The line-up is now complete, and although it’s more than six weeks from starting the odds for the 2011/12 Championship are now widely available.

Few surprises about the front-runners: West Ham are 11/2 favourites, having already seen a shortening of their price from 7/1 after some impressive-looking signings; loadsamoney Leicester (7/1) together with newly relegated Birmingham (9/1) form the three early favourites. Beaten play-off finalists Reading are on offer at 12/1, Middlesbrough’s impressive late form sees them in as short as 14/1, with perennial play-off failures Forest the same price.

That’s our top six, and it’s fairly predictable. Who else? Naturally, we look straight to City’s price, which is 25/1 – longer than the promoted pair of  Southampton (18/1) and Brighton (22/1). Leeds, the division’s biggest club, are a surprisingly lengthy 20/1, while poor old Doncaster are (as usual) favourites for relegation – though 125/1 is available if you think top spot is heading to that part of South Yorkshire.

With summer recruitment and releases yet to get underway, it’s a courageous punter who gets stuck in at this stage. It’s hard to know what to make of City’s price – for long periods of last season we looked like genuine play-off contenders, yet tailed off at the end to finish midtable. It’s probably about right. We’ll take a look at a few more City-centric prices later in the week.

So, two points from the play-offs, a side on the up and a reasonable run-in. Sounds good to us. However, City’s chances still aren’t rated by some: firstly Sky Sports, whose advert for the Championship run-in seems to omit the Tigers in favour of, well, just about everyone else for whom promotion isn’t a mathematical impossibility.

More ominously, the bookmaking fraternity still don’t see it happening. Of course, City are still outsiders. We need to overhaul two sides, make a gain of two points (effectively three, with goal difference) and hope Burnley  and Millwall don’t interfere. Then we need to win the play-offs, which’ll feature an unusually set of sides whoever makes it. Lots and lots to do, so maybe Victor Chandler’s quote of 16/1 against City going up is about right. Then again, Stan James offer just 10/1 – opinion seems a little split. Either way, it’s clearly a long-shot and we needn’t start planning for a return to the Premier League just yet.

If we assume that none of the top five are vulnerable to a late charge by the chasing pack, Leeds have the shortest price – between 6/1 and 8/1, and presumably owing more to incumbancy than current form. Forest are level on points with City and Burnley but can’t be found at more than 10/1 (various), an oddity given their recent problems. Burnley are 25/1 (SkyBet) even after their thumping win over Middlesbrough last night, probably the pick of the value.

Are the play-offs a lottery? Well no, not really – they’re actually games of football played with the same laws as usual, just a lot more pressure. But if you do consider luck to hold disproportionate sway here, what about the sides’ chances of just making the play-offs? Only Bet365 are pricing that, but they do offer 9/2 on the Tigers gatecrashing things. Leeds will be anxious at seeing an odds-against price offered them (6/4), while Forest – formerly automatic promotion candidates – are an unhealthy 11/5, and given their downwards trajectory even that feels short and the gap between their price and ours feels all wrong. Burnley and Millwall and 6/1 and 8/1 respectively.

All that’s really certain is that with so many sides chasing probably one space, some will probably stumble and fall this weekend. We’ll have a full preview nearer the time, but for now let’s try to be encouraged by the fact that City are 5/6 (various) to beat Middlesbrough on Saturday, a result we surely need to stay in the race…

City are in the top half of the Championship table for the first time since August, with only one defeat in 11 games and lie six points from the play-offs. Dare we begin to hope that Nigel Pearson isn’t supervising a season of consolidation and transition, but something rather more? Let’s see what the nation’s bookies make of our chances.

First things first. We’re now 11 points clear of the bottom three – at the risk of counting unhatched chickens, City aren’t gong down. Victor Chandler’s miserly 22/1 on the Tigers lining up in the third tier next season is very short.

Can we go up? Not as champions, obviously. 125/1 (Boylesports) is on offer if you think Championship silverware is heading to East Yorkshire, but we can forget about that. However, the parallels with 2007/8 are now being openly talked about. At the same stage of that unforgettable season we were 10th, three points from sixth. A slightly better position than now, but the similarities are obvious. Fancy it? City are 14/1 (ToteSport) for promotion via any method, or 10/3 (Coral) just to make the top six. They’re bets that’ll either look foolish or prescient in May, but finding out which it’ll be will be interesting in a season of increasing promise…

City’s first Yorkshire derby at the Circle this season brings Sheff Utd to Hull tomorrow evening, and with them the prospect of a tight match.

Derby games frequently are, of course. However, a quick examination of the Blades’ away from home this season lends further weight to this theory: just four goals against, but only three goals for. Given that City recently notched up a sixth successive clean sheet at home but have scored just four of their own, 8/1 (generally availabile) on a 0-0 draw is likely to find more than a few takers. Three of City’s five home games have finished this way, and although City looked a fairly potent attacking force in the second half against Leicester on Saturday, and may have the returning Jimmy Bullard to add firepower, another stalemate seems eminently possible.

However, if you fancy there being some limited scoring, -2.5 goals can be backed at 4/6 (William Hill). All of City’s home fixtures have finished that way; all of Sheff Utd’s away games have, too…

Well, isn’t this nice? A game between two approximately evenly-matched sides, no idea who’ll win or what’ll happen…we could get used to this.

The bookies have no idea what’ll happen in the Championship this season, as we’ve already seen. That macro-uncertainty is sure to be complemented by micro-uncertainty for individual games throughout this most agreeably unclear season. City v Swansea is one such example. Will City immediately readjust to life in the second tier and brush aside the Swans? Will Swansea scalp the self-pitying Tigers? Goodness knows.

