First of all, credit where credit’s due. Congratulations to Barnsley, Blackburn Rovers and Millwall for reaching the quarter finals of the FA Cup. To be honest, the Tykes and the Lions faced opponents they should have beaten and both teams responded to the task admirably. However, Blackburn’s win at Arsenal was well deserved and should be seen as a triumph for fans of all Championship clubs. The Championship will have one semi final place guaranteed after Millwall and Blackburn were drawn against each other and although it’s unlikely any of the remaining clubs will win the cup, who knows what might happen?
In other news, Paul Ince was appointed manager of Blackpool. All I’m going to say is that this may not end well for the Tangerines: Ince is unproven as a manager at this level and he’s not got a great track record regardless of whether he’s been in the Premier League or League Two. Not only that, Tom Ince is the ‘gaffer’s son’, with all the problems that might cause – especially if Ince junior moves to a bigger club at the end of the season.
There’s a full programme over the next two days and there are two games tonight that could have a long term impact at the bottom of the table, where only seven points separate the bottom six clubs.
Absolutely no doubt about the game of the evening: if Wolves lose at Barnsley, they’ll drop into the bottom three for the first time this season – and with 14 games to go, the bottom three might be a difficult place to escape from.
Wolves’ descent into a relegation battle probably shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. They’ve changed manager twice since the end of last season, they’ve not won a game since before Christmas, have only won once at Molineux since the end of September and when you lose 0-3 at home to Peterborough as well as dumped out of the Cup by a non-league side you know you’re in trouble. Since 1994 Wolves have won half of their last ten league games at Oakwell, but they’ve not picked up maximum points in South Yorkshire since October 2000.
On the other hand, Barnsley have been unrecognisable since David Flitcroft took over from Keith Hill at the end of December. They’re undefeated in their last five league games and have reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup; Jason Scotland and Chris Dagnall have formed an extremely effective partnership up front in the last month.
The other game to keep an eye on this evening is at Selhurst Park, where Bristol City face three possible fates: the most likely is that the Robins will become the next sacrificial victim on the alter of promotion, after Crystal Palace proved how good they are at home with last weekend’s comprehensive demolition of Middlesbrough. The least likely is that City will be the first team to win in SE25 since August – although the Robins unexpectedly won at Palace in the playoff semi final in May 2008, they’ve only one won of the last ten ‘regular season’ meetings between the teams in South London. Although City have improved at home since Sean O’Driscoll took over, they’ve yet to pick up an away point under the new boss and are still have trouble scoring goals away from home.
The long term implications of tonight’s games could be huge. The bookies expect an easy win for Palace and while Barnsley are favourites to beat Wolves, it could go either way. If the Tykes win and the Robins lose, the stats I mentioned here come into play again: we might be looking at a scenario where Wolves, Bristol City and Peterborough could be playing in League 1 next season.
I’ll be back at the end of the week with a look at the three big games over the weekend, which are all at the bottom of the table.
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