Buzzin Championship Football

We’ve not had any postponements caused by the recent outbreak of bad weather, but I’ll be even amazed if there no postponements over the next couple of months. Any potential fixture backlogs could wreak havoc with the medium term plans of Championship clubs, regardless of whether they’re going for promotion, trying to evade League 1 or hoping for an extended run in the FA Cup.

I’ve never been much of a believer in pundits trotting out the old theory about Easter being ‘vital’ to issues at the top and the bottom of the table. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the wheat has pretty much already been sorted from the chaff already: the next few weeks are going to go along way to determine which clubs are prepared for the long, hard slog. However, I think a couple of things are inevitable: the top ten will probably fragment into two groups and that by the end of January the bottom six now will probably still form most of the bottom six at the end of January and that at least half the clubs in the nPower Championship will be out of the FA Cup.

The midweek programme produced only minor changes at the top and bottom of the table: despite their second red card in consecutive games, Cardiff’s point at Derby – which featured a classic defensive mix up that Theo Robinson took advantage of – took them to the top of the table as Palace and Hull drew 0-0 at the KC Stadium. Middlesbrough’s win over Huddersfield means were more or less back to the same situation we were in at the end of last week. Millwall’s progress up the table continued with a win at Wolves – the Lions kept another clean sheet – and only Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest have shown more improvement from last season.

It’s more or less the same at the bottom, although Ipswich and Bristol City changed places after the Tractor Boys beat Nottingham Forest and the Robins lost to two practically identical goals at Brighton. However, both clubs are still in the mix and wins tomorrow could make a big difference although Ipswich have the tougher looking game – at Bolton (details)

There’s no clear candidate for Game of the Week, but as games are being played over three days and we’ve got televised games on Friday and Saturday it’s a good opportunity to see multiple teams in action. The recent theme of top v bottom continues this weekend: tonight’s match between Birmingham and Middlesbrough at St Andrew’s (Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm ) could see Boro go top if they win by four goals – which isn’t as unlikely as it might seem considering Birmingham’s poor defensive record which has seen them keep only two home clean sheets this season. Remarkably, half of the last six encounters between these two in the league in the Midlands have ended 3-0, but Boro have only won one of their last ten trips to Birmingham.

This weekend there are four derbies and a grudge match – Palace v Brighton – although you’ve got to wonder what the distance between clubs has to be before they can be called derbies. The five mile trip between Millwall and Charlton (Saturday 3pm) is the shortest, it’s just over ten miles between Burnley and Blackburn (Sunday 12:30pm) and although I think that Leeds v Huddersfield (Saturday 12:30pm) is OK at 16 miles, 35 miles (Leicester v Derby, 5:20pm, Sky Sports 2) is pushing it a bit.

However, the game at the King Power Stadium could be worth watching: although Derby haven’t won at Leicester for over a decade, haven’t scored there since April 2007 and have lost their last three away games, the onus is on the hosts to pick up three points. Five of Leicester’s seven home wins so far this season have come against sides that are currently in the bottom half of the table and they’ve dropped points at home to Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace over the last month.

Sunday’s games include Cardiff v Sheffield Wednesday: according to a writer for a football magazine I used to read as a kid in the 1970s and these days only has an online presence, the Redbirds supposedly have ‘…the best home record in Europe’. That may be the case, but no-one ever won anything in British football because they were undefeated at the end of November and winning all 23 home games in the Championship would be one of the most remarkable feats in the history of the game in this country. Whether Wednesday can end that run is another matter, but it’s worth remembering that it’s often the teams that are written off that can provide the biggest headlines.

Finally this week, the draw for the third round of the FA Cup takes place on Sunday afternoon, but it’s worth remembering that only ten Championship clubs reached the fourth round last season. That was a huge improvement on the season before, when only six teams got past the 3^rd Round: looking at the teams that got to the next hurdles, it’s interesting to note that the most successful clubs are those teams that were between sixth and tenth place in the table on the morning the draw was made. At the other end of the scale, keep an eye out for any potential shocks in games involving the bottom five on Sunday morning as not one club in those positions has reached the fourth round in the last two seasons.