Championship preview: Birmingham City are legit, Swansea City could surprise, and one USMNT talent to watch

The Championship returns on Friday night, a potential top-of-the-table clash between Birmingham City and Ipswich Town a fitting curtain raiser for what promises to be 10 months of thrilling drama across CBS Sports and the Golazo Network. It is a league that rarely disappoints on the drama stakes, one where storylines you might never have imagined are a weekly occurrence.

After all, the English Football League is perhaps the only competition that can combine Tinseltown luster with a former coal mining town on the Welsh border. It is where a superstar like Viktor Gyokeres can get his first shot at the big time next to the sort of veterans you could happily spend hours reminiscing on. It is that Troy Deeney goal.

You can watch EFL action all season long on Paramount+.

This season is sure to provide such storylines in abundance. Here's some of the ones we'll be looking out for:

For all the excitement around the Championship, there is one cause for existential fear at this particular pivot point in English football. What if there is a particular group of around a dozen teams locked into a yo-yoing cycle, not good enough for the Premier League but too strong (and wealthy, thanks to parachute payments) to do anything but blitz the field in the second tier? Three of the top four from the 2023-24 Championship are back in the division, and it is a fair bet that at least two of them won't be around too long before they swap places with Burnley and Sunderland.

Southampton might have been a laughing stock in the Premier League, but their squad is replete with players who look far too good for the level they find themselves at now. Some, most notably Mateus Fernandes and Tyler Dibbling, will probably leave by month's end, but the likes of Ben Brereton-Diaz, Adam Armstrong and Taylor Harwood-Bellis should coast through the division. The Saints have also managed to attract what could be potentially elite talent to their dugout with Will Still lured away after three successful seasons managing in Ligue 1. His front-footed, attack-and-defend-as-one style seems a perfect fit for the Championship.

It is not only Southampton who are shopping at the high-end stores. Ipswich Town have added Azor Matusiwa and Jens Cajuste to the squad of Kieran McKenna, another coach whose name has been up in the spotlights over recent years. That is two new additions who played over a thousand minutes in one of Europe's top five leagues last season, the latter for Italian champions Napoli.

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Arguably though it is Leicester that are the best suited to the Championship. Oliver Skipp, Stephy Mavididi and James Justin: these are not players who need to fear a wet Wednesday night in Stoke. It is only the likelihood of a points deduction for financial rules breaches that takes them out of the realms of promotion favorites. Even then, it is worth bearing in mind that the core of this side finished 27 points clear of seventh in the 2023-24 season. They might be able to afford all but the harshest of sanctions.

Can anyone hope to match the Premier League rejects? Frank Lampard's Coventry City ended last season as one of the division's form teams, so far this summer their most significant move has seen Kaine Kesler-Hayden come in to mitigate for the possible departure of Milan Van Ewijk to a top-five league. They look ready to go. It may, however, be another team from the Midlands who captures the imagination.

Birmingham City do not want for ambition. Their response to missing out on Chuba Akpom, bound for Ipswich? Sign German international Marvin Ducksch, a man with 55 Bundesliga goal involvements over the last three seasons. Tommy Doyle was one of the best players in the Championship in 2022-23 while Premier League title winner Demarai Gray is back where it began a decade later. All that added to a side that pulverized records in League One? That is an outfit to be taken seriously.

As Tom Brady sprinkles stardust on St. Andrews, other clubs find themselves brought into the orbit of Hollywood. No, no, this isn't the Wrexham bit. They're so big time they'll get their own season preview, much to the chagrin of this particular man of Shrewsbury Town stock. Head 130 miles south from the Championship's newest club and you'll find Swansea City, the club of Leon Britton, Michu and the man himself, Snoop Dogg. His other fellow investor, Luka Modric, seems a more natural fit with a team whose identity was based on possession, but apparently Joe's ice cream really spoke to Snoop.

"To have Snoop and Luka on board is a massive benefit," said Swansea boss Alan Sheehan. "There is a buzz, obviously. As a football club, you have to become more appealing commercially, to be more competitive, and appeal to the wider nation.

"Rome wasn't built in a day, but there are big plans for the football club. It's about building strong foundations and building that character and resilience within the football club."

