I've not watched as much Championship football as I usually do this season for obvious reasons. However, from what I have seen, the quality of football played seems up on 17/18 and when you consider the success of sides like Norwich, Leeds, Bristol City, Derby and, to an extent, Villa, then my conclusion is that it is more of a young man's league this season - we have an ageing squad which I'm sure I read somewhere was the only one that had no one under the age of 23 I think it was who had played Premier League football for them this season.

Also, does it mean anything that Tony Pulis' Middlesbrough (the closest thing to a 17/18 style Cardiff City in the division?) are currently on a six game losing run and out of the Play Off places and that Millwall (another team that prospered in 17/18 playing a very direct, physical game) are struggling against the drop this year - to be fair, Neil Harris' teams' current league position is a more accurate reflection of their playing budget relative to others in the division.

Based on what he said in response to a report that he was likely to quit at the end of the season, Neil Warnock is going to be at Cardiff for 19/20 and, with him turning 71 in December, he's not going to have a Road to Damascus like conversion to a completely different way of playing this summer, so we can expect more of the same in terms of playing style and recruitment and I'd say the same will be true if our manager does leave and Warnock/Jepson take over.

While I think there may just be a chance that Harry Arter could just be tempted to sign for us in the Championship, we seem certain to lose two of our first choice midfield, there have to be doubts as to whether Sol Bamba can recover from his serious injury (there may be Premier League interest in someone like Bruno as well) and come back as good as new at the age of thirty five and Neil Warnock is the latest City manager who has failed to provide us with a striker that you could, more or less, guarantee will get you ten plus goals a season at Championship level.

Bearing all of that in mind, I think we probably need to use the large majority of our first season of parachute payments on trying to rebuild the squad into genuine promotion contenders. However, with spending and the wage bill this season not being as frugal as some would have you believe and the current situation whereby it looks like we may well be liable for the whole of the Emiliano Sala fee, I'd say that we would need to be a lot more cautious with our spending if we were still in the Championship for 20/21.