The Championship runners and riders in the battle for Premier League riches

The field may be spread out in the race for the Premier League with Manchester City having effectively lapped all challengers — Liverpool and Chelsea apart — but the same can’t be said for the Championship.

In the league where anyone can beat anyone on any given day, predicting which teams will join the cash-rich top flight feels as difficult to fathom as the Eurovision Song Contest.

FULHAM & BOURNEMOUTH

When Fulham are good, they are very very good. In one crazy week last month they won three games by a total of 19-4 and other startling scores include wins by 7-0 at Blackburn, 5-1 at Huddersfield and 4-0 at Nottingham Forest.

Aleksandar Mitrovic has already hit an incredible 31 goals but Fulham are anything but a one-man team this season with 15 different goalscorers and boss Marco Silva’s attacking principles have proved a good fit for such a talented squad.

The aborted move of 19-year-old Fabio Carvalho to Liverpool is a blessing for a club who feel like champions-elect.

If there is any hope for the rest, it is the fact they don’t always win the close games — last Saturday’s 1-0 win at Hull was only their fourth single-goal success of the season.

If all but promotion feels unthinkable for Fulham, the repercussions could be even greater for Bournemouth after a January spending spree aided by the second year of parachute payments.

Scott Parker’s side soared to the top of the table with David Brooks pulling the strings before his cancer diagnosis.

Seven new faces arrived last month and while a broken foot which has ruled Kieffer Moore out for two months is cruel, his fellow forward Siriki Dembele, Liverpool defender Nat Phillips and Norwich midfielder Todd Cantwell — the last two on loan — have added to an already richly talented squad.

The 1-0 home FA Cup humiliation by Boreham Wood brought mutterings about Parker’s tactical rigidity — familiar to fans of his old club Fulham — but the late turnaround to win 2-1 at Blackpool and lift them back to second suggests that upset didn’t cause lasting damage.

BLACKBURN ROVERS

Having a Chile international striker leading the line has worked wonders for Blackburn — Ben Brereton Diaz hitting 20 goals in 30 Championship games, the 22-year-old boasting a far better rate than the striker previously known as Ben Brereton, who scored 17 from 133.

The biggest influence on that revival can be found closer to home — Brereton Diaz the latest player dramatically improved under the tutelage of the vastly underrated Tony Mowbray.

Rovers were a by-word for the madness of the modern game before he became manager in 2018 and yet, as Mowbray himself has pointed out, the only way he will get the chance to prove himself in the Premier League will be by being promoted back into it.

They need a break right now, a run of two goals in eight games threatening to undermine their challenge.

QPR

If any club in the promotion picture is aware of the dangers of pushing the boat out too far it is Rangers, who ended up having to make a £42million settlement after spending their way back into the Premier League in 2014.

Tony Fernandes has since adopted a very different approach — one that seems to have taken its inspiration from neighbours Brentford’s rise.

Mark Warburton, the Hoops’ longest-serving manager since 2006, is an ideal fit for that policy and while Charlie Austin is tried and tested at this level, Ilias Chair and Chris Willock are emerging stars.

The Hoops may have suffered back-to-back defeats at Barnsley and Millwall but whatever happens this season, or not, you feel QPR are finally going in the right direction.

MIDDLESBROUGH

Given his track record, it hardly comes as a surprise Chris Wilder has quickly transformed Middlesbrough’s fortunes — and the style of football has come as a breath of fresh air to supporters who have not had huge amounts to cheer in recent years.

Isaiah Jones is perhaps the player most likely to get them out of their seats while bringing in Aaron Connolly and Folarin Balogun on loan from Brighton and Arsenal has added firepower to a side who have not always found goals easy to come by.

Boro are strong at the other end — Wilder’s predecessor Neil Warnock having said he wouldn’t have swapped Dael Fry, Anfernee Dijksteel and Paddy McNair for any Manchester United defender ahead of their shock FA Cup penalty shoot-out triumph over them.

SHEFFIELD UNITED

Wilder’s former club thought they had appointed a promotion specialist in Slavisa Jokanovic but he never really looked like repeating his successes with Fulham and Watford.

That saw Paul Heckingbottom given a permanent chance and they have won seven, drawn two and lost just one since the Serbian’s exit. With 11 of their last 17 games at home, United have a great chance of gatecrashing the party, with the evergreen Billy Sharp, 36, having recaptured his best goalscoring form and a good chunk of their top-flight mainstays making them, on paper, one of the best sides in the division.

PLAY-OFF CHASERS

It would be folly to rule any of the sides just outside the top six a shot at automatic promotion yet but it would take the kind of run that is tough to achieve in such a gruelling division.

It is a sequence of results that have gone the other way which saw West Brom’s chances become more remote — Valerien Ismael paying with his job after all-too-regular reminders from supporters that ‘his football is sh***’.

He may not have been Mr Popular at Newcastle but they have gone for the tried and tested in Steve Bruce, a promotion winner twice apiece with Birmingham and Hull.

Another of Bruce’s former clubs Huddersfield are perhaps the surprise package among this group. Spanish coach Carlos Corberan has done a great job while 18-year-old Chelsea defender Levi Colwill has been outstanding at the back for a side currently 14 games unbeaten in league and cup. Nottingham Forest’s transformation since sacking Chris Hughton after one point from the first seven games has been remarkable.

Steve Cooper has turned negativity into positivity on and off the pitch, with FA Cup wins over Arsenal and Leicester showcasing the potential of young players like Brennan Johnson, Djed Spence and James Garner.

Forest strengthened more than most in January with powerhouse strikers Keinan Davis, on loan from Aston Villa, and Sam Surridge, for £2 million from Stoke, helping offset top-scorer Lewis Grabban’s ankle injury.

Another side coming into form at the right time are Michael O’Neill’s Stoke, who appear to have pulled off two of the coups of the January window by signing Josh Maja on loan from Bordeaux and Lewis Baker.

Coventry continue to punch above their weight under the remarkable management of Mark Robins with Nathan Jones performing similar miracles at Luton, while Preston have been on an upwards curve since Ryan Lowe took charge.

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