There would be nothing more appealing than a tilt at the Premier League in South Wales. Don't rule that out. Sheehan's appointment as caretaker in February led to an impressive ending to the season, five wins from their last seven, meaning they ended the campaign on the fringes of the playoff picture. Since then, they have put the investments of Modric and Snoop to good use, strengthening their defense with Cameron Burgess and Ricardo Santos. "Northern Ireland's Xavi", AKA Ethan Galbraith, is a talent that could shine in the second tier. Sheehan wants more additions and cooled what has been ceaseless talk over Wycombe Wanderers' talented Richard Kone.

With the squad on the pitch seemingly ripe for improvement, the next episode of Swansea City looks to be exciting indeed. After all, now Snoop is on their side, they're steppin' with a G from Los Angeles.

The above is probably not a phrase you'd associate with the men from Bermondsey. Millwall are probably not going to attract Hollywood royalty, but they have found ways of building a playoff contender that are not contingent on a 10-part streaming series. Under director of football Steve Gallen, the Lions have sold well and reinvested that money shrewdly, first of all in cashing in on Romain Esse, who joined Crystal Palace for £14.5 million in January. Six months later, Zian Flemming's £7 million move to Burnley was confirmed after a successful loan spell, Millwall themselves having brought him to England from the Eredivisie.

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Flemming is far from the last hit to come from abroad to The Den, for so long a ground you would associate with journeymen center forwards who might not score many but who would prove to be an almighty nuisance for opposition defenders. Mihailo Ivanovic is certainly the latter, but by the end of the season, he was beginning to develop into a prodigious goal scorer too, six of his 12 Championship goals coming from April onwards. The 20-year-old is a striker in the traditions of Millwall, a strong target man who can dominate the penalty area, but just the sort who might get his club three or four times the £2.8 million they paid for him.

In boyhood fan Alfie Doughty, barely a year removed from causing Premier League defenses difficulties aplenty with his crossing, Millwall are adding a player who feels very in keeping with their footballing identity. Alex Neil seems to get that too, adding a touch of possession play to a side that is still going to be about winning its duels and hitting crosses into the box.

There is no shortage of U.S. interest in the second tier this season, even if it still seems unlikely that Josh Sargent will follow up on his player of the season campaign at Norwich City. Haji Wright can expect to play a big role at Coventry, but if there is an American striker to keep an eye on next season, it is surely Patrick Agyemang. Once of Charlotte FC, he is at a Derby County team who only need to add more goals to establish themselves as an upper-half outfit.

There will be competition for places given that Rhian Brewster has also arrived, but John Eustace, one of the second tier's best managers, speaks highly of his new signing. Given that he has set them back £7.3 million too, the most Derby have spent since exiting administration in 2022, he will clearly have the chance to make a big impact.

"He is at an age where if he comes over and trains in this environment, works with the coaches and works with good players like Carlton Morris [another new signing] and players like that, he will improve and get better," Eustace said this summer. "There will be no rush for him to come in and score goals straight away. The club has invested a good bit of money on him, and it's important that in the next two or three seasons we really see him turn into a top striker at this level.

"He is quick, strong and powerful. With some good work into him, I think he can be a real threat at this level. He is a really good asset to the club, and I feel we can develop him and turn him into a Premier League striker."

For all that the 2025-26 Championship might offer plenty for the neutral to enjoy, there is an understandable fear that its biggest story might be its most dispiriting. Certainly, on the eve of the new season, much of the focus has been drawn to Sheffield Wednesday, who find themselves under a string of financial embargoes and unable to open the North Stand at Hillsborough due to concerns over its structural integrity.

Manager Danny Rohl quit last week, while players have been left waiting on wages on several occasions over the course of the season. A string of first teamers have departed from the squad that finished 12th last season, and at the time of writing, the club website listed just 16 players who new boss Henrik Pedersen could name for Sunday's trip to Leicester. Wage payments have been delayed in each of the last three months. The Sheffield Star reported that those who do make the trip will have to pay for their own hotel rooms for this and future away games.

Such is the disastrous state of affairs that Sheffield Wednesday have been plunged into under the stewardship of Dejphon Chansiri, who supporters have accused of "killing the club." The EFL said earlier this week that there are no restrictions on Wednesday starting the season and confirmed they are in "advanced discussions" with Chansiri's legal advisors over the Thai owner divesting himself of Wednesday, one of English football's grand old clubs.

In such circumstances, a points deduction seems inevitable. So too, it has to be assumed, will be relegation.

• Top two: Southampton, Ipswich Town
• Playoffs: Coventry City (promoted), Leicester City, Birmingham City, Millwall
• Relegated: Hull City, Oxford United, Sheffield Wednesday

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