Buzzin Championship Football

And there goes the first of the terrible headlines this season…

This weekend sees the last action in the Championship for a couple of weeks due to the international break: after most clubs played two league games in the past seven days, there are some signs that this season’s competition might be much tighter than 2010/11.

At the top, Southampton, Middlesbrough and Derby are all level on points: the latter pair were undefeated over the course of the last week although Boro seem to have gone into ’safety first’ mode at the Riverside with goalless draws against Ipswich & Leicester. Possibly the most significant result of the season so far came at the Cardiff City Stadium on Wednesday night, when the hosts beat Southampton 2-1 in the first game between the current top six in 2011/12: veteran Scottish striker Kenny Miller scored both goals for the Bluebirds.

With only three points separating the current crop of Premier League hopefuls, it’s a similar story at bottom of the table for the clubs hoping to avoid League 1 next August. Only a win separates Doncaster from Birmingham, although to be fair to the Blues they have two games in hand. The managerial change at the Keepmoat Stadium seems to have done the trick as Donny were one of six clubs that picked up four points from a possible six in the last seven days; exactly how much they’ve improved should be indicated when they travel to Peterborough on Saturday. Burnley also did well last week: the Clarets battered Nottingham Forest 5-1 on Tuesday night, a win that put Forest manager Steve McClaren under even more pressure.

There’s little doubt about the team of the week. That accolade must surely go to Reading, who were two goals down after an hour at Ashton Gate on Tuesday night but managed to win the game with an injury time goal from French striker Mathieu Manset. The result propelled the Royals into mid table but left Bristol City without a home win this season: Robins’ manager Keith Millen isn’t as much of a household name as Steve McClaren, but the bookies have them as clear favourites to be the next managers to join Sean O’Driscoll at the allotments.

There are a couple of interesting games on Saturday: Middlesbrough defend their 100% away record at Reading while Watford will be trying to make a dent in Southampton’s perfect record at St. Mary’s – the Hornets have won the last three league games there by an aggregate of 9-1!

Leicester and Derby battle it out on Sky Sports 2 in the tea time kick off (5:20pm ) but the last time the Rams were successful at Leicester was in a Premier League game at Filbert Street almost ten years ago, when Georgi Kinkladze was amongst the scorers in a 3-0 win. Nigel Clough’s side seems to have turned something of a corner this season and it’s not hard to see why: of the starting eleven against Barnsley on Tuesday only John Brayford and Jamie Ward played against Reading in the final game of last season.

However, game of the week is the Sunday afternoon match between Nottingham Forest v Birmingham City. The mildest way of describing how these teams have performed so far is that they’ve been inconsistent: the Blues are in a weird position for all kinds of reasons (new manager following relegation, the novelty of a Europa League campaign and multiple issues with their chairman) and are probably at their best at home. Forest are normally slow starters but have regressed to the point where Steve McClaren described his team as ‘rubbish’ after the defeat at Burnley during the week. The bad news for Birmingham is that they’ve only won one of their last ten trips to the City Ground, they’re struggling away from home and even though they came from behind to beat Maribor in Thursday’s Europa League game they’ve lost the last two away games immediately after travelling back from their European adventures.

Whether or not Forest can capitalise upon that record is another matter altogether.