Town manager Mick McCarthy believes this season’s Championship will be stronger than last year’s with the former Premier League sides having parachute payments, the clubs coming up from League One having invested heavily and a number of decent other teams already in the division.
"It does get harder because the teams who keep coming down [have parachute payments],” He said.
"Even Wolves have still got some Premier League parachute payments this season, and Bolton, and we’ve still got Reading and Wigan, who were Premier League clubs the year before.
"Then there are three others coming down with untold riches from the Premier League. That makes it hard enough as it is.
"And I think there are one or two others I think who who were good last year. Derby, they’ve spent a few quid. Brighton were good, they’ve added and spent a few quid. Middlesbrough, they still seem to be investing in it. It’s a tough old league, that’s for sure.”
He added: "I think that in terms of the clubs coming up and investing [it’s a stronger division this year].
"Wolves being the club that it is, I think they’ll be a threat because I think they put a good side together last year and are coming up with momentum and Kenny Jackett’s a good manager, a good coach.
"Rotherham and Brentford have both invested and were both good teams last season. Barnsley, Yeovil and Doncaster certainly didn’t invest as heavily as the three that have replaced them.”
As for today’s opponents Fulham, McCarthy says their headline-grabbing purchase of Leeds striker Ross McCormack for £11 million will have been worth it if the Scotland international’s goals see them back into the top flight at the first attempt.
"They want to get back into the Premier League and if by spending £11 million and he scores enough goals they do it, it’ll have been good business because they’ll get straight back to the £100 million,” he said. "If it doesn’t then it’s an expensive one but that’s not my problem.”
He says he’s had the Cottagers watched but without being able to read too much into their pre-season friendlies: "They’ve got shot of a lot of players and we’ve been watching their games the best that we could. There’s only Hugo Rodallega and Scott Parker who were playing [last season].
"They’ve got two new full-backs [Kostas Stafylidis and Kay Voser] and they’ve taken players from the German league, Bayer Leverkusen [Stafylidis] and other top German clubs.
"They’ve looked very capable in the games that we’ve watched. But they were pre-season friendlies. I don’t take that much notice of them. It’s about finding out the shape of the team, personnel, how they want to play - free kicks, corners - the type of football that they’re playing.
"I’m not going to judge their performance on playing the friendlies that they’ve played. But they’ve got plenty of money coming down. They’ve been a Premier League team for a long time and they should be more than capable of certainly being in the mix, whether they’re going to do it, who knows?
"It didn’t happen last year, did it? Wigan and Reading fell away, I know Wigan were in the play-offs. QPR went back up but it doesn’t always work that the teams who come down go straight back up.”
Town started the season in a similar manner last year with recently relegated Reading on the opening day and a visit to QPR shortly afterwards. While the Blues played well in those matches, they lost both of them.
"Let’s hope we get the results rather than the performances,” McCarthy said, thinking back to those games. "But I’d like them both. I thought we played really well against Reading and also against QPR, but lost them both. We don’t want to do that. We want to win.”
While keen to make a positive start to the campaign, the Town boss is determined not to put too much pressure on his players: "Everybody wants a good start but you put yourself right under pressure if you say you’ve got to get a good start, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to do that.
"We’d like to win at home, but we’re playing against a very capable side.”