Category: Preston

Game of the Week: Brighton v Sheffield Wednesday

I’ve long been a believer that although the Championship is capable of producing some surprising results in individual games, overall the table doesn’t lie – and despite defeats for Brighton at Preston and Norwich at Rotherham, we go into this weekend with the situation at the top more or less as it was.

Seeing as though Brighton won’t lose that many games this season and Preston did so well against Arsenal in the FA Cup, here’s the highlights – with commentary for a change – from last weekend’s game at Deepdale:

Last week’s game of the week finished in a  2-0 win for Sheffield Wednesday, although the score was 1-0 when Huddersfield‘s Jack Payne was dismissed for a rash challenge on Sam Hutchinson with twenty minutes left…which brings me nicely round to the game of the week: remarkably, it’s being televised.

Brighton v Sheffield Wednesday (this evening, 7:45pm Sky Sports 1 HD)

Last week’s defeat at Preston was the first away reverse for Chris Houghton’s side since losing at Newcastle at the end of August, but the Seagulls haven’t lost at the Amex since September, have kept clean sheets in eight of their twelve games this season and – according to the bookies – are nailed on for automatic promotion. The only apparent weaknesses in their home form is that they need to score more goals in the first half of their games and seem to be vulnerable defensively in the first 30 minutes.

Wednesday are a little bit easier to analyse. Despite winning without conceding a goal at both Newcastle and Huddersfield this season, they’ve struggled defensively against other sides currently in the top half of the table and they’ve average just less than one goal per game on the road, having only scored twice in one of their games away from Hillsborough this season. To put that into perspective, four of the current bottom six have scored more away goals than Wednesday have, which is one of the reasons that although they’re one of the better teams in the Championship, they aren’t one of the best.

Wednesday’s last win at Brighton was in the first game of the 2014/15 season, when Albion were ‘managed’ by Sami Hyppia and only finished six points clear of the relegation zone. This season, exactly half of the sixteen games between the current top six have ended in home wins and although I’m not expecting lots of goals later on, I’d be surprised if Brighton lost at home – although they are due another reverse at the Amex soon.

Honourable mention:

Nottingham Forest v Bristol City

I am on record as saying that Forest looked like strugglers before the season began and so it’s no surprise to me that they’ve performed exactly as I thought they would, even down to appointing – and then sacking – Phillipe Montanier. Furthermore, the unsuccessful takeover of the club seems to have been the last straw with the fans, who were also less than delighted when news broke that Henri Lansbury will probably be leaving. His move to Aston Villa hadn’t been confirmed when I posted this, but I expect it will have been when you read this.

Bristol City have been in free fall since October, having lost twelve of their last fifteen games – which includes blowing leads in four of those matches. So far this season several other clubs in the Football League have sacked managers that haven’t done as badly as Lee Johnson recently, so there must be something about him that the City board sees that the rest of us don’t.

Head to head: Forest have only lost two of their last ten home games in the league against City, but those defeats have come in the last three meetings – and the visitors haven’t lost to a team below them this season.

Televised games: QPR v Fulham (Saturday, 12:30pm) which confirms my theory that Sky Sports are incredibly lazy: the production team will be in the pub by 3:00pm. However Barnsley v Leeds (Saturday 5:30pm) will be an absolute cracker.

Back to the FA Cup again next week, so I’ll see you then.

FA Cup Third Round Preview

Just a quick look this time round as I’ve had some technical issues as well as a hacking cough for most of the last two weeks.

As I’ve been fond of repeating for the last few seasons, we’re lucky if half of the clubs in the Championship qualify for the fourth round and having not had a second tier winner for almost 40 years, there’s no point expecting one in 2016/17.

Championship v Premier League 

Considering that six of the eight ties in this category involve the Championship teams travelling to clubs in the Promised Land, I can’t see much hope for an early upset. Sheffield Wednesday visit Middlesbrough in what could be a very competitive game and the Midlands derby between West Brom and…errr…Derby should be worth keeping an eye on, but does anyone genuinely fancy Burton, Reading or Preston causing upsets?

All Championship

With only four guaranteed places in the next round, there’s a chance that whoever takes their opportunities now may stand a chance of reaching the last sixteen. For that reason, Birmingham v Newcastle is potentially the tie of the round in this category: on the other hand, neither Wigan nor Nottingham Forest will want to hang around in the FA Cup if they’re serious about avoiding the drop.

