Championship Title Tip: Derby County

Conventional wisdom always places the teams relegated from the Premier League among the favourites for the Championship title the following season. That means Cardiff, Fulham and Norwich are all fancied in 2014-15 but recent history suggests we should look elsewhere for our selection.

What we can see is that only one of the last seven winners of the second tier was a team fresh from the Premier League. Furthermore, that side was Newcastle, by far the biggest outfit to play at this level in recent times. None of the current crop of relegated sides share the Toon’s stature.

What we can also see is that most teams who triumph in the Championship suffered the agony of play-off defeat before bouncing back to achieve glory the following campaign. The notion that the heartache is too much to recover from is just a myth.

The trends essentially make sense because it’s hard to adapt to a new division, particularly after the upheaval which comes with relegation. It’s also difficult for a team accustomed to losing to become a group of winners overnight. On the other hand, the likes of Leicester, Cardiff and Reading had all won plenty of matches before taking the next step up.

This leads us nicely to our tip for the 2014-15 Championship title - Derby County. Steve McClaren’s boys were narrowly denied at Wembley by QPR but all the signs are that they shouldn’t require the so-called lottery of the play-offs this time around.

If the 2013-14 season had begun on October 1st, instead of in August, the Rams would now be in the top flight instead of Burnley. Over the final 37 matches of the campaign, only Leicester accrued more points.

Furthermore, you need to plunder a lot of goals to win the Championship and Derby scored more than anybody else (84) last term - including the sides promoted automatically. Chris Martin bagged 22 for himself while Craig Bryson contributed 16; the latter has just signed a new contract and the squad has crucially remained settled.

The Rams finished last season as the form team and history suggests they are perfectly equipped to storm their way to the title by May 2015. Derby are a best price of 8/1 (WilliamHill) to win the league and that could look long very quickly.