It’s worth starting with Blackpool once again, primarily because they’re the only side with a 100% record in the league – although there are currently also four other undefeated teams – and they feature in the only televised game this weekend, when they travel to Leicester (5:20pm SS2) so you can make up your own minds about Ian Holloway’s team. I’ve already commented on Blackpool several times this season (and I have a feeling they’ll be featuring a lot this season), so how about the joint pre-season favourites? After their opening day win over Peterborough, Leicester have lost three in a row including a 4-2 home defeat to Burton Albion in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday – and a three game losing streak hasn’t happened to the Foxes since March 2010.
Other than that It’s the last weekend before the first international break of the season and oddly all of the top six are away from home and five of the bottom six are at home, so I’d expect there’ll be a few teams determined to do well going into what is effectively a fortnight off. Birmingham v Peterborough was almost game of the week – the Blues seem to be suffering from a classic playoff hangover while Posh are already up against it having lost all three of their league games so far.
Game of the week is Leeds v Blackburn – they’ve not met in the second tier for over 20 years and with both sides looking to return to Premier League in May this game could be crucial to the ambitions of both teams. Rovers need to overcome their recent history at Leeds: they have only only won once in their last 20 trips to Elland Road. There might be a few goals in this game: Argentine striker Luciano Becchio has already scored three times this term (he’s already on target to beat last season’s 11 goal haul), while Colin Kazim-Richards’ five year trip round Europe obviously hasn’t diminished his goalscoring ability – he’s already scored twice for Blackburn.
As for the Capital One Cup, the second round was a total disaster. Only five teams are left in the draw for the third round and with three of them being drawn against opposition from the Premier League it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise if none of them are left in the competition before Christmas, but I’ll take a closer look at their chances towards the end of the month.
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