Championship v League One

In one of those quirks of fate that happens when the draw is made, all four of the ties in this category have the Championship clubs at home. I can’t see Brighton or Huddersfield having much trouble with MK Dons and Port Vale respectively, but there’s a possibility that Bristol City and Rotherham might find Fleetwood or Oxford too much to handle.

There’s only one game where a Championship club takes on one from League 2: Barnsley travel to Blackpool. On paper, both of the ties between sides from the Championship and non-league teams ought to be straightforward for both Brentford and Ipswich, although neither Eastleigh or Lincoln are mugs.

Televised games: Manchester United v Reading (BT Sport 1, 12:30pm tomorrow), Preston v Arsenal (BT Sport 1, 5:30pm tomorrow) and Spurs v Aston Villa (BBC 1, 4:00pm Sunday). The draw for the fourth round will be on Monday, I’ll probably update as the weekend progresses and I’ll be back next week.

Update: Leeds, Fulham, Brentford, Brighton, Huddersfield, Blackburn, Wolves, Derby and Wigan all won at the first time of asking over the weekend. Birmingham, Newcastle, Barnsley, Bristol City, Ipswich (against Lincoln!) and Norwich all face replays, so there are currently ten guaranteed places for Championship clubs in the fourth round.

So far the only confirmed fourth round ties involving Championship teams are:

Fulham v Hull, Chelsea v Brentford, Rochdale v Huddersfield, Derby v Leicester and Manchester United v Wigan. If Ipswich win at Lincoln in the replay, they’ll host Brighton in the next round and if Barnsley beat Blackpool in their replay they’ll travel to Blackburn.

I’ll be back on Thursday, in time for the Reading/QPR clash that evening.

FA Cup Third Round Draw

The draw was pretty harsh – only four guaranteed places in the fourth round, with eight teams drawn against Premier League opposition, six of whom will have to travel.

Championship v Premier League

Manchester United v Reading, Middlesbrough v Sheffield Wednesday, Norwich v Southampton, Preston v Arsenal, Stoke v Wolves, Spurs v Aston Villa, Watford v Burton, WBA v Derby

All Championship

Birmingham v Newcastle, Cardiff v Fulham, QPR v Blackburn, Wigan v Nottingham Forest

Championship v League 1

Brighton v Charlton or MK Dons, Huddersfield v Port Vale

Championship v League 2

Blackpool v Barnsley, Cambridge v Leeds

Championship v Non-League

Brenford v Eastleigh or Halifax, Ipwich v Lincoln

Championship v Teams Needing A Replay

Bristol City v Fleetwood/Shrewsbury, Rotherham v Macclesfield/Oxford

Back on Friday with the Market Reports.

Market Reports: November

At the top, Newcastle are dead certs in the promotion market. Five consecutive wins in October indicate to me that they are far stronger than I’d expected and they also compare favourably to their predecessors that ran away with the competition a few seasons ago. However, last month’s second favourites Norwich have seen their odds lengthen since the start of last month: their away form in particular has not been good enough for a serious promotion contender and their defence on the road is clearly a major issue:

Norwich’s misfortune has been Brighton‘s gain. Albion’s nine game undefeated streak is a sure sign that they need to be taken seriously once again and this weekend they face an interesting clash at the only other team that’s seen their odds for promotion shorten both over the last month and since the season began…

Game of the week: Bristol City v Brighton (tomorrow, Sky Sports 1, 5:30pm)

A televised clash between two top six sides looks like one to savour, but if you’re expecting loads of goals I’d beware. Albion won 4-0 at Ashton Gate last season but that was the first time there’d been more than one goal in a league encounter in Bristol since August 1991 and the revamped City side under Lee Johnson is an entirely different proposition. Six of the last seven meetings in BS3 have ended with one goal or less and City have only won one of those, just over a decade ago. If you take into consideration that so far this season only four of the ten games between the current top six have seen both teams score and exactly half of those games have ended with more than two goals, this looks a very tight game.

Back to the markets again and at the bottom, it’s still a case of who’s going down with Rotherham and possibly Blackburn. Preston are now expected to remain clear of danger, but both Barnsley and Nottingham Forest have seen their prices for relegation shorten. I think the bookies have been a bit harsh with the Tykes: they ended their six game streak without a win with a surprise victory at Brentford before snatching a last minute equaliser against Bristol City at Oakwell last weekend. On the other hand, I picked Forest to struggle before the season started and they’ve only won once since the start of September: if they continue in that form, Phillipe Montanier will be out of a job before Christmas.

