Buzzin Championship Football

First of all, congratulations to Cardiff City on reaching the Carling Cup Final – the first time that they’ve reached that stage of the competition. It’s been over ten years since the last time a Championship side reached the final and I’d like to wish the Bluebirds good luck against Liverpool – the final means that their game against Hull City will be postponed and the possibility exists that that game rather than the final might be far more important in the long run.

It’s the fourth round of the FA Cup this weekend and there are ten Championship clubs left in the tournament, but only one guaranteed spot in the fifth round. There are also two league games taking place this weekend and we’ll come to them later.

From a Championship perspective, the pick of the ties is this evening’s meeting between Watford and Spurs (7:45pm, ESPN) although it’s worth pointing out that The Hornets have never beaten Spurs in a cup competition and have only beaten Tottenham twice in 12 games at Vicarage Road. Having said that, despite their less than impressive league position at the moment, Watford have only lost two of their last ten home games and with the Premier League club having an injury crisis as well as a manager in the dock at the moment, the game could make very interesting viewing.

The rest of the cup ties this weekend are a mixed bag: arguably the biggest chance of an upset is at Pride Park, where Derby entertain Stoke City. In terms of upsets being caused against Championship sides, Birmingham make the trip to Sheffield United in a game that looks like anything but a straightforward and both Leicester and Hull will have to be at their best when Swindon Town and Crawley visit.

The only all Championship tie would normally be a candidate for game of the week: Southampton haven’t been at their best away from home recently (two wins in the last ten) and so the last place the Saints would probably want to visit at the moment is Millwall, who seem to have rediscovered the art of scoring goals recently.

However, once again this is one of those games where the away side has dominated the home team in recent meetings: Millwall have only won once in the last ten meetings between the clubs in all competitions in South London and you’ve got to back almost three and half decades to find the last time the Lions beat the visitors at home.

The other two televised games follow the same pattern as those of the Third Round. Newcastle haven’t played at Brighton (5:15pm, ESPN) for almost 20 years – and the last time Brighton played Newcastle in the Cup was in 1982/83, when the Sussex club reached the final and were beaten by Manchester United in a replay following the ‘…and Smith must score’ game. Despite having been knocked out of the African Cup of Nations, Newcastle will be without Senegalese strikers Papis Cisse and Demba Ba for the game.

ITV aren’t well known for changing what appears to be a winning formula and their coverage of the FA Cup seems to be evolving into ‘Sunderland v Championship club’ : Peterborough were the Mackems victims in the last round and this time they’re playing Middlesbrough (ITV1, 1:30pm). It’s been a while since they met in a Cup competition  when they weren’t in the same division, but it’s even longer ago since they met in the FA Cup at Sunderland: January 1934 to be precise, when Sunderland progressed to the Fourth Round after winning a replay at Ayresome Park.

There’s a full league programme on Tuesday night, but four clubs decided to bring forward their games to Saturday afternoon, which gives us a chance to take a look at two clubs that we’ve not mentioned recently. Game of the day in the league is Peterborough v Portsmouth: only two points separate them at the moment, but although Pompey have maintained their somewhat schizophrenic form this season (playoff material at home, bound for League 1 away), The Posh dropped out of the top ten in November and have only recorded two wins in their last ten games, so this is the type of game that could tell us how the rest of the season might pan out for these clubs over the rest of the season. Pompey were rocked by Tuesday’s news that they face a winding up order and could face administration – which is something  they’ll desperately want to avoid – a ten point deduction would automatically send them to the bottom of the  table.

With less than a week to go on the transfer deadline there’s still not been a great deal of activity, although Reading – who face Bristol City in the only other league game tomorrow have been in the middle of it. The Royals have signed Tomasz Cywka on a free transfer from Derby and Jason Roberts from Blackburn Rovers, but apart from some loan moves that’s been about it this week. However, by the time I preview Tuesday’s matches there may be news on more moves – including a possible conclusion to the Nicky Maynard saga.

In a few hours time we’ll know which Championship side will  be expected to provide cannon fodder for either Manchester City or Liverpool in the Carling Cup final.

