Buzzin Championship Football

Two talking points in the football world this week: the allegations of match fixing and Blackpool and their dreadful disciplinary record.

The allegations made against one of their former players are under police investigation at the moment and so I’m not going to try to reserve comment on that particular issue until there’s a legal outcome. Football betting is one of the bigger industries in the UK and although I’m fairly sure that the two can still c0-exist, news headlines such of those we’ve seen in the past couple of days will further tarnish the image of football.

My hope is that if any convictions arise from the current investigation that the full possible weight of the law comes down on those involved. The legal precedent of sine die suspensions for those found guilty of the same offence in the past should be applied if necessary.

Having had six players sent off since the start of November doesn’t really cast Blackpool in a favourable light in any context, but coming at the same time as the news about this type of spot fixing tarnishes their image as a family club even more.

So far this season, the Tangerines have ‘earned’ 37 yellow cards with four of their seven reds coming as a result of second yellows. That leaves three ’straight’ red cards, both of which came in their last two games. England U21 international defender Jack Robinson – who’d had a fairly innocuous disciplinary record until this season – is the main culprit although to be fair, he’s not been sent off since the of October.

The big question is can all of the blame be placed at the feet of the self styled ‘Guvnor’? Well, considering  he’s also been in trouble this season and the club has also been fined for failing to control their players, I’m afraid the answer is yes. Paul Ince’s career as both a player and a manager has been blighted by an inability to understand that he’s to blame for much of the controversy that surrounds him. That ranges from blaming his agent for the infamous photo of him in a Manchester United kit when he was still a West Ham player, his homophobic taunting of Graeme Le Saux and eventually moaning about the lack of money at Notts County when he left Meadow Lane in April 2011 even though he was made aware of the exact situation when he was appointed manager there. It appears that nothing is ever his fault.

Ince also isn’t particularly well known as lasting that long at any of his managerial jobs: he’s 22 games away from beating his previous record for longevity in one job (56 matches at MK Dons) which would take him up to the end of this season. He’s lasted longer at Bloomfield Road than he did at Macclesfield, Blackburn and Notts County but with only three wins in their last dozen league games you’ve got to wonder about his long term future with Blackpool – at the risk of being accused of being cynical, I still believe that if Ince’s son Tom moves in either the forthcoming transfer window or next summer, then Ince senior won’t be around much longer at Bloomfield Road.

Back to more prosaic matters now. Last weekend Burnley went back to the top of the pile on goal difference after both Leicester and QPR failed to win. If the three frontrunners continue to show such inconsistent form, they may be joined by a fourth.

Derby won for the fifth consecutive time in a game they were losing before the collective red mist descending on Blackpool again. That come from behind victory propelled the Rams into fourth place, which is a tribute to Steve McLaren’s managerial skills as well as making you wonder exactly what Nigel Clough did at Pride Park whilst he was in charge there. This weekend McLaren’s charges travel to Charlton and although they’ve not won at The Valley since both sides were in the Premier League fifteen years ago, the Rams have yet to lose to a side in the bottom half and will fancy their chances against an Addicks team that has only won twice in front of their own fans since the start of September.

Wigan supporters didn’t have to wait long for a new boss: Uwe Roesler left Brentford to take over at the DW Stadium in what could turn out to be another very shrewd move by Dave Whelan.

Yeovil looked dead and buried at half time on Saturday but two goals in four minutes earned the Glovers a point against Charlton, who scored three of the four goals in the game and finished a man light after Johnnie Jackson was dismissed with less than 15 minutes left. The Glovers can escape the bottom three with a win against Barnsley on Saturday, which brings me nicely round to the highlights of the forthcoming weekend. Barnsley cannot afford anything other than a win against Yeovil on Saturday, but the Tykes haven’t been able to beat Doncaster, Charlton or Sheffield Wednesday at home so far this season and with their opponents in their best run of form so far this season this could be a tight game where both sides might have to settle for a point.

Which leaves us with the only candidate for game of the week: Leicester v Burnley. Remarkably, it’s live on Sky Sports 1 at 12:15 on Saturday. Sadly, it’s up against one of the big games of the season in the Premier League on BT Sport.

Having reached the playoffs in half of the last four seasons since returning to the Championship, Leicester always seem to be ‘there or thereabouts’ in the promotion betting markets at the start of the season but something always seems to happen to trip them up. They reached the playoffs last May despite only winning two of their last ten games and given their recent habit of either starting well and finishing badly or vice versa, another major disappointment may soon be on the cards. Their recent defeats at Sheffield Wednesday and Brighton may just be a blip but if the last couple of seasons are anything to go by then that may not be the case. To be fair, they’re scoring regularly – nine different players have scored this season – but this game is going to give us a chance to assess how good they are.

Burnley’s recent defeat at Huddersfield was only their second since August – I checked and re-checked that personally – and although last weekend’s single goal triumph over Barnsley was the Clarets’ first win since the end of October, they’re still top of the division. The fact that that’s the case is down to their nearest rivals not getting the job done when required and having already won at Forest and drawn at Derby, there’s no reason to think that Burnley should come away with at least a point from the King Power Stadium at the weekend. However, one aspect of their away performance needs to change dramatically – in two of their last three road trips they’ve found themselves two goals down and although the Clarets earned a point at Millwall, they lost at Huddersfield.

Although Leicester are in action in the Capital One cup next week, the next scheduled post will be next weekend when I’ll post the annual ‘Christmas Special’ – with four games in the space of eleven days I’m going to take a more longer term view than usual.