Category: Awards

Considering the opportunities – both professional and financial – that winning the Championship could provide teams and players, the responses to the change in leadership at the beginning of the month could hardly have been more different.

Temporary leaders Cardiff lost the South Wales derby by a goal from on loan striker Marvin Emnes (who – unsurprisingly – was recalled to Middlesbrough this week) and had to come from behind to draw with Reading: at the end of May it’s possible that the phrase ‘late Jay Bothroyd goal’ might sum up Cardiff’s season. QPR beat Reading but only a very late Tommy Smith penalty preserved their unbeaten record at Portsmouth. The top of the table could still turn into a two horse race: Cardiff’s trip to Scunthorpe looks like an away win, although with Dave Jones winning the Manager of The Month award for October, The Iron might fancy their chances of a rare win at Glanford Park on Saturday.

QPR’s visit to Nottingham Forest is the game of the weekend and is an interesting match statistically. Rangers are still unbeaten but have never won at the City Ground, where Forest are unbeaten this season: if Forest can win (and it’s a big if given their deserved reputation as draw specialists) then they could be in a position to mount an assault on the automatic promotion positions.

The week’s big winners were Derby and Middlesbrough, who both picked up maximum points from their two games. The increasingly impressive Rams beat Ipswich and Portsmouth without conceding a goal; Tony Mowbray’s Middlesbrough defeated fellow strugglers Crystal Palace on Saturday and then beat Scunthorpe for their first away win of the season.

Despite conceding a ridiculously early goal at home against Preston on Saturday, Bristol City fought back to gain a point thanks to an own goal from Billy Jones and then pulled off one of the bigger shocks in this season’s competition on Tuesday night. An early goal from former Ipswich striker John Stead ended Swansea’s unbeaten record on Wednesday night: the surprise win at the Liberty Stadium must have been particularly galling for Crystal Palace who had beaten Watford the evening before. However despite the Edgar Davids era ending after only seven appearances, Palace’s plight is not as bad as it could be – Sheffield United, Hull and Preston could only pick up one point from the six six available to them.

This week’s losers – literally – were Coventry. Despite occupying the last play off spot going into this weekend’s games, the Sky Blues lost twice this week, which is hardly the ideal preparation for travelling to Palace this weekend.

The weekend programme gets under way later today when two of the three clubs in the relegation zone play each other.  There may be a few goals at Deepdale as Preston’s defence is the worst in the Championship but as Hull have drawn their last three away games and have only won twice in their last ten visits to Preston then a draw can’t be ruled out. The game kicks off at 7:45pm and is live on Sky Sports 1.

As mentioned earlier, Nottingham Forest v QPR is game of the day but Burnley v Watford and Reading v Norwich (Sky Sports 2, 5:20 kick off) are worth keeping an eye on as all four clubs involved will be looking to either consolidate or move into play off positions.

Due to the Wales v South Africa test match on Saturday evening, Swansea’s game against Middlesbrough has been moved to Sunday afternoon. At first glance this game looks like a Swansea win but having said that, on paper the hosts shouldn’t have lost to Bristol City either and Middlesbrough won 3-0 at the Liberty Stadium last season in the first league game between these two since April 1984. Boro have also won three of their last five visits to west Wales but Marvin Emnes won’t be playing against Swansea as his loan period finishes on Monday.