals when needed. He has signed a new contract, to which I say fair play considering the state of the club he’s committed himself to. 

New manager Henrik Pedersen is a young Danish manager who very little is known about, and who hasn’t managed a club since 2023. Reportedly known for being an analytical manager, a 33% win percentage in his 4 year managerial career wouldn’t be filling me with confidence if I was a Wednesday fan. 

I don’t know what set-up Pedersen has used in the past but he’d surely be wise to try and adapt to what is left of his squad and the way that Rohl had them playing, in a 3-4-3 last season. I can’t see any drastic change of tactics being helpful to their fortunes. 

Last season James Beadle played in the sticks on loan from Brighton. He has joined Birmingham this season and looks to be a very promising young goalkeeper. This leaves 20 year-old Pierce Charles and 37 year-old Ben Hamer as the current options.

Centre-back depth was pretty strong in this team last season, even if not of the highest quality, with Dominic Iorfa, Liam Palmer, Di’shon Bernard, Gabriel Otegbayo, Akin Famewo and Michael Ihiekwe all making 11+ appearances last season. The latter two have both now departed, and injuries affecting all of their seasons at different points already made it hard enough to keep a solid foundation at the back, likely contributing to the 69 goals conceded. This was a good mix of physical and ball-playing defenders as well as left and right-sided ones, so they’ll need to hope that their luck is a bit better this season.

Max Lowe is a name I’ve seen thrown about a few times in QPR’s search for a new left-back, and from what I can gather about Owls’ fans opinions of him, I’d be fully behind it. If he was to join the growing list of departures, it would currently be Ryo Hatsuse taking his place. Yan Valery remains at right-back with his biggest competition, Pol Valentin, leaving to join Preston.

Shea Charles was a fan favourite during his loan spell and unfortunately returns to Southampton leaving a gaping hole in the team. Nathaniel Chalobah, Svante Ingelsson and Stuart Armstrong make up the midfield with Barry Bannan, whilst the other attacking option, Josh Windass, has signed for Wrexham. 

Olaf Kobacki, who only played 12 games last season, is now the only first-team Left winger who is still at the club but Jamal Lowe can also play there if needed. On the right-side, there is no one natural to this position that I can see in this team.  

Up top, the only strikers with any championship experience are Ike Ugbo and Jamal Lowe. Ugbo didn’t manage a single goal in 34 games last season, and Lowe, who has spoken publicly about life at the club as of late, managed 3 in 24. 

When I set out to write this, I have to admit I didn’t quite realise the extent of Wednesday’s problems. Based on last season I thought that maybe they could defy the odds again, but with a novice manager, a ban on signing new players, and fourteen departures, it’s looking bleak. One saving grace I can think of is that they’ve managed to keep a good chunk of their defenders, but with their defensive record last season I don’t think that’s much reassurance. 

The players who do stay (at the time of writing), such as Iorfa and Bannan, have got a very uphill battle, and they deserve a pat on the back for sticking around and doing what they can for the club, but I imagine the team will mostly consist of kids this season. 

It’ll be a massive scrape of the barrel and it’s not going to be fun. I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough, once the narcissistic owner is finally booted out for someone who actually enjoys football. 

So there you have it – my 1-24 predictions for the 2025/26 championship season. I am by no means a football expert or an exceptional student of this particular league, I am just a QPR fan who likes to talk and write about football. This was just a bit of fun and whilst it took a lot longer than expected, I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.

I hope I’ve given enough reasonable justification for placing each team where I have, but if I haven’t, don’t be afraid to tell me! This was written over the space of about 2 weeks, so as much as I tried to chop and change to keep in line with transfer announcements, it’s not going to be spot on when it comes out.

I for one am buzzing for the return of football and I’m excited to continue writing about my club’s ups and downs through the season. Thank you ever so much to those who took the time to read this, even if you only read your own club’s section. It’s massively appreciated. Here is my final prediction in table format:

1. Southampton
2. Sheffield United
3. Ipswich Town
4. Coventry City
5. Birmingham City
6. Leicester City
7. West Bromwich Albion
8. Millwall
9. Middlesbrough 
10. Norwich City
11. Bristol City
12. QPR
13. Stoke City
14. Wrexham 
15. Swansea City
16. Portsmouth
17. Blackburn Rovers
18. Watford
19. Charlton Athletic
20. Derby County
21. Oxford United
22. Hull City
23. Preston North End
24. Sheffield Wednesday

Slowly Coming Together?

As the first team return from their Girona/Perpignon pre-season tour, there are mixed feelings about the state of the squad as the season daunts us. Keeping the match reviews as brief as possible, as they’re only friendlies, here’s a write-up on what we’ve seen so far. 

