Championship 2018-19 season preview: Stoke favourites but Frank Lampard and Marcelo Bielsa are curious unknowns

The Championship is always difficult to predict, but where do you start with the 2018-19 season? Frank Lampard at Derby County is a leap into the unknown; Graham Potter at Swansea City could be hit or miss; Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds United sounds like fantasy; Nottingham Forest have splurged on Portuguese talent, but can they repeat Wolves’ success?

Perhaps the best place to start is at the top with something we do know: Stoke City are primed for a title bid. The club acted quickly after relegation from the Premier League by replacing the often frantic Paul Lambert, a tracksuit coach with rolled-up sleeves, with the far more measured Gary Rowett, who prefers jumpers over shirts like a handsome geography teacher – and the former Derby and Birmingham manager has never had a better chance to reach the top flight.

Stoke’s squad remains packed with talent at this level, despite the inevitable departure of Xherdan Shaqiri, with Joe Allen, Ryan Shawcross, Badou Ndiaye and Bruno Martins Indi all set to stay while they are desperately fending off interest in Jack Butland, who would be the best goalkeeper in the division should they keep him. Add in the signings of Tom Ince (£11m), Benik Afobe (£13.5m) and James McClean (£5.6m) and it is hard to look beyond Stoke as the team to beat.

There are a cluster of teams who could manage it, though. Some are more predictable than others, like Middlesbrough, who have the wisdom of Tony Pulis, the firepower of Britt Assombalonga, while in Aden Flint they have signed a defensive leader who will also score goals. West Brom have let a few senior players head out the door since relegation but Darren Moore brought a much-needed steadiness as they came down, and in Kyle Bartley he has a reliable centre-half to replace the departed Jonny Evans.

Then come the great unpredictables. Lampard has worked under Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafa Benitez, while his uncle is Harry Redknapp. With such an array influences, what sort of manager will he be? The early indications are that he favours a 4-3-3, the system in which he thrived under early-era Mourinho, while the loan of Chelsea’s wonderfully talented Mason Mount will give him a personal project on the training ground, but only time will tell whether he sinks or swims at Derby.

If appointing Lampard was bold, bringing in Bielsa was wildly audacious. Leeds could morph into the best footballing side in the league, absorbing the great Bielsa’s philosophies of pressing and passing patterns; they could also be left in the lurch a few weeks into the season, the 63-year-old packing up in the night and leaving on a whim. If it starts badly, it won’t end well.

Nottingham Forest have invested around £25m in several new players, including Benfica’s Joao Carvalho, Bournemouth’s Lewis Grabban who scored 20 last season on loan in the Championship, and the giant goalkeeper Costel Pantilimon. Aitor Karanka has experience getting promoted to the Premier League and will be a threat again – if he can identify his strongest XI from a heaving squad.

Almost any other side in the division could be a play-off contender given a fair wind, but well-run clubs like Brentford, Preston and Bristol City are more likely than most. The understated Chris Wilder continues to build at Sheffield United, while Aston Villa have been something of a crisis club off the pitch in recent months but have one of the best midfielders in the league in Jack Grealish, and Steve Bruce is desperate to keep him.

Swansea seem the most vulnerable of the three relegated sides, and Sunderland and Hull showed last season how hard it is to stop once you start to slide; Potter’s first job is to stabilise. Millwall will hope to overachieve again under the excellent stewardship of Neil Harris and a play-off finish is not beyond the realms.

As ever, trips to East Anglia won’t be easy. Daniel Farke is another year wiser at Norwich, although the £30m recouped from the sales of James Maddison and Josh Murphy have yet to be reinvested in the squad; Ipswich have appointed one of the brightest managers in the Football League in Paul Hurst, who worked wonders at Shrewsbury, a positive move in the post-McCarthy era.

Blackburn and Wigan come up with enough to steer clear of trouble, but Rotherham’s weaker squad might find a return to League One harder to avoid. They will hope to finish above some of last season’s Championship strugglers: Bolton scrambled to safety on the final day, Reading finished 20th and have barely strengthened, while there is little to suggest Hull and Birmingham will not be sucked in once more.

But then this is the Championship, a difficult league to get out of and an even harder one to predict. Stoke might hold the strongest squad, but they face a stack of unknown quantities with the potential to spring a surprise.