Who will escape the Championship?

Forest are my pick, but QPR could go the way of Wolves

Season starts this weekend as teams vie to get into the Premier League

Picking a winner of the Championship is a little like picking a needle out of a haystack (something I can't imagine anyone has ever done, and if they did, it must have been a really slow week).

The season starts Saturday, and runs until May 3, 2014. It's a brutal 46 game slog, and is a really tough test to get into the Premier League.

The teams that went down (QPR, Wigan and Reading) all have a good chance of going back up, but who knows what players Harry Redknapp will have at QPR, and how long his patience will last. He always says he's not a wheeler-dealer, but he'll have to be to get Rangers to bounce straight back - or I could see them going the way of Portsmouth.

Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Derby, Bolton, Blackburn and Birmingham are all reminders of how easy it is not only to fall into England's second tier, but how hard it is to get out. Look at Wolves, they are now in the third tier after successive relegations, and Portsmouth are realizing that just finding players is harder than discovering   

My pick is for Nottingham Forest to contend this year. They seem a little more stable than they were, and have made a couple of good signings for the Championship level. 

But then I know about as much as Tony Fernandes about football. He will fit in perfectly with fans of the Championship, as none of them have any idea if their team will be top or bottom.