For football fans up and down the country, the next few hours are going to be hell on earth. A day away from a fresh season full of new signings, shiny kits and a whole lot of optimism.

We’ve used our expert knowledge of all things football to come up with some *very* reliable predictions for the 2019/20 EFL Championship campaign. 

Let’s kick off with the good news first…

Promotion

Leeds United, Stoke City

Play-off Winner: Fulham

Three familiar faces here – no surprises really when you look at all three squads. Littered with strength, depth, quality and experience. Despite Leeds United challenging for the title of Biggest Bottlers last season, I really can’t see the same thing happening. So, come May we’ll be crowning Leeds United the champions with Stoke City not too far behind them.

I’m not going to try and predict all of the play-off teams because I’m not a genius (SPOILER: I am) but also because who has the time? The only thing that we need to know is that Fulham will win it and therefore be back in the big time once again.

Now for the bad news.

Relegation

Reading, Charlton, Millwall

All teams that struggled last season – Charlton aside, and with off-the-field antics disrupting several pre seasons I think it’s going to be a campaign to forget for each of these clubs. Reading narrowly avoided the drop last season but I don’t think they’ll be so lucky this time. Looking at the rest of the clubs in the Championship, you’d struggle to find many more clubs with weaker squads.

As for Charlton, it’s a big step up and I think they may struggle.

Despite all of these predictions being highly reliable and trustworthy, there really isn’t any need to keep tabs on them. Let’s just say it’s a bit of fun, unless it all happens in which case I would like a knighthood… or at least an MBE.

James Ryan

Twitter: @JHR_1995