City are a best priced 5/4 (various) to kick-off with a home win should you prefer the former scenario; Swansea are a more attractive 5/2 (various) if the latter is your selection. With both sides struggling for goals last season and first-day nerves likely to be on show, 4/6 (SkyBet) on two goals or fewer seems worth a punt if predicting the result is simply too difficult, and 0-0 can be backed at 8/1 (various) if you fancy a goalless opening day. 4/1 (various) on draw/draw as a half-time/full-time bet is far from the worst price on offer.

In truth though, little appeals. It’s a fiendishly unpredictable division and punting will be consistently hard, particularly at the outset. Let’s keep our powder dry for now.

We looked a few weeks ago at how the bookies have priced up the Championship title race for 2010/11 – with twelve days to go until the season starts, it’s instructive to see how City fare in the other markets.

At the start of last month, the Tigers were a best-priced 25/1 to finish top, though you won’t get higher than 22/1 (Bet365) on this now. A positive reaction to Nigel Pearson’s appointment, perhaps? To achieve an immediate return to the Premier League, City range from a stingy 5/1 to a more realistic 7/1 (SkyBet) – yet are rated at just 6/1 (Hills) to fall down into Division Three. Are City really just as likely to be promoted as relegated?

That should seem decidedly improbable given the pedigree of some of the players the club has retained. Gardner, Zayatte, Solano, Myhill, Cairney – all will be class acts at this level. Yet a scan of the odds for the Championship’s Top Scorer hints at why this may be. Kris Boyd leads the way at 8/1 (Ladbrokes)…yet City’s two shortest-priced players may not spend much of the season here. Daniel Cousin (16/1, Skybet) is likely to start 2010/11 in East Yorkshire, though it’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll still be here in May. Kamel Ghilas (40/1, Hills) seems certain to be leaving on loan. Which leaves Craig Fagan, at a decidedly miserly 50/1 (Paddy Power).

With the best will in the world, it looks likely that scoring enough goals is going to be City’s greatest difficulty next season – which probably explains why the bookmakers think we should be looking downwards as well as upwards.

Millwall’s victory at Wembley over Swindon on Saturday means that the Championship line-up for 2010/11 is now complete. The bookies have now priced up the 24 teams’ chances next season, which are always worth a look at during the summer and are as follows:

QPR 10/1
Burnley 12/1
Notts Forest 12/1
Cardiff 12/1
Middlesbrough 12/1
Leicester 14/1
Reading 14/1
Ipswich 16/1
Leeds 16/1
Bristol C 20/1
Norwich 20/1
Sheff Utd 20/1
Swansea 20/1
CITY 25/1
Portsmouth 25/1
Derby 30/1
Coventry 40/1
Millwall 40/1
Doncaster 50/1
Preston 50/1
Barnsley 66/1
C Palace 80/1
Watford 100/1
Scunthorpe 125/1

(more…)

Has any Premier League team ever been shorter than a best-priced 3/10 (Bwin) to win an away game? Possibly, during Derby or Sunderland’s traumatic seasons of yesteryear. It’s not something you could be certain of either way. But the fact that few bookies will venture beyond 2/7 on Chelsea winning at the Circle suggests this is going to be a walkover.

City’s home games against the Londoners haven’t been pretty in recent times. There was a 6-1 FA Cup cuffing at Boothferry Park in 1999, a 4-0 humping in the League Cup in 2007 and last season’s 3-0 defeat in the League. At least David Brown scored in the first one. BlueSQ offer 11/10 on Chelsea winning without conceding, and 5/6 on City to lose by two goals or more.

John Terry, the inevitable target of E1 derision, is just 6/1 (Paddy Power) to score at any time, while Drogba and Anelka are both odds-on (5/6 and 10/11) to end the match with a goal. But in case you’re imbued with a commendably positive attitude, ahem, City are as long as a startling 14/1 (Victor Chandler) to win, 9/2 (SkyBet) to pinch a point and 16/1 (SportingBet) to do so by drawing 0-0. 1-0 to the Tigers – surely the only credible victory score? - is 25/1 with Paddy Power. Tempted?

One fancies that this match, along with Manchester United v Burnley, will be a staple of accumulators across the land at the weekend. Surely it’s buying money to back free-scoring Spurs at home to free-conceding City – even at a prohibitively short 2/7? Well…probably. But both clubs have a capacity to lurch from the sublime to the ridiculous, admittedly in differing measures, which makes forecasting tricky.

Spurs have been turned over at home by Wolves and Stoke so far this season, yet have scored five goals (or more) in five games this season, including at the Circle in August. 7/2 on there being +4.5 goals appeals given that City are themselves capable of getting on the scoreboard too.should the  home side “only” get four. Spurs’ most memorable result of the season was a 9-1 demolition of Wigan – it’s therefore slightly surprising that no bookies are being enterprising enough to offer odds on a repeat, though those expecting a torrid afternoon can 500/1 (Paddy Power) on 9-0 or 1-0. Laughably, the same price is on offer for City to win by the same score.

In those distant days when City were flying high at the top of the Premier League and the whole world loved us, the Tigers recorded a superb 1-0 win at White Hart Lane. 26/1 (extrabet) is available on the same score, 25/1 (generally available) is on offer for City being ahead at half-time AND full-time, while Skybet are offering 14/1 on Geovanni opening the scoring. We’ll pass, thanks…