Although Crystal Palace are slight favourites to qualify for the final, Cardiff are favourites to win tonight. Which might sound slightly barmy until you realise that the Eagles have only lost three of their last ten trips to the Welsh capital in all competitions and that Cardiff really need to win by two goals to have a chance of winning the tie within 90 minutes – something that the hosts are very capable of doing. The Bluebirds have only lost twice at home this season and so it looks as if it could be a tight game.

Palace lost at Blackpool on Saturday but Dougie Freedman did a fantastic job of emulating the managers in the Premier League by naming a team that included precisely none of the team that played in the first leg of the semi final. In contrast, Cardiff’s Malky McKay chose eight of the 11 players who lost at Crystal Palace in his starting eleven for the game against Portsmouth: it’ll be interesting to see which philosophy pays off later on.

With the weekend’s games not finishing until last night, it was always going to be down to the game between Southampton and Leicester to decide who was going to be top of the table going into the Fourth Round of the FA Cup. Unfortunately for the former leaders, Leicester ended their 40 year winless streak at Southampton – which meant that West Ham maintained their lead at the top of the table thanks to their win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday afternoon.

On the face it, Middlesbrough’s 3-1 defeat at Coventry was a shock, but Boro managed to pull of a reasonable impression of Millwall’s thrashing by Birmingham the week before – Kevin Thomson and Julio Arca were both sent off. Boro’s only win this year came against Shrewsbury in the FA Cup and they’re now five points adrift of the automatic promotion places.

Coventry’s win compacted the bottom three rather than made any impact on the teams above them: I’ve already mentioned Forest’s defeat at West Ham and Doncaster lost at Bristol City, results which leave the bottom three four points adrift from safety.

I’ll be back on Friday with a look at the two league games taking place this weekend as well as the fourth round ties in the FA Cup – the pick of which is probably Watford v Spurs on Friday evening – but I’ll post an update as soon as tonight’s game has finished.

Update: despite having scored both goals in the two ties, Anthony Gardner won’t be playing in the Carling Cup final. Cardiff City won on penalties and will play at Wembley.

It was a bit like last season in the nPower Championship last weekend: despite having the means, motive and opportunity to do so, neither Cardiff nor Middlesbrough were able to overtake Southampton and West Ham. Of course, there are plenty of games left but will be there be fewer clear cut opportunities to overtake the top two?

Cardiff’s point at Doncaster shouldn’t have come as a surprise – as I pointed out last week the Bluebirds have a good record at Donny – but Middlesbrough chose last weekend to lose at home to Burnley for the first time in almost 30 years. Southampton and West Ham both won on the road and so in the space of an hour and a half the situation was back to almost exactly the same as it was a fortnight ago.

At the bottom of the table all six teams failed to win – Ipswich moved above Bristol City, but despite establishing a two goal lead over Blackpool the Tractor Boys failed to pick up three points. The biggest losers last weekend weren’t Millwall – although the dismissals of Adam Dunne and Shane Lowry during a 6-0 hammering by Birmingham isn’t exactly a contender for performance of the week – but Coventry City. The Sky Blues not only lost 1-0 at Pride Park, but Lukas Jutkiewicz joined Middlesbrough: the 22 year old striker was responsible for scoring nine of Coventry’s 20 league goals this season and his departure leaves a gap that may not be filled anytime soon.

The FA Cup replays took place earlier in the week: it was the turn of Leicester turn to stop Nottingham Forest from scoring and a hat-trick from Jermaine Beckford ensured that the Foxes will entertain Swindon at the King Power Stadium next weekend. Millwall took their frustrations out on Dagenham & Redbridge with three goals from Darius Henderson and a brace from Harry Kane and will play Southampton. Birmingham became the only Championship side to defeat a Premier League team in the cup so far this when a goal from Wade Elliott at Molineux saw the Blues into the fourth round. Brighton had to come from behind at the Racecourse Ground to beat Wrexham on penalties and will have a lucrative fourth round tie against Newcastle.

There are three candidates for game of the week this weekend: Doncaster visit Bristol City in the only game between teams in the bottom six and a win for either side could prove invaluable in the long term as current form indicates that Nottingham Forest won’t get anything at West Ham. So the choice this week is the potential playoff matchup between Reading at Hull at the Madjeski Stadium.

