NORWICH, Watford and Middlesbrough will battle it out for the Championship title with Burnley well off the pace, a supercomputer has predicted.
And it will be a solid first season back in the second tier for Sunderland.
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However, crisis club Birmingham could be staring down the barrel of relegation come May.
The OLBG number-crunching machine has Norwich as the favourites to win the league for the third time out of five at 5/1 with Watford 13/2 and Middlesbrough 8/1.
The Canaries and Hornets were both relegated from the Premier League last season following promotion the year before.
Vincent Kompany has a huge task on his hands trying to guide Burnley back into the top flight.
The Clarets have lost key players Nick Pope, Ben Mee, James Tarkowski and Dwight McNeil – plus Maxwel Cornet is attracting plenty of interest.
And the bookmakers have Burnley down to finish sixth, snatching the final play-off spot with West Brom and Sheffield United as Swansea and Luton just miss out.
Millwall, Coventry, Blackburn and Hull look set for drama-free mid-table finishes, with the first three of those all 5/6 to end the campaign in the top ten.
But as always with the Championship, any number of teams could be in the mix to go down – with the bottom three demoted to League One.
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Perennial yo-yo side Rotherham are favourites to go down at 6/4 and therefore tipped to finish 24th with Birmingham and Reading (both 13/8) joining the Millers.
That means the likes of Bristol City, Blackpool, Wigan and Preston will survive.
Huddersfield, who lost last season’s play-off final to Nottingham Forest, are predicted to come 17th and are 6/1 to go down.
That is just behind Sunderland, winners at Wembley in the League One showdown, in 16th at 7/1, with Stoke, QPR and Cardiff filling the spots from 13th to 15th.
The new Championship season gets underway tomorrow night with Huddersfield hosting Burnley before heavyweight ties Middlesbrough vs West Brom and Watford vs Sheffield United later in the weekend.
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