Town manager Mick McCarthy says he’s going into the season aiming for a top two place, but admits it will be a tough ask given the quality of some of the other Championship squads and the money which has been spent this summer. The Blues start their season at Brentford on Saturday.
"We’ll start and we’ll aim at that,” McCarthy said. "You look at the teams that are still in our league from coming down and having been relegated and the money that they have, and seem to be spending, not so much Cardiff but Fulham are.
"Then I look at Burnley, QPR and Hull all looking to spend money and get better squads. And then there’s Derby who seem to be spending at will and Middlesbrough, who spend £6 million on one player.
"That makes it incredibly tough. But the pleasing thing is that we’ve always managed to compete with them, certainly to a certain extent.”
Reflecting on last season, he added: "Norwich, who everybody thought had the best squad, certainly I did at the start of the season, all the way through they kept their players.
"They ended up getting promoted via the play-offs but they had the best squad, so they should have done.
"Alex Neil came and did well in the end when it looked like it might be going a little bit pear-shaped. But they should have got promoted because they had the best squad.
"And I think if I look at Burnley, if they keep their squad [they should be right up there], if I look at Hull, they’ve lost players but [manager Steve Bruce] looks to be signing the best of the Championship players, or certainly trying to.
"Derby, Middlesbrough, it’s going to be hard to finish in the top two. But it’ll make it all the more pleasing if we do.”
Given the money spent there has been speculation that some clubs aren’t adhering to the Financial Fair Play rules, although the allowable losses increase significantly from this season.
McCarthy says he takes little notice of factors he can do nothing about: "I’ve stopped scratching my head and worrying about it. I asked a question last year ‘How does it work?’ and of course you get this lengthy process of what might happen.
"Apparently QPR were going to be fined a huge sum of money and I hear that their owner will contest that and it’s going to go to a court. Is the Football League going to go to court? I don’t know.
"I don’t worry about it. I just think if that’s what it is, I’ll deal with what I can change, what I can affect. I can’t affect that.”
He expects Bristol City to be the team which makes the most significant impression of the trio promoted from League One: "Bristol City really impressed last year. They seemed to win it at a canter, to be honest with you.
"I watched Preston quite a few times and they won the play-off final comfortably and wedged in between them were the MK Dons and they play some really good football.
"They’ve been knocking on the door of the Championship for a while, so it’ll be interesting to see how they do.
"But the ones that stand out for me will be Bristol City. That is a big club, not knocking the others, they’re big clubs as well, but they seem to be spending a few quid, don’t they?
"They’ve already splashed out on one and they’re [reportedly] trying to get Jesse Lingard from Manchester United and they’re talking about £2.5 million for him, apparently.
"You’ve got to say, if that’s the case, if that’s the level of the spending that they’re doing, they want to be competitive. They’re not coming into the league to be talked about in terms of ‘Will they stay up?’.
"If that’s the kind of player they’re signing, I’d say they look like the favourites to be the better of the three. But, as we know, spending a lot of money doesn’t always work, does it?”
At his previous clubs McCarthy has sometimes followed play-off disappointment with Championship titles.
In 2003/04 his Sunderland team finished third and lost in the play-off semi-final to Crystal Palace on penalties but came back to win the division by seven points the next year.
McCarthy’s Wolves team were fifth in 2006/07 when they were defeated in the play-off semi-finals by their biggest rivals West Brom and after finishing seventh the following season won the Championship in 2008/09 by seven points.
"No pressure!" the Town manager joked. "I’ve generally won it [after losing in the play-offs]. We’ll see, we’ll try. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”