Buzzin Championship Football

On Friday morning Sean O’Driscoll became the first manager in the nPower Championship to lose his job ‘go on gardening leave’ in 2011/12: unfortunately there had been an air of inevitability about his departure move into ‘groundskeeping’. 

Despite having the apparent support of many pundits (most of whom probably couldn’t name half the teams in the Championship but heard somewhere that O’Driscoll was a ‘good young manager’), Doncaster Rovers’ recent record speaks for itself: already four points adrift at the bottom of the table, without a win since March and without a home win since the start of February. It’s probably fair to say that if any of the teams that were relegated had shown any signs of life towards the end of last season then Rovers would have started this season in League 1.

O’Driscoll’s departure means that Kenny Jackett of Millwall becomes the longest serving manager in the Championship, followed by Derby’s Nigel Clough: without including the circumstances at Doncaster, exactly half of the teams in the competition have changed their mananger since last October. To be fair to Rovers, they acted swiftly – Dean Saunders left Wrexham to take over the vacant position at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Amongst the highlights of last weekend’s games, the old cliche of  how difficult it is to play against ten men was proven yet again. After five minutes at the City Ground, Nottingham Forest fans would have been delighted: a goal up following Frankie Fielding’s rather dubious dismissal for a collision in the penalty area with Ishmael Miller had given them the ideal start. Ninety minutes later and Derby had collected all three points.

Leeds United were the second club to benefit from having a player sent off. With the score level at 1-1, Patrick Kisnorbo was sent off having given away a penalty following a rugby tackle on Bristol City’sNicky Maynard who then missed the spot kick. It was a costly mistake: Ross McCormack’s late winner means that the Robins are now second bottom in the table.

Southampton and Middlesbrough leapfrogged Brighton, who suffered their first defeat of the season when Yuki Abe scored the only goal at the King Power stadium to earn Leicester all three points. It’s still fairly tight at the bottom: Reading’s first win of the season took them out of the bottom three to 14th and with only seven points between the relegation spots and the play off places there probably won’t be any further managerial changes this month!

The pursuit of the Carling Cup is now down to four teams: Burnley, Cardiff, Crystal Palace and Southampton will carry the Championship flag in the next round. The draw will be made on Sky’s ‘Soccer Saturday’ show tomorrow morning and in all likelihood the best we can hope for is one of those four teams will be drawn against Aldershot Town.

Back to the league and it’s another packed week that starts today when Leeds visit Brighton (Sky Sports 1. 7:45pm KO) and finishes on Sunday lunchtime when Cardiff entertain Leicester for the second time in less than a week. There’s a day’s rest on Monday before pretty much a full programme on Tuesday night.

Game of the week is Burnley v Southampton – the Clarets won the last meeting in the Championship in December 2008 but haven’t beaten the Saints in consecutive home games since the mid 1970s. The hosts have yet to win at Turf Moor in the league this season – their last home win came in April – and although Southampton have started extremely well, Eddie Howe’s side are rapidly gaining a reputation as home draw specialists and will have to cope with Rickie Lambert, who is currently joint top scorer with Ross McCormack. This isn’t a ‘must win’ for either team, but it’s exactly the kind of game that could test Southampton’s promotion credentials.

Finally this week – but probably for the only time this season – BBC2 will be showing a live Championship game on Saturday teatime that won’t be competing with a talent show. Watford v Nottingham Forest will be probably be overwhelmed by ‘Celebrity Masterchef’ but if you like laughing at people making fools of themselves, Steve McClaren could provide a hilarious alternative to ‘New You’ve Been Framed’…