As you might expect from clubs in fifth and sixth place, neither club has a particularly strong record against the other clubs competing for promotion.  Despite an inconsistent start – as recently as the end of November they were in the bottom half of the table – Reading have only lost one of their last ten league games at home (to Cardiff) whereas Hull have lost at both Middlesbrough and Southampton in the last seven weeks. The Tigers don’t have a particularly good record in Berkshire, having only won twice in the ten visits to Reading since England won the World Cup and this looks like a difficult game for them, especially as Reading have won four consecutive games at the mad house and Hull haven’t been scoring much away from the KC.

Last game of the week is one the rare televised Monday night games outings for Championship teams when Leicester travel to St. Mary’s to take on the leaders (Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm) . If West Ham can pick up at least a point against Forest – which seems highly likely – than Southampton will have to make sure they don’t lose to Leicester. That outcome is also highly likely as this is yet another one of those games where history is favours one team. Leicester have failed to score in five of their last six games at either St. Mary’s or The Dell and have only won once on the South Coast since 1970.

Apart from Lukas Jutkiewicz’ move to Middlesbrough, there hasn’t been a great deal of business in the transfer market. Norwich have agreed terms with Leeds captain Johnny Howson and Ben Mee has joined Burnley from Manchester City but the two eye catching deals involve a player with no club and an ex-manager. Kelvin Etuhu – jailed for six months following a conviction for assault last year – has joined Portsmouth, while former Doncaster boss Sean O’Driscoll has joined Nottingham Forest as first team coach: if Forest continue their current form, it’s not inconceivable that O’Driscoll may find himself back in management sooner rather than later.

I’ll be back early next week with a round up of this weekend’s games and a preview of the second leg of the Carling Cup semi final. I’m also toying with the idea of having a full scale rant about a certain Premier League manager’s frankly ignorant ideas about having B teams from the Prem playing in the Championship, which I might save for next weekend…

In the first leg of the Carling Cup semi final, a header from Anthony Gardner at the end of the first half was enough to separate Crystal Palace and Cardiff on Tuesday night, but as the old cliché goes, the tie is far from over. The second leg is on 24^th January, but with only one goal in it and the prospect of reaching a second Wembley final in the last five years, the atmosphere at City of Cardiff stadium will be intense and intimidating for the Eagles.

This week as it’s more or less a case of ‘as you were’ in the Championship due to the FA Cup games last weekend and only one league game during the week when Birmingham beat Ipswich on Wednesday night. The Blues have now managed five single goal wins in the league at St Andrews this season: Nikola Zigic scored twice to move Birmingham two points outside the playoff spots with a game in hand and a much better goal difference than Hull.

The Serbian striker’s goal also condemned Ipswich to their third consecutive defeat. To make matters worse for the Tractor Boys – who have now lost ten of their last 15 games – under fire boss Paul Jewell made headlines for the wrong reasons following his post match comments about fourth official Amy Fearn.

After the irregular patters of the last few weeks and with the exception of the only televised game this weekend, we revert back to the traditional Saturday afternoon kick offs. With only two of the top six clubs at home this weekend there’s a chance that either Middlesbrough or Cardiff could go top if both Southampton (at Nottingham Forest) or West Ham (at Portsmouth) lose, while the only thing certain at the bottom end of the table is Coventry cannot escape the bottom three regardless of how they do at Derby.

By the time Reading kick off at Watford on Saturday evening in the weekend’s only televised game (Sky Sports 2, 5:20pm), there may be a new team at the top of the Championship for the first time since September – so it makes sense that Nottingham Forest v Southampton is game of the week.

Those of us of a certain vintage will remember the 1979 League Cup Final between these two clubs, but it’s extremely unlikely that Steve Cotterill will be forcing his Forest side to drink their way through a crate of champagne this evening to prepare for the Saints. Considering the recent ups and downs of both clubs it’s a surprising that tomorrow’s game is only their second meeting at the City Ground this century, but equally surprising is that the hosts haven’t scored at home in the league since Marcus Tudgay netted another injury time winner against Ipswich in mid November.

