The 2022/23 Championship season returns on Friday night, with the competition's earliest-ever start owing to the World Cup taking place in winter this year.
There have been a few high-profile managerial changes, in particular, the new appointments for both teams in the season opener between Huddersfield Town and Burnley, with Danny Schofield taking over for Carlos Corberan for the Terriers and Vincent Kompany for the Clarets. Teams have also been dipping into the transfer market with moves like Gabriel Sara to Norwich, Scott Twine to Burnley, Ciaran Clark to Sheffield United, Joe Allen to Swansea and Troy Parrott to Preston North End on a loan being some of the biggest over the summer so far.
So what's possible over the coming season? Could we have an upset promotion or relegation? We simulated the entire 2022/23 Championship season on the popular video game Football Manager to find out, using the most up-to-date squad lists and real-life fixture schedule.
Entire 2022/23 Sky Bet Championship overall from the simulation
Taking a look at the statistics of the simulation, we can see that Watford were the most prolific in front of goal as they netted 74 times, just one more than both Burnley and QPR.
Preston scored the fewest amount of goals across the season, only scoring 31 times and they were quickly followed by Wigan Athletic with 32 and Blackpool with 37.
Middlesbrough had the best defence in the entire league, only conceding 37 goals across their 46 games - one fewer than Norwich and four fewer than Burnley and West Brom. Wigan had the leakiest defence as they had 74 goals shipped past them, six goals more than Sunderland who shipped 68.
Despite finishing in 11th, Coventry's Viktor Gyokeres finished as the league's top goalscorer with 21 goals, closely followed by Ismaïla Sarr of Watford and Lucas João (18) and Stoke City's Tyrese Campbell (17).
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Hull's newest arrival Jean Michaël Séri broke Harry Wilson's record for most assists in a season with 20, one more than the Englishman managed with Fulham last season.
Norwich's Tim Krul kept the most clean sheets with 20, and his teammate Max Aarons led the league in the most tackles won with 99. Aarons was also second in most key passes with 63, just two fewer than Reading's Tom Ince who managed 65.
Blackburn goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski couldn't help his side reach the play-offs but he did have the most man of the match awards throughout the season with nine, one more than Coventry's Simon Moore and Birmingham City's goalkeeper John Ruddy.
Coventry had the worst discipline of any side as they ended the season with 80 yellow cards across their whole squad, the second most being WIgan with 68. Wigan also had the most red cards as they had ten men sent off over the course of the season.
However, neither the player with the most yellow or red cards played for either team. Darragh Lenihan of Middlesbrough ended the season with 15 yellow cards and one red, as Blackpool's James Husband managed to get sent off four separate times in his season.
The League Table analysed after our 2022/23 simulation
The 2022/23 Championship table in our simulation might not have gone the way some expect - despite being pre-season favourites to lift the trophy, Norwich did not get automatic promotion but instead finished third and just two points behind Watford. Burnley went straight back up to the Premier League as champions with 94 points ahead of Watford on 89 points who managed to grab the second automatic promotion slot.
The play-off spots went to Norwich, Sheffield United, Hull City and QPR. The two play-off semi-finals went the way of the upset as Wembley played host to QPR and Hull in the Championship play-off final.
The final had two dramatic late goals, first from Hull's Oscar Estupiñán before a Lyndon Dykes equaliser sent the game to extra-time. QPR sealed their win with an incredible 5-4 penalty shoot-out win to reach the Premier League for the first time since 2014/15.
At the other end of the table, Preston, Blackpool and newly-promoted Wigan all went down to cap a miserable campaign for Lancashire. Rotherham and Sunderland managed to survive the leap to Championship football after finishing in 19th and 21st respectively.
Huddersfield were arguably the under-achievers of the season and saw biggest drop-off from the previous year as they finished 20th, dropping 17 places, while Hull made the most gains, jumping up 14 places from 19th to fifth. Millwall finished in 14th after being touted as a potential play-off candidate and Reading magically escaped relegation by four points after being predicted to finish bottom.
