Kevin Phillips: Norwich City and Swansea City could be Championship dark horses

Every Championship campaign has a dark horse in the promotion race and with the move to six play-off places, the chance for a dark horse winning promotion to the Premier League has drastically increased.

Hull City won the play-offs last season after sneaking into sixth place on the final day of the campaign before dispatching Millwall and Middlesbrough to gain promotion.

The Championship is already shaping up to have an open race at the top and some second-tier regulars could be eyeing an opportunity at an unlikely promotion.

Kevin Phillips has highlighted both Norwich and Swansea falling in that category and reckons both sides could shake up the race near the top eight come the end of the season.

Promising

In an exclusive interview with BestBettingSites, Phillips highlighted the Canaries’ dark horse label and their forward Mohamed Toure as a huge threat to drive them forward.

The former Sunderland man said “I tipped them to be one of the dark horses at the beginning of the season, but it’s still very, very early. I think the promising thing from their point of view and Clement’s point of view is that they’re dominating a lot of games; they’re creating opportunities.

“At some point, it will click. Of course, they need to stop conceding goals.

“If they can do that, they know they’ve got players in that side who will score goals.

“I spoke about him quite a lot last season and this season, really, Toure.

“He’s got himself three goals in all competitions already, so we know that he’s got goals in him. They had a really good win against Burnley, so I don’t think you need to panic.

“I do think they will be in and around the new playoff system now, obviously going down to eight, so they’ve got a great opportunity at that. They just need to get that next win quickly rather than later.”

Exciting

Phillips was also full of praise for Swansea’s start to the season explaining “The way they’ve started, wow. And having watched them, watched highlights, they look exciting going forward.

“They’ve got some really offensive areas. They’ve got some players that can hurt you and score goals.

“And that’s exactly what they’ve done.

“When you’re talking dark horses, I did say Norwich, but perhaps Swansea will be.

“We always get one team every season that comes out of the blocks. But why can’t Swansea keep that going?

“They kept last season’s top goal scorer, Vipotnik, but they’ve also got other players, Opoku and Idah, who’ve chipped in with some goals. They’ve got exciting players.

“So if they can keep that consistency going, there’s no reason why they couldn’t be there coming into the season.”

Read the full exclusive interview with Kevin Phillips at BestBettingSites

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