There are a couple of runners up for the game of the week, but Cardiff haven’t won at Newcastle since John F. Kennedy was still alive and Reading haven’t won at Wigan since George W. Bush was midway through his first term in the White House.

As there’s another bloody international break next weekend, I’ll see you all in a fortnight, unless there’s another round of managerial departures…

Back To The Future With Bruce, McClaren and Warnock

Welcome to this week’s post, which I’ve been planning for two weeks and includes one of my rare forays into editorial opinion. First things first though: let’s have a big hand for Steve Bruce, Steve McClaren and Neil Warnock in particular.

This is both NSFW and a thing of profound beauty.

July 13th 2016, Aston Villa preview: ‘Questionable morale at the end of last season plus adjustments on and off the field mean that they’re more likely to be Fulham than Newcastle’

New boss: Steve Bruce. Immediate reaction: expect a very painful transitional period to a defence first mentality with lots of 1-0 wins.

July 21st 2016, Cardiff City preview: ‘but at for now the defence isn’t good enough and the Bluebirds failed to beat any of the teams in the top half of the Championship away from the City of Cardiff Stadium last season. Trollope – who hasn’t managed a team for almost six years – is untested at this level and could have something of a baptism of fire.’

New boss: Neil Warnock. Gut reaction: the Bluebirds will be a mid table team by the time I start writing about Championship teams in the FA Cup.

Same date, Derby County preview: ‘If Derby don’t go up this season, I’ll eat my hat. Although I probably ought to point out that my hat is a pork pie hat.’

New boss: Steve McClaren. Gut reaction: is that the best you could do?

It’s not even three months later and all three of the clubs mentioned above have now replaced the managers they began the season with. When I re-read those extracts the only one that really surprises me is Derby, but it’s easy being wise after the event: the other two are spot on. I’m just a modest blogger, albeit one that’s been posting on an almost weekly basis about the Championship for over six years – so if I could tell what was going to happen at Aston Villa and Cardiff this season, why couldn’t their multimillionaire Asian owners?

I think the answer may be partly because of the way the clubs perceive themselves. Of the 24 teams in the 2016/17 Championship, only ten haven’t played at least one season in the Premier League over the last decade. Of the fourteen clubs that have played in the top flight over that period, only three – Aston Villa, Newcastle and Wigan – have spent more than half of the last ten seasons in the top flight. That indicates to me that Villa are clearly out of their comfort zone – this season is only their eleventh outside the top flight since the end of World War II – and may have thought that all they need to do was turn up every week and they’d be promoted at a canter: the owner, the fans (who are probably the most deluded group in the Championship on social media), the former manager and the players have suddenly come to the uncomfortable realisation that the Championship doesn’t work like that. And yes, I am old enough (just) to remember when Villa were a third tier side in the early 1970s.

On the other hand, Cardiff have spent most of their time since the end of the Second World War in the second tier. That period also includes 18 seasons in the bottom half of the football league between 1985 and 2003, so the current performance may just be a natural regression to the mean. I started prepping this article before Neil Warnock was appointed manager and I think that’s a great short term decision although as you can see above it could work both ways.

At the other end of the scale, in the case of Brentford and Preston, The Beatles have come and gone since they were last in the top flight and you’d have to be at least 50 to remember when Huddersfield were a first division team – once again, I do. All three are currently doing better than Aston Villa.

Games of the Week:

Cardiff v Bristol City (this evening, SS1, 7:45pm)

A lot can change in a year: after 11 games last season, Cardiff were two points off the play offs and City were in the bottom four. Those positions are almost reversed for this game, largely due to changes of manager at both clubs but this match should give us some sort of indication of the impact Warnock has had in two weeks as Cardiff manager as well as Bristol City’s credentials as a possible playoff team.

The Robins haven’t won at Cardiff in a league game since December 2002 and have lost six of their last seven trips across the Severn Bridge, but this is Cardiff’s first home game this season against any of the current top six and City haven’t lost any of their games against teams currently in the bottom half of the table.

Norwich v Rotherham (Saturday 3pm, no TV coverage)

The Canaries should return to the top of the pile before Sunday’s Yorkshire derby between Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday (SS2, 2pm kick off). The Millers last won at Norwich three months before England won the 1966 World Cup although it’s only right for me to point out that four of the last six encounters in Norfolk have ended all square. It’s also right for me to point out that Norwich’s current run of four straight home wins is their best performance at this level for over a decade; if Rotherham lose their next four games, they’ll have equalled their own record for consecutive defeats, set in the mid 1950s.

That’s all for this week, I’ll be back at the start of next week with a look at the midweek games.