Automatic promotion contenders
If England’s top flight is a poorer place without Leeds, the Championship can only be enhanced by the presence of Daniel Farke’s often thrillingly attacking team and their partisan fans. After losing the playoff final against Southampton last season, Leeds are on a mission to secure automatic promotion and, despite losing their gifted young midfielder/right-back Archie Gray to Tottenham and the Netherlands Under-21 winger Crysencio Summerville to West Ham, they look in decent shape to fulfil that aim. Hopes are high that the USA attacking midfielder Brenden Aaronson, back after a season on loan in the Bundesliga at Union Berlin, will shine.
Burnley have lost their manager Vincent Kompany to Bayern Munich but with Scott Parker at the helm they should be well placed to return to the Premier League at the first attempt. If Parker’s experience of winning promotion from the second tier with Bournemouth and Fulham can only help, the signing of the Belgium winger Mike Trésor and the France Under-21 defender Maxime Estève after successful loans last season suggest those parachute payments are being invested sensibly.
Middlesbrough have produced two recent England managers in Steve McClaren and Gareth Southgate and it would not be that big a surprise were Michael Carrick to follow in that pair’s footsteps. The former England midfielder signed a new long-term contract this summer and, despite the loss of his highly regarded first-team coach Aaron Danks to Bayern Munich, there is a quiet belief the top two is reachable for a young side who finished last season strongly, ending eighth.
Much may hinge on the striker Emmanuel Latte Lath staying fit but – in Seny Dieng, Rav van den Berg, Hayden Hackney and Isaiah Jones – Boro boast talent in important positions.
No one who watched Luton in Premier League action last season will underestimate Rob Edwards’s resilient and streetwise side but their hopes of automatic promotion may be hampered by the string‑pulling midfielder Ross Barkley’s move to Aston Villa.
Playoff hopefuls
Liam Rosenior paid a rather harsh price for Hull’s narrow failure to make the top six last season so now it is over to Tim Walter to satisfy the ambitions of the club’s owner, Acun Ilicali. Walter’s task is complicated by the loss of the winger Jaden Philogene to Aston Villa, who could take some replacing.
Sunderland routinely attract crowds of more than 40,000 to the Stadium of Light where their new French coach, Régis Le Bris, will be expected to transform a talented but young squad into promotion challengers while getting the best out of Jobe Bellingham (Jude’s younger brother), Jack Clarke and Dan Neil.
The US businessman Shilen Patel’s takeover of West Brom last February was expected to preface promotion sooner or later and with Carlos Corberán as manager the losing playoff semi‑finalists of last season should be back in the hunt for a top-six finish. A possible hitch could be the EFL restrictions on transfer activity as the club struggles to meet profit and sustainability rules.
Norwich, too, fell in the semi‑finals but appear a bit of an unknown quantity after replacing David Wagner with the 35-year-old Dane Johannes Hoff Thorup, while Mark Robins’s Coventry should not be discounted.
Chris Wilder has a highly impressive pedigree as a serial EFL promotion-winner but he is embarking on a major rebuild at the relegated Sheffield United and an immediate top tier return may be beyond the Blades.
Relegation candidates
All eyes will be on Plymouth, where Wayne Rooney begins his latest managerial adventure. Oxford, Cardiff and Portsmouth could struggle, too.
Three young players to watch
Rav van den Berg Middlesbrough, 20
In May, the accomplished 6ft 3in defender won Middlesbrough’s awards for player of the season and young player of the season. Given that he turned 20 in July that represented quite some achievement in his maiden campaign after arriving from PEC Zwolle. The Netherlands Under‑21 international can operate across the backline with technical assurance, passing out swiftly and purposefully, but is most usually seen at right-back or in his preferred central defensive role. Milan, Roma, Borussia Dortmund and Tottenham are among the clubs tracking a player sufficiently mature to have occasionally worn the captain’s armband.
Oliver Arblaster, Sheffield United, 20
The England Under-20 midfielder has already captained his side. His composed performances during a handful of central midfield outings in the Premier League last spring offered Blades fans rare cause for optimism as their club hurtled towards relegation. All vision, technique and tenacity, Arblaster spent the first part of that campaign on loan at Port Vale but was recalled in January and Wilder is expected to reconstruct his side around a precocious talent with an eye for goal.
Mateo Joseph, Leeds, 20
The forward has impressed in pre-season and seems set to show why he is a Spain Under-21 international after representing England at under-20 level. Given that his father is English and a cousin of Emile Heskey, Joseph has been involved in something of an international tug-of-war, but the pull of his mother’s country – he was born and brought up in Santander, in northern Spain – won the day. Strong and technically proficient, the former Espanyol player, sometimes likened to a young Sergio Agüero, has been at Leeds for two years and appears ready to graduate from promising substitute cameos to a central starting role.
