I’ll have to be honest and say I genuinely don’t know how many full international players there are in this season’s nPower Championship, but it seems pointless having a break for the World Cup qualifiers. England played on Friday and Tuesday, so it would have been possible to fit one round of Championship games into the weekend rather than having a Saturday off (less than a month after the start of the season) followed by yet another Tuesday night round of games. That’s not because I’d rather watch the Champions League either…
Before I take a look at this weekend’s games, it’s time to take a quick look to see if anything is worth keeping an eye on over the next couple of weeks. Nottingham Forest, Blackpool, Leeds and Barnsley are currently on course to have better seasons in 2012/13 – both Forest and Leeds both have new-ish managers whilst the Tykes have begun better than most experts predicted. However, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s Blackpool who are pacesetters, even though their unbeaten record was ended at Leicester a couple of weeks ago.
At the bottom of the table, Birmingham, Crystal Palace, Burnley and Peterborough have all begun poorly and the Posh are the only club without any points. Luck doesn’t seem to be going their way either: Austrian goalkeeper Robert Olejnik managed to punch the ball into his own net to give Lee Clark his first league win as Birmingham manager in Peterborough’s last game before the break. On Saturday Darren Ferguson’s side travel to Burnley in a game that already looks like a ‘mustn’t lose’ for the visitors, who could find themselves six points adrift at the bottom before the end of September.
Unusually there are two games this evening, but it looks to me like Sky Sports have chosen the wrong game. Crystal Palace have only won twice in their last 20 league games at Charlton (Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm) and last won an away game when they beat Millwall on New Year’s Eve.
Arguably the better game toinght is Sheffield Wednesday’s trip to Brighton, which is the only match this weekend between clubs in the top six. After failing to score in their first two games, Brighton have scored eight in their last two matches, with Craig Mackail-Smith scoring half of them. Although Wednesday look vulnerable at the back, they’ve only lost twice in their last five trips to Sussex and only suffered two defeats in their last ten road trips at League 1 opponents last season.
There’s no question about the game of the day on Saturday: Cardiff against Leeds. Both clubs are currently just outside the playoff spots, but with Leeds have only ever won one league game in the Welsh capital but with only three points separating the top half of the table a win for either side now could make a big difference before the midweek programme. This game normally has a few goals in it: Leeds’ Luciano Becchio is one of the joint top scorers in the Championship at the moment and Cardiff’s Peter Whittingham is just one goal behind him.
The final game of the weekend is between Wolves and Leicester at Molineux on Sunday lunchtime (1:15pm Sky Sports 1), which will be the first league meeting between the midlands rivals since Christmas 2007. That game finished 1-1, the fifth draw in the last ten league games between them in the Black Country. Although Wolves are undefeated at home since returning to the second tier, Leicester have lost both their away games so far by a single goal – and both of those games game against clubs that are new to the Championship this season.
I’ll be back on Monday to take a look at the weekend’s action and preview the midweek games…although I think it’s only fair to mention that I’ll be watching Real Madrid v Manchester City on Tuesday!
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