The new season

[SLAMMED]

Sheff Utd are going to be thereabouts

[NR_Royal]

We can do it in this format:

Top performers: Middlesbrough, Forest

Challengers: Reading, Cardiff, Burnley, Leeds

Underperformers: QPR, Sheff Utd

Relegation: Watford, Scunthorpe, Derby

Reading: Playoff challengers

LOL at me saying Boro would win it.
LOL at me saying QPR would underperform.

However, I've done fairly well otherwise, with Forest, Reading and Cardiff challenging for promotion.

[SLAMMED]

Interesting that quite a lot of people expected Middlesbrough to do well.

[RG30]

Next season will be another interesting one for Boro. They need to trim the wage bill down to around £10million which will mean offloading plenty of high earners, but Mowbray has got them playing football again and they have taken to his methods, and slowly the feel-good factor is coming back to them.

Quite surprising really (and whether it's been done before I don't know) but none of the relegated 3 finished in any of the top 6. Given they aided by huge parachute payments it's quite remarkable, but certainly Burnley and Hull in particular have enough quality to threaten next season. Even the two promoted sides from League 1 will be really strong and the competition will get harder and harder.

[under the tin]

Next season will be another interesting one for Boro. They need to trim the wage bill down to around £10million which will mean offloading plenty of high earners, but Mowbray has got them playing football again and they have taken to his methods, and slowly the feel-good factor is coming back to them.

Quite surprising really (and whether it's been done before I don't know) but none of the relegated 3 finished in any of the top 6. Given they aided by huge parachute payments it's quite remarkable, but certainly Burnley and Hull in particular have enough quality to threaten next season. Even the two promoted sides from League 1 will be really strong and the competition will get harder and harder.

TBF, Pompey were a shambles going into this season, and I'm expecting a bit of a clear out down there over the summer.
I can foresee Hull and Burnley becoming like Coventry, mid-table fodder.
I think that the sides likely to drop out of the Prem definitely being in contention; they have strong squads, and now parachute payments spread over a longer time. Obviously, their more ambitious star players might get itchy feet (SHunt helping to take QPR down next season ),but I can't see a mass exodus, particularly after the Essex national side is predictably installed by the bookies as favourites for the title.
The promoted L1 sides will have momentum. The biggest club in Britain has a shiny new stadium, and I expect them, and that red and white striped hampshire abomination to go through the league like a dose of salts.
Surprise package? I've got a feeling that Jewell will turn things around at Ipswich.

[Wycombe Royal]

and the competition will get harder and harder.

People say things like that every year and it rarely materialises. In fact a few months in people then start saying things like "the league is really weak this year".....

So stop the tired old cliches.......