THE new Championship season gets under way this Saturday after another busy summer of transfer activity which has seen an eye-watering amount of money being spent on players.

Wolves, who finished only just ahead of City last season, spent £15.8m on one player – Ruben Neves.

Whilst Middlesbrough, relegated from the Premier League last season, have spent in the region of £40m on players this summer.

City, who themselves spent around £15m last summer, have been far more frugal this time around.

The club has still managed to smash its transfer record with the signing of relative unknown Famara Diedhiou from French Ligue 1 club Angers SCO for around £5.3m and secure the services of defender Nathan Baker from Aston Villa for around £2m.

Eros Pisano, a 30-year-old right back, also joined the club on a free transfer from Hellas Verona.

The big departure of the summer was Lee Tomlin.

The forward joined the club last summer to huge fanfare after a successful loan spell but despite scoring seven goals last season his form was generally poor amid rumours of a falling out with City Head Coach Lee Johnson.

Tomlin, as well as the departed loanee Tammy Abraham’s goals will be hard to replace and the unknown quantity of Diedhiou will have to hit the ground running if we are to start well.

Rumours persist that Aden Flint will be departing the club, so the signing of Baker makes sense.

Overall, I fear we have a slightly weaker squad on paper than last season which is cause for concern.

However, if Johnson can motivate this group of players and create a winning environment then I’m sure we will be ok.

Expectations are unusually low for this time of year so here’s hoping we can get off to a winning start on Saturday when Barnsley visit Ashton Gate (3pm).