League One preview: Kenny Jackett's Portsmouth could be the team to watch as Sunderland look to arrest their slide

The third tier looks wide open this season

Kenny Jackett and Portsmouth can expect to be contenders (Getty)

It would take a brave individual to confidently predict the winner of League One this season.

The third tier has the look of an unpredictable division with the favourites Sunderland a complete unknown and the two sides joining them from the Championship hardly heavyweights, it has the look of an open battle for promotion.

Stewart Donald’s takeover of the Stadium of Light club has brought manager Jack Ross south of the border charged with an immediate promotion but the Black Cats will rely heavily on young players and while they’ll probably be in the playoff picture and Ross has said promotion is the only definition of success this year, they don’t have the look of a champion.

Last year’s unlucky contenders could be. Portsmouth lost in the play-offs after bouncing back into the second tier but have one of the better coaches in the division in Kenny Jackett and should be in the mix, Charlton think they will be too but questions remain over who will own the club.

Barnsley might yet be the ones to emerge from the madness as a strong promotion shout, though they have gone with an unknown quantity in new coach Daniel Stendel. The left-field appointment has promised to play attacking football and their squad is good enough for promotion, it is just the execution of that plan that stands in their way. Burton Albion return to League One with a better squad than the one that got them promoted in the first place and they look a team that will quietly go about winning games.

Peterborough, Southend and Oxford Uniteds all look to be teams that can build on last season and have improved themselves. Jamie Mackie at Oxford could well be the most impactful signing of any team in League One, while one of his former clubs, Plymouth, need to show whether their incredible form in the second half of last season or the horrific results of the first were the real Argyle. The reality might be somewhere in between but Derek Adams has done enough to suggest his side can get to the play-offs and be considered a threat.

Shrewsbury can be expected to regress to the mean after overachieving last year and losing manager Paul Hurst to Ipswich and two key players to Coventry, who along with Luton are promoted clubs that can be expected to mount back-to-back challenges. Life won’t be so easy for Wycombe Wanderers or Accrington Stanley, two sides that achieved promotion with thin squads and for whom survival is the ambition.

That may also be all Walsall can aspire to after losing key man Erhun Oztumer. Gillingham and Rochdale also have the look of teams who could get dragged into the mud as well as AFC Wimbledon – who have lost good players at either end of the field.