Before they set off, two elevens containing a mix of new signings, young blood and familiar faces, cruised past a mediocre Stevenage side in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Heston. As everyone says, you can’t read too much into pre-season games. Especially for what was effectively a kick about against a mid-table league one side. But there were definitely some positives.

Kaider Dembele was the stand out player in the first half, scoring two and assisting two (if you count winning a free kick as an assist), and a surprise run-out for Taylor Richard’s saw him finish off a well-worked move from the former, for the third of 4 first half goals.

This half also saw an actual QPR player score an actual free kick – the first I can remember since Sunderland away 3 years ago (both being scored by Ilias Chair).

The second half allowed us to get our first glimpse of Harvey Vale in a QPR shirt, and he definitely piqued my interest, providing what we’ve been missing for a while, and linking the midfield with the attack and driving forward with the ball, something that, personally, Ilias Chair has always been good at, but perhaps with a bit more command on the ball, and probably a better quality end product to polish it off. His left foot looks sublime.

This brief introduction, which was rewarded with a long-ish range curler into the top corner near the end, definitely had me excited for what the 21 year old has to offer, reinforcing my hunch that he will be a very important player for us this season.

The group then set off for Girona for a training camp which would include a friendly against second division Spanish side, Castellon. The less said about this game the better- the highlight (in my opinion) probably being that it saw us debut a new pink and black away kit, welcomed by mixed-acclaim.

Their left winger, Brian Cipenga (who got 3 goals and 1 assist in the Spanish second division last season) made an example out of poor Daniel Bennie at right wing back, but it wasn’t just the young Aussie in the firing line, the entire back 5, Joe Walsh, and the midfield had obviously not adapted to the Spanish heat and each had melt downs of their own.

Our attackers weren’t any better, and it was two very poor halves from both XIs. I won’t pretend I was glued to my laptop screen for this one, but I’m not sure we managed a shot on target the entire game. But, as is always the case, when we win a pre-season game, it seems we have undone 11 years of mediocrity and are eyeing up a promotion charge, and when we lose, it doesn’t matter as it’s only a friendly. This fickle see-saw between melt-downs and exaggerated buzz was, therefore, to be slammed back the other way if we were to produce an improved performance against mid-table Ligue 1 side Toulouse.

I’m not sure what Stephan had them doing for the remainder of their time in Girona besides Go Karting and a handful of short, one-to-one daily round-up vlogs that seemed like something that a 20 year old would send their nan on WhatsApp while backpacking in Australia to let her know they’re having a good time, but, to everyone’s surprise, not excluding what seemed like two hundred odd fans that made the trip to the next game’s destination in Perpignan, the boys actually managed to fight off an unpleasant, niggling bunch in what turned out to be quite a tasty clash, and come away with a 2-1 win after being shushed at 1-0 down in the first half (in a friendly by the way).

I was watching this one on a dodgy stream in the pub, the quality of which made the kit clash look like we were playing against ourselves, so between that and the beers that were being brought to my table, it became difficult to take note of anything that was going on.

Therefore my review of this run-out is based on very little. At 1-0 down I made a ‘joke’ to my mates about Paul Smyth’s inability to register assists and Zan Celar’s non-existent scoring record. So you can imagine who chopped inside and put in the cross for new Skipper Jimmy Dunne’s leveller, and who else put away the penalty to put us in front.

A good response to an embarrassing result 6 days prior, which encompassed strong performances from all. As mentioned previously, I watched limited minutes but from what I did see, I was impressed by Paul Smyth, thought Poku looked hungry and exciting when he came on, and it was clear they were determined to improve where they fell short in the 6-0 thumping, as we looked much more structured, and defensively solid. I think with the current bunch, a back four definitely works better than the 5 we tested in Spain. But with a few signings, this could easily change.

Based on what we’ve seen and heard so far, here is my take on the current squad and our new additions, and where I think we need to improve going into the season. I will try and keep this section as streamlined as possible, as it’s easy to waffle on about what we think of the squad and how the season might pan out.

New signings:

As I said before and will probably say again, I really, really like the look of Harvey Vale. He will be important to us this season if he stays fit, and I think he will become a starter. It will be interesting to see where Stephan places him, whether it will be as an 8, as an attacker or deeper in midfield, but based on what we’ve seen so far, I’d like to see him as a ball carrying midfielder who will pick up the ball from Varane or Field, and either give the ball to our attackers or drive forward himself. Definitely keep your eyes peeled on this one – an exciting prospect. Not much needs to be said about the signing of Kwame Poku, a player whose signature we reportedly fended off a wealth of clubs to snatch up, and one of the stand out players in league one. There is very little doubt that Poku will bring numbers and entertainment to our squad, and I’m intrigued to see what the gaffer plans to do with him, Dembele and Chair, all three being technically gifted attacking players whose preferred position is the 10. 

