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Sheffield Wednesday lost their opening six games last season and while manager Brian Laws will be doing everything in his power to ensure that doesn't happen again, the Owls could be worth taking on when free-spirited Burnley visit Hillsborough this weekend.

The Owls haven't been the most formidable team on home soil in recent years. They have lost more than a third of all their home games since returning to the Championship three years ago and while survival last term might have looked comfortable in the end, the reality was anything but.

Wednesday tasted defeat only twice in the final 16 games to finish the campaign outside of the bottom eight but it doesn't close come to painting an accurate picture of events.

A sequence of seven successive draws in March and April highlighted a nervous reluctance to seize the initiative as the stakes got higher and many were fearing the worst when the run ended with defeat at Blackpool with two games to play.

Burnley's parting of the ways with Steve Cotterill was one of the more surprising managerial changes of last season.

However, the Turf Moor board obviously saw something more appetising on the menu and the imaginative appointment of Owen Coyle suggests they have high hopes of mounting a genuine promotion challenge sometime soon.

It seems unlikely the charge will come this season because Coyle's transfer dealings so far appear to be firmly fixed on the future.

The youthful exuberance of attack-minded players like Chris Eagles, Kevin McDonald and Martin Paterson might not be enough to mount a sustained promotion bid this time around, but it can reap dividends at a ground like Hillsborough, especially if Wednesday remain their usual cagey selves.

Take the 9/4 available with totesport.

Meanwhile, the regularity with which Alan Pardew blew his top in the second half of last season suggests that something isn't quite right at Charlton because he is not a man who loses his cool easily.

The former West Ham boss prides himself on his level-headedness and the clarity of his decision making, qualities that were far from evident in the New Year. It seems an underlying disregard for the manager's long-term vision was at work somewhere within the dressing room.

A couple of notable departures over the summer hinted that maybe Pardew was getting to grips with the problem but now it transpires the club had sold those players from under his feet in order to balance the books.

The Addicks boss, to his credit, is toeing the party line and publicly stating his intention to give youth a chance this term. However, that won't be easy at all if the bad apples are still lurking somewhere at the back of the dressing room.

It remains to be seen how Swansea will cope with the step up to the Championship but the opening day of the season is not a time for nerves and trepidation, it is simply a time for excitement and anticipation.

The self-assessment of where the Jacks truly belong in the table can wait for at least another six weeks and the players will simply be encouraged to go out and strut their stuff with the same swagger they showed when romping to the League One title last season.

If Roberto Martinez can get his players to go out on the front foot, they are perfectly capable of causing Charlton problems and the Welsh club look to be worth an interest at 10/3.

The Londoners habitually struggle in games they are expected to win on home soil - they failed to beat either Scunthorpe or Colchester at The Valley last season - and Swansea can further blemish a sequence of only one win in the last seven at Floyd Road.

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