Dean Holden believes this could be the most open League One season for several years as Charlton prepare to launch their campaign at home to Leyton Orient on Saturday.
The Addicks will be trying to get back to the Championship yet again as they go into their fourth season in the third tier.
Derby County have been quoted as the bookies’ favourites to win the title but there are a whole host of clubs who will quietly fancy their chances, including Holden’s side.
The Valley boss was reluctant to publicly reveal who he felt would be the main challengers at the top of the table, although he did admit there will be plenty of teams going for promotion.
Holden said: “It is hard to predict because everybody is saying it is an easy division this year because the likes of Ipswich and Sheffield Wednesday – with the budgets that they had – have left.
“I think it might be a bit more open based on teams are definitely recruiting a bit more aggressively than they may have done, knowing it might be wide open.
“There are obviously clubs with points deductions and things like that, so I think there are certain teams who seem to be having a bit more of a go maybe to think this might be their season.
“I don’t want to name any particular clubs. I think a lot of that will come down to recruitment towards the end of the window.
“We will have a bit more of a steer probably come the end of August whose squad sits where.
“You could name any club now and then they go and lose their best player and, for whatever reason, don’t recruit what they want to get. They might not be as strong as you think they are right now.
“For us we are in a good place and I would say we are well prepared.”
And Holden is confident Charlton go into this season in much better shape than last time in what will be his first full campaign at the helm.
He explained: “I fancy ourselves against anybody. We are trying to build a psychology side to the game.
“Of course we work a lot on tactical and physical pushing in pre-season and the psychological side in terms of you face such different challenges, particularly in League One, different styles of play from game to game.
“It’s not necessarily what you would always see in the Premier League because sometimes the teams are a lot more direct, (there are) certain pitches you’ve got to play on throughout the season.
“So we want to build a team that can go anywhere at any time and play in any type of condition against any opponent and be able to win the game, not just when it is on our terms.”
Holden added: “We always fancy our chances, of course we do.
“Like I say, it’s not about being arrogant or shouting from the rooftops but you do have to come up against different challenges.
“You can’t always be playing on the best pitch in the world against an opponent that will sit off you and let you play. There are different challenges.
“Some games you’ve got to scrap and fight.
“I think we are well prepared for that this year, better prepared for those types of games. We’ve got different weapons in our armour in terms of our attacking play as well.
“We are scoring a lot of goals in pre-season so we are probably not as predictable as maybe we were last year as well, which I think will give us an edge.”
