League One
People will say 'boring, boring' but I fully believe that Nottingham Forest, under Colin Calderwood, will be the team to beat in League One this season. Calderwood got it right last season but it went wrong for him in the Play-Off semi-final against Yeovil.
Wise: Tough task
He can sit back and see that now, but he isn't making any excuses for losing Nathan Tyson and Grant Holt at key times and they are still missing for the start of this season. Hopefully he'll have them back fit as soon as possible. Forest have done well to keep hold of their top players including Kris Commons for another season. What with the character and the professionalism of the club, they will play a neat passing game as they have done traditionally. Their squad is a little on the short side but I don't think you can look past them for the title.
As for my old club Leeds United, well they have an impossible task. The 15 point deduction makes it an up-hill task for them to get back into the Championship. I don't fully understand the reason why they didn't follow the Football League rules properly when they went into administration and it has been a shocking state of affairs.
There will be other challengers though. Doncaster have signed James Hayter from Bournemouth and I think that will be a great signing. He scored a lot of goals for Bournemouth. It will be interesting to see how Millwall go under Willie Donachie, he did a great job at the end of last season so they could be in the mix.
Oldham will cause a stir when Lee Hughes comes back into football following his time in prison. There will be a lot of publicity and hysteria surrounding his return when he gets back in October and if Oldham are there or thereabouts it will be interesting to see if that hinders them or gels the squad together.
To give Hughes an opportunity after so long away from the game is a huge gamble for John Sheridan. But Hughes has served his punishment so why not allow him the chance to get back to scoring goals?
My old team Luton have made a brilliant signing in Paul Peschisolido. When you consider that in the Championship play-off final last season Billy Davies put him in the Derby starting line-up ahead of Giles Barnes you can see he is still a decent player. The Hatters have a real good signing there and I am hoping they will have a good time of it under Kevin Blackwell.
Can Southend replace Freddy Eastwood? We will have to wait and see about that. Then you have Yeovil - who may count themselves unlucky that they are still in this division. Unfortunately they gave everything in the play-off semi-final against Nottingham Forest and had nothing left for the final against Blackpool.
Roberto Martinez at Swansea has signed a very good player in Jason Scotland, a Trinidad & Tobago international striker who has been brought in to replace Lee Trundle after the box of tricks was sold to Bristol City for £1million. If Scotland is a success straight away then Swansea will be up there as well.
As for my old club Leeds United, well they have an impossible task. The 15 point deduction makes it an uphill task for them to get back into the Championship. I don't fully understand the reason why they didn't follow the Football League rules properly when they went into administration and it has been a shocking state of affairs.
The league have set out rules to make it the same for every team and Leeds cannot ignore those rules and then expect not to have further punishment taken against them. Having said that, 15 points seems a bit severe, but it has set a precedent now for any other club that now goes into administration and doesn't follow the rulebook. It's just a shame that Leeds are the first club to be punished in that way.
League Two
The bookies favour Peterborough to win League Two and so do I. That's partly down to the Darren Ferguson factor to a certain extent, but I just look at the players that were signed just before Darren arrived - George Boyd, Aaron McLean and Craig Mackail-Smith - and they are very good players.
I know through keeping my ear to the ground that they were very, very good non-league players. I speak to people like John Still about the players to look out for below the Football League. Boyd, McLean and Mackail-Smith are Championship material.
Darren Ferguson will no doubt reap the benefit of his dad's experience and Sir Alex may even help him out with one or two good youngsters to see him on his way.
I expect Wycombe to run Peterborough close, along with the MK Dons. They will improve on last season's showing if they learn to stop conceding late goals. They let in so many in the last few minutes last season that they could have gone up automatically if they had managed to keep them out. That lack of concentration you wouldn't have associated with a Martin Allen team but it happened. Paul Ince will be looking to address that this season.
Jim Gannon has done a good job at Stockport and he will be hoping that they can improve as will Darlington under Dave Penney, who is a good manager, and I fancy them to have a good season.
This is a tight division and one that I am looking forward to watching as the season progresses.
Morecombe will find it tough coming from non-league but I think they'll do okay. Sammy McIlroy did a wonderful job to get them into the Football League in the first place. Last season it was surprising not to see Accrington Stanley and Hereford in the play-offs because every team that has come up from the Conference has managed that of late.
I see Dagenham & Redbridge making a huge charge this year. John Still loves that football club and he knows the non-league circuit better than most. He knows which players are more than good enough to play league football.
You're talking about a lot of players who can earn more playing part-time and having a full-time job and he has a job trying to persuade those players to turn professional. He has unearthed some great players and I fully expect Dagenham & Redbridge to do well this year.
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