Buzzin Championship Football

Another busy week in the Championship: it’s fair to say that Southampton took advantage of some of the interesting results in midweek and now have a much bigger lead than QPR did this time last season. Of course, there’s no way of telling how significant that lead might be but having pointed out before the season began that back to back promotions to the Premier League are a rarity, it’s either boom or bust for the Saints.

It’ll be interesting to see if – unlike last season – any of the other promotion candidates can mount a credible challenge for the title. West Ham were heavily fancied to beat Bristol City on Tuesday night but failed to do so but along with Cardiff winning convincingly at Derby the real eyebrow raiser was Leeds’ worst home defeat for three decades – United were already a goal down to Blackpool when Tom Lees was sent off and former ‘pool goalkeeper Paul Rachubka was substituted at half time having been made the scapegoat for Leeds’ woes by their fans. A hat trick from Jonjo Shelvey and a brace from Lomana Lua Lua means that Blackpool are now within striking distance of the playoffs while Leeds drop back to tenth.

Five of the twelve games this weekend will have an impact on both ends of the table and although there’ll be no change in the bottom three, there has been some movement within that group. Despite being the only club in the competition without a home win, Bristol City will be hoping to continue their improvement under new boss Derek McInnes even though there’s no guarantee that they’ll beat Burnley.

On paper Coventry have the hardest task facing the clubs in the drop zone this weekend when Southampton travel to the Ricoh Arena, but the leaders have only won one of their last ten visits to Warwickshire and haven’t picked up maximum points on their travels since winning at Ipswich in mid August. The Sky Blues aren’t terrible at home – although this is their first game against a team in the current top six – but really need to start winning games if they’re to escape the bottom three.

The other game featuring two sides from the bottom six will see Steve Cotterill return to Fratton Park for the first time since he left Portsmouth and both clubs will be looking to avoid defeat. Goals could be at a premium on the South Coast and with Nottingham Forest apparently being unable to keep clean sheets on the road, their porous defence could prove a stumbling block to any chance of success in Hampshire.

There are two games between the top six on Saturday afternoon: rather than unneccesarily over complicate the situation at the top of the table, it’s entirely possible that West Ham could be out of the automatic promotion places on Saturday evening yet only Crystal Palace and Middlesbrough can overtake them. Palace travel down the M4 to Cardiff City, but although The Bluebirds haven’t lost at home to Palace since 2004 they’ve only won two of the six meetings between the clubs in South Wales since then. Middlesbrough entertain Watford on Saturday teatime in the only televised game this weekend (Sky Sports 2, 5:20pm) but although Boro haven’t lost at the Riverside since April they’ve only won twice at home this season and Watford will be encouraged by the points earned by Coventry and Portsmouth on Teeside this season.

If the Hammers want to remain in second spot they’ll need to do something in this weekend’s game of the week they’ve they’ve been unable to do since September 1954: win at Hull City. Admittedly these sides only met four times in the league over the last two decades and although Sam Allardyce’s side have only lost once on their travels this season, this game looks as if it’s going to be a tight, low scoring affair and it’s also worth remembering that West Ham have yet to record a victory away to a team in the current top six.

Finally this week, it’s difficult to remain detached about the Championship when we’re lucky to have a player like Billy Sharp of Doncaster Rovers playing in it. His two day old son died on Saturday but on Monday he rang Rovers’ manager Dean Saunders to ask if he could play against Middlesbrough during the week; Sharp opened the scoring after 14 minutes and revealed a t-shirt that simply said ‘That’s for you son.’