Championship Fixtures 7th August 2010 Part 1

Bristol City v Millwall
Bristol City really need to get that promotion sorted this year. Millwall are back in the Championship and their first task is to score past the England goalkeeper.
Bristol City will be without most, if not all of their Welsh contingent. Lewin Nyatanga (knee), Christian Ribeiro (back) and James Wilson (groin) are all missing. Gavin Williams is fine as far as I know so let’s hope his new manager Steve Coppell likes him more than the old one did.

Burnley v Nottingham Forest
Burnley are back in the Championship and unlike Portsmouth and Hull City, they actually have a bit of money. So great things are expected of Burnley – but Nottingham Forest, who finished third in the Championship last season, are pretty good themselves.
Chris Gunter will probably start for Forest after being named as the Championship’s best right back last season. Robert Earnshaw says he’s in pain but luckily (kind of) it’s the play-off defeat that hurts, rather than part of his body.

Coventry City v Portsmouth
Coventry would probably quite like to mount a promotion challenge this season. Portsmouth probably just want to stay alive.
I think Freddy Eastwood should start for Coventry but it’s not up to me.

Crystal Palace v Leicester
Crystal Palace only just squeaked over the finishing line last season whereas Leicester, predicted to struggle, ended up in the play-offs. So they’re very lucky to be playing each other this season at all.
Andy Dorman hoped a move to a Premier League club would improve his chances of playing for Wales. So he signed for Crystal Palace and was omitted from the squad for pretty much the first time since he became eligible for Wales. I hope he gets a nice big hat-trick against Leicester.
Goalkeeper Lewis Price is likely to be on the bench for Palace but not for the whole season if he has any say in it.
Andy King will almost certainly keep his place in Leicester’s midfield after a great 2009-10 season. Nicky Adams got his own way about not going to Brentford but getting to play in this match is a very different matter.