I also very much like the look of Amadou Mbuenge, a strong defender who became a fan favourite at Reading, and will hopefully make us less susceptible to the bullying we allowed ourselves to endure on our own turf on many occasions last season. The Kealey Adamson signing is an interesting one – personally I’m yet to be convinced by the A-League invasion that seems to be occurring, but I’d love for him, Pearman and Bennie to all work out. We’ve seen very little of him so far so we can only hope we’ve somehow managed to find the Australian answer to Alexander-Arnold from under everyone else’s noses.

Current Squad:

In terms of attack, we have got ourselves in a strange situation. I’m unsure what’s going on with Rayan Kolli and no one seems to be able to tell me whether he will be playing for us next season or not, but I am a big fan and think he could be a super player for us. I also am a big lover of Michael Frey, whose ability to run the amount he does for someone of his build fascinates me. He shows flashes of being a very good finisher, and in the right system and given the right chances, can chip in with quite a few goals.

Zan Celar had a horrific start to life in West London but he started to show glimpses after his brace away at Cardiff before picking up a season-ending injury, so there’s still a chance he will come good. Then we have Charlie Kelman, who is a confusing one. Some would say he hasn’t been given enough of a chance for QPR, some would say the opposite, but as Clive from LoftForWords said on his appearance on Gabe Sutton’s Deep-Dive, if we had just signed the best winger in league one and the top scorer in League one in a single window, we would be pretty excited. So I would like to see him given a chance, but there is the obvious issue of his contract, which he reportedly doesn’t want to renew, and you’d not be in the wrong to suggest that cashing in on him whilst we can would be a good idea.

I also hold similar views to Clive on Alfie Lloyd, where I love the bloke and want to see him succeed, but in all honesty, don’t see a level of quality anywhere near the Championship. With these attacking options, it’s impossible to predict how it’ll go, but one thing is for sure, they will be given good service. Chair, Poku, Dembele, Vale and even Smyth are showing signs of being very dangerous players that we already know can create plenty of chances and chip in with goals from time to time.

Our midfield is one that always confuses me. We have quality but always seem to be completely overrun and avoid playing through it entirely. Jonathan Varane improved massively in the second half of last season and will be a crucial decider of our fortune this season, so fingers crossed that he is back soon to command the midfield and fill the gaps that he left in our two matches on tour. Sam Field’s importance can’t be understated, and where he lacks in technical ability he makes up for in grit, and we are undoubtedly a better team with him on the pitch. We’re yet to hear about Jack Colback, but he could definitely be of use if he does decide to renew, and of course, Harvey Vale is definitely an option that Stephan should be looking at in this area of the park.

We were never going to sign Ronnie Edwards on a permanent, nor were we going to replace him. I can’t imagine him being at Southampton for too long, he is the best loan signing I’ve seen at Loftus Road in my lifetime. However we have managed to make a defensive signing in Mbuenge, and he looks to have settled in – I think a big proportion of us would like to see a partnership of him and Liam Morrison.

We know the importance of Steve Cook and Jake Clarke-Salter, but their fitness is, as usual, up in the air. If rumours are true then we will be letting Paul Nardi go, which would be a shame for me, as I am of the view that he is a key reason that we are still playing Championship football, and based on pre-season, no one could blame you for raising questions about Joe Walsh’s ability to fill his gloves.

An area that does concern me the most, is our full-backs. After letting Kenneth Paal go, its currently between 18 year old Esquerdinha and Ziyad Larkeche as to who starts at left back, and, whilst I’ve heard a lot of positives about Esquerdinha, it could be a risky move if we put faith entirely in those two options.

At right back, you could argue we are stronger – I’ve said all I’m able to say about Kealey Adamson, and there is always this part of me that fears that Jimmy Dunne’s spell as the Irish Cafu will come to an end and he will start getting exposed. So far though, he’s shown no signs of slipping up, and being given the arm band would have only filled him with more confidence. 

Pre-season so far has been mostly positive, and the lads have managed to restore the excitement for the season that they temporarily squashed in one blip of a friendly. The important things are that the new signings look promising, the team showed a bit of togetherness to redeem themselves after disappointment, and we look to be forming a squad that is definitely capable of causing some surprises this season, but it’s QPR, so we can only wait and see.

Tune in after our next round of pre-season fixtures back in the UK, where maybe we will have more signings to discuss, and morale will either be on a high or back in crisis mode after hosting some team from Hounslow at Loftus Road.