On the other hand, Southampton are beginning to look as if they’ve run out of momentum. The leaders have only won twice since the end of November and haven’t won an away game since beating Coventry at the Ricoh Arena on Guy Fawkes Night: Rickie Lambert’s equaliser at Portsmouth before Christmas is the only goal Southampton have scored in their last four away games in the Championship.

If Southampton stumble at Nottingham Forest, it looks as if Cardiff may be best placed to take over top spot. The Bluebirds travel to Doncaster – and not to put too fine a point on it, Rovers’ record at home to Cardiff is absolutely terrible. Since their first league meeting in September 1947, Cardiff have only lost twice in 15 games at either the old Belle View stadium or at the Keepmoat.

Finally this week, nothing much seems to have happened in the transfer market so far but there are persistent rumours that both Billy Sharp and Lukas Jutkiewicz may be moving from Doncaster Rovers and Coventry City respectively, with Leicester City (surprise surprise) being the destination for one or maybe even both of them. If both Sharp and Jutkiewicz leave their current clubs before the winter window closes, it’s probably safe to say that there’ll only be one relegation place left to fill…

After last weekend’s games in the oldest knockout competition in the world, only six teams from the Championship are definitely through to the fourth round, with four clubs facing replays next week. If that sounds familiar, take a look at this post from almost exactly a year ago; to put this season’s competition into perspective, four teams from League 1 are already through to the fourth round, three of them beating Championship sides.

The fourth round will in all likelihood weed out even more Championship sides, with three clubs (Middlesbrough, Derby and Watford) facing Premier League opposition, leaving only Hull and Blackpool looking reasonable chances for progress to the fifth round.

Of the four sides facing replays, only Birmingham City emerged with any real credit having held Wolves to a draw in the Saturday lunchtime kick off. Millwall failed to score away from home again (this time at Dagenham & Redbridge) and despite taking the lead Brighton were held at home by Wrexham. None of the clubs with unresolved third round games have easy looking ties in the next round if they win their replays – neither Nottingham Forest or Leicester will fancy a visit from Paolo Di Canio’s Swindon, who knocked out Wigan at the Country Ground on Saturday.

Four clubs were knocked out by opposition from Leagues 1 and 2, although they can all make the excuse that they’ll be concentrating on the league. Reading – who’ve reached the quarter finals in the last two seasons – lost to Stevenage, who the Royals beat last year. West Ham lost to a late goal at Hillsborough: Sheffield Wednesday have now knocked out Championship teams out of the cup in the third round in consecutive seasons without conceding a goal. Wednesday’s victims last season – Bristol City – lost at Crawley and Doncaster lost at home to Notts County: both of those last two games could be League 1 matches next season.

At least the Championship is guaranteed a place at the Carling Cup final at Wembley at the end of February, so hopefully Crystal Palace and Cardiff can provide two games to remember. It’s only really over the last few seasons that Cardiff have reversed a long term trend of performing badly at Selhurst Park: even though the Bluebirds lost their last visit in the league (to a single goal from South African international Kagiko Dikgacoi last March), they’ve won three of their last six meetings in South London. The only other time these sides have met in this competition was in September 1969, when Palace won 3-1: the hosts went on to win seven of the next ten meetings between them.

Looking at more recent form, a couple of things stand out: Palace will have to score at least two goals to win. The Eagles haven’t done that since mid October in the league, but they’ve managed it in every round of this season’s Carling Cup including the brace that beat Manchester United in the last round. The other stat that is worth remembering is that there’s not been a draw between these two in South London since December 1984 and both Palace (at home) and Cardiff (away) have been involved in a lot of undecided games recently: Cardiff’s only other away game in the Carling Cup was a draw at Oxford United back in August and the Bluebirds only won on penalties at the Kassam Stadium.

There hasn’t really been much to report in the transfer market, although the rumour mill is grinding out the usual stories (most of which involve anyone that’s ever scored a goal in the Championship being linked with Leicester), so the only piece of news worth mentioning is that despite overseeing three consecutive league defeats, Nick Barmby has been appointed as permanent manager of Hull City.

I’ll be back on Friday afternoon with a recap of tonight’s game plus a look forward to the action at the weekend.