After the match at the Hawthorns this evening there will be just the one game left for each side in the Coca-Cola Football League Championship and with the automatic and play-off places still very much up for grabs, it looks like it will go right down to the wire. But who will secure their place in the top flight of English football for next season, and how will they fare against some of the best players and teams in the world?

It is a typical assumption that the sides
promoted from the old 'Division One' will be high contenders for relegation the following season. Pundits will forever be proved wrong, but looking at the current top eight in the Championship I cannot see much hope for the optimistic contenders wishing to be part of the 2008/09 Premiership campaign.

West Brom look set to secure promotion with a win in tonight's clash with Southamption and the betting odds are firmly stacked in their favour. Tony Pulis' Stoke are the favourites in the race with Hull to acquire the remaining automatic spot with their final match at home to struggling Leicester, while the next six teams will be left to fight it out in the nerve-racking play-offs. Hull and Bristol City have both secured places and will be favourites to succeed in the mini-competition, while the final two places will be fought out between Watford, Crystal Palace and Wolves - though Ipswich and Sheffield United do have an outside chance.

And while chasing and securing promotion is very exciting, not to mention the massive increase in finance from TV rights, I think it will all be doom and gloom for these sides next season. The winner of the play-offs will no doubt be favourites to finish in the bottom three next season, and I should imagine the other promoted side besides West Brom (probably Stoke) will be a close second. Tony Mowbray's side, I feel, are the most appealing side to prove to be an exception to the rule. However, I still cannot see them mirroring the likes of West Ham and Reading, both of whom looked Premiership quality in their first season back in the top flight (though both indeed found it difficult in their second).

Of course, each manager will have the chance to strengthen his squad during the summer and I'd expect them all to be striving to find that '20-goal-a-season-striker'. That is unless West Brom already think they have that in 34-year-old Kevin Phillips who only scored four goals for Aston Villa last season and, let's face it, isn't really that good anyway. The problem the sides will face, however, is that players may not be particularly excited by the prospect of a relegation scrap all season.

But there is always hope for newly promoted sides, though I think they will have to pin it on their fellow strugglers performing worse than themselves. Under Gary Megson, I cannot see Bolton finding the form they hit under Big Sam and I firmly believe they will be in the thick of things at the bottom next season. The only other sides who my money would be on to struggle next season would be Middlesbrough - though given a couple of signings could quite easily rise to a safe mid-table side - and Fulham, but they look set to drop divisions this season.

You can never quite say what will happen next season and we will have a much better indication after the summer transfer window when the season is underway, but for now I'm sticking to Isaac Newton's hypothesis that "Whatever goes up must come down".