Sky Bet Championship preview 2013-14

The football season is back and so is Behind The Goal. Thank you for your support last season and I hope you will continue to enjoy the blog, and discuss the season's talking points with me, Adam Gray.

The season kicks off this weekend with the Sky Bet Football League. The oldest league in the world is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, and it continues to provide exciting and unpredictable football in all its three divisions. It's so unpredictable in fact, that my prediction of the final table of this season's Championship will probably prove to be far more wrong than right, but the fun's in trying, isn't it?

As obvious as it sounds, the three teams relegated from the Premier League look in pole position to bounce straight back, providing they can hold on to their bigger names. Of the three, Reading look the least likely to suffer the culture shock of relegation; they won this division two seasons ago with a near-identical squad. Queens Park Rangers may still have to offload the big earners and big time Charlies which did so badly for them last year, but those that will remain, plus the signing of Burnley's Charlie Austin, will give the Rs a great chance of success. Wigan's main stumbling block may be how they cope with the demands that the Europa League campaign will place on their side, particularly if they manage to progress to the knockout stages after Christmas. Aside from that, they have a team full of youngsters with points to prove, and in Grant Holt, a proven goalscorer at all levels.

The race for the play-offs will probably be contested at some point by every club in the league, but ultimately I think it will be the same suspects as last season that compete at the business end. As a Nottingham Forest fan, I am excited by the prospect of a genuine promotion challenge after finishing 8th last term in what was a turbulent campaign on and off the pitch. I think anything less than a play-off place will be a failure given the investment the playing squad has had, but I don't think we're quite ready to challenge for the title, although I would love to be proved wrong.

Yeovil Town stunned the nation in winning promotion from League One via the play-offs, but the Championship may prove to be a step too far for Gary Johnson's side. They were relegation candidates a year ago, so there cannot be many who think they will stay afloat at a higher level. Bournemouth, who until the last minute of last season were set to be League One champions until Doncaster snatched the title in incredible circumstances at Brentford's Griffin Park, should have enough about them to stay up, as should Rovers themselves. The possibilty of seeing One Direction's Louis Tomlinson turn out in the red and white stripes may even put a few new fans through the gate at the Keepmoat! I have tipped two other Yorkshire sides for the drop, Barnsley and Huddersfield Town.

Behind The Goal's final table prediction:

1. Reading
2. Queens Park Rangers
3. Bolton Wanderers
4. Wigan Athletic
5. Nottingham Forest
6. Watford
7.  Leicester City
8.  Brighton and Hove Albion
9.  Ipswich Town
10.  Leeds United
11.  Birmingham City
12.  Derby County
13.  Middlesbrough
14.  Blackburn Rovers
15.  Blackpool
16.  Charlton Athletic
17.  AFC Bournemouth
18.  Burnley
19.  Doncaster Rovers
20.  Millwall
21.  Sheffield Wednesday
22.  Barnsley
23.  Huddersfield Town
24. Yeovil Town

What do you think? Where will your team finish? Have I done your boys a disservice? Send me a message or Tweet me @adamgray50

Capital One Raises Interest

The Capital One Cup has never been my favourite competition. It's a trophy to win and has a Wembley final yes, but in all honesty the best thing about it for fans of most clubs is when they're knocked out and they can save themselves for the league. Most teams will get nowhere near winning it, so managers can be forgiven for wondering what the point of trying is. I understand that football is a squad game and that players need to be rested, but at the same time I don't want to watch a reserve team competition. There has been the problem. It wouldn't have bothered me if the Football League scrapped it before this season, and I certainly didn't lose too much sleep when my club, Nottingham Forest, were knocked out in the 2nd round by Wigan Athletic.

How refreshing then, to see two teams scrap it out last night in one of the most remarkable games of football I have ever seen. In a brilliant advert for the League Cup with a 7-5 scoreline, Arsenal and Reading both deserve real praise for producing 120 minutes of pulsating viewing if not incredible quality at the Madejski Stadium. Yes, there may have been 20 changes from the starting XIs from the previous weekend, but despite neither team at full strength, we saw two teams who breathed new life into a tournament which is carving out a niche as the place to see attractive football played by the stars of tomorrow and turning its previous negative image into a positive selling point.

For the record, Reading led 4-0 after an abysmal defensive display from Arsenal for the goals, yet somehow I and many others felt that if the visitors could claw one back before half time, the game would still be on. We were right. In fact many Tweeted their delight at making a few quid off the bookies, who at that point had given up on Arsene Wenger's young Gunners. Theo Walcott set the ball rolling, before second half goals from Olivier Giroud, Laurent Koscielny and an added-time leveller from Walcott brought them back from the dead. Marouane Chamakh put Arsenal in front in extra time, before astonishingly Reading picked themselves off the floor to equalise again with five minutes left. Penalties then? Don't be stupid, there was still time for Chamakh and Walcott to net again to make it 7-5. Reading had just become the first team to ever score five goals and still lose an English Cup game.

Arsene Wenger may have stated that the Capital One Cup is fifth on Arsenal's list of priorities this season - he rates a top-four finish higher despite not winning a trophy since 2005 - and in all honesty, it is still probably fifth on a lot of the fans' list, but for a mad night down the M4, it meant everything. The same goes for the 5,000 Bradford fans at Wigan, who incredibly saw their League Two side reach the quarter-finals after a penalty shoot-out. I still won't pretend this cup means the world, even as a fan of a club with four of them in the cabinet, but we have made up and I am prepared to give it another chance.

Barclays Premier League predictions

On the eve of a new season, I usually predict who will win the Barclays Premier League, and who I think will be relegated, but this season I thought I would have a go at predicting the whole table. I may have just made myself look very silly,and I may have just upset more readers than I please, but hopefully I'll get more right than wrong. Be sure to check back here next May.

I spent almost the entire summer thinking Manchester City would retain their crown, but that was until their neighbours from Old Trafford swooped to sign Arsenal's Robin van Persie. He and Wayne Rooney represents a formidable strike partnership that could rival any that this great league has ever seen.

At the bottom, I think Swansea would have struggled anyway to match the exploits of last season, and that's before they lost Gylfi Sigurdsson, Joe Allen, possibly Scott Sinclair, and of course Brendan Rodgers, who left the Liberty Stadium to take charge at Liverpool. As for Southampton and Reading, I'm just not sure they have got strong enough squads, simple as that.

Let me know what you think.

1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. Chelsea
4. Arsenal
5. Tottenham Hotspur
6. Liverpool
7. Everton
8. Newcastle United
9. Fulham
10. Aston Villa
11. Sunderland
12. West Bromwich Albion
13. Queens Park Rangers
14. West Ham United
15. Wigan Athletic
16. Norwich City
17. Stoke City
18. Swansea City
19. Southampton
20. Reading