Who Will Be The Championship’s Break-Out Stars In 2018/19?

Who Will Be The Championship’s Break-Out Stars In 2018/19?
17:15, 01 Aug 2018

Before a ball had been kicked in anger last year you would have got long odds on Leon Clarke making the Championship Team of the Year in April and perhaps even longer on Matej Vydra finishing the season as the league’s highest goal-scorer.

The 32-year-old Clarke had long been pigeonholed as a journeyman of the football league and with eleven loan spells on his C.V with good reason. As for the Czech his three goals in 31 appearances for Reading before his switch to Derby in 2016 hardly smacked of prolificacy.  

Yet there they were, at the season’s end, picking up plaudits left, right and centre after mining rich, sustained form in teams that got the best out of them.

It is difficult therefore to pick out talent who might emerge as break-out performers in the second tier in the campaign ahead because by their very nature they are so often a surprise package. The stars align, confidence breeds on momentum, and by May it somehow feels like they’ve always been brilliant. We forget that several months earlier they perhaps weren’t.

Even so, it is possible to return to that team of the year and find clues regarding the individual wonders to come starting with a midfield trio – of Tom Cairney, Ruben Neves, and James Maddison – who are of a similar ilk. Each in their own right are slight-of-build ballers, who stroke the ball around the park and occasionally unleash a howitzer from distance. Which is pretty much a description that fits Swansea’s new signing Bersant Celina to a tee.

The 21 year old Kosovo international was highly rated at Manchester City and only released for a bargain £3m this summer due to the wealth of competition in his way. Successful loan spells at Twente and Ipswich in recent seasons has seen the wideman develop into a genuinely impactful player and so absorbing were his displays at Portman Road that he even managed to draw out a gushing compliment from the usually gruff Mick McCarthy who enthused that the kid has a ‘God-given talent’. He’s right too. He does, and for a team expected to challenge for promotion Celina can absolutely shine this term.

Elsewhere another former Manchester City academy star George Evans looks to continue building on a bright reputation for composed defensive play after securing a move to Derby County but it’s his fellow newcomer to Pride Park that really excites. Loaned from Chelsea’s imperious youth set-up Mason Mount is widely tipped to go all the way to the very top and the teenage midfielder could hope for no better tutor in the short-term than new boss Frank Lampard.

Moving away from summer signings another good place to find potential stand-out stars of 2018/19 lies in relegated sides with players who unquestionably still possess Premier League quality. There is not going to be many right-sided attackers relishing the prospect of taking on West Brom’s Kieran Gibbs – should the full-back with a decade of Arsenal pedigree stay at the Hawthorns that is – while remaining with the Baggies James Morrison, Chris Brunt and Matty Phillips are proven stellar performers at this level.

Across to the Potteries Joe Allen will surely be a class apart in Championship centre-circles while a fit-again Bruno Martins Indi will be an imposing proposition for non-elite forwards. Look out too for on-loan Benik Afobe who will likely reach double figures and feature prominently as Stoke put together a promotion charge.

Speaking of goals Blackburn’s Bradley Dack couldn’t stop scoring last season as Rovers hauled themselves out of League One and the division’s Player of the Year will be desperate to replicate his influential displays one level up. That same motivation applies to right-back Nathan Byrne too after finding his niche and excelling at Wigan.

One of the more interesting transfer windows undertaken by a Championship club this summer has come courtesy of Nottingham Forest and in Algerian winger Hillal Soudani they have a player of real intrigue while the law of averages suggests that at least one from their trio of Portuguese purchases will come to the fore and greatly impress. Of these the most likely to is Forest’s record signing Joao Carvalho though you suspect the 21-year-old midfielder might need time to settle.

Across the league lies an abundance of fascinating prospects, each as capable as the next man to enjoy a sensational season and grab the acclaim. Having now moved across the Midlands to West Brom can Sam Johnstone repeat his excellent form that saw him keep more clean sheets in the Championship than any other keeper last season? Can Ben Woodburn fulfil the high hopes that Liverpool has for their young star while on loan at Sheffield United?

What is most encouraging is that so many of the names mentioned above are 21 or under and ultimately that could be the central plot in the Championship story this year: youngsters emerging and making a name for themselves, playing with a freedom that youth affords them. In that regard determining who they will be becomes less important to sitting back and watching it all unfold.

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