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.

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…

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.

We’re now past the half way stage in this season’s nPower Championship and results over the Christmas break have set up what looks as if it could be an exciting conclusion to this season’s campaign.

At the top, the clear winners over Christmas were Cardiff and Reading, both of whom have clearly put their playoff misery behind them. The Bluebirds are now only two points behind Southampton and West Ham and although Reading’s festive season ended with a defeat at the Cardiff City stadium the Royals are now back in the top five for the first time since August.

The holidays couldn’t have gone any worse for Southampton and Hull. The leaders could only pick up three points from the nine available and lost their undefeated home record when a goal from Stephen Pearson gave Bristol City a surprise win at St. Mary’s and Southampton’s first home defeat in the league since losing to Brentford in December 2010. Apart from Ipswich – who I’ll be discussing in a moment – Hull were the only side not to record a win in their last three games and lost all three by a single goal. A few more poor results from the Tigers could see them slide dramatically down the table: they’ve already lost ten games this season.

However, Derby were clearly at the top of Santa’s Christmas list, having won all three of their games – an especially impressive feat as the teams they faced were fellow competitors for the playoff positions. The Rams are currently two points away from the top six and Nigel Clough’s team seem to have got over their poor form in November, when they only picked up one point.

At the bottom, Bristol City and Coventry picked up six points in three games but even that feat was something of a false dawn for the Sky Blues, who went back to the bottom of the table after losing to West Ham. They’re now three points behind Doncaster, seven points from safety and face a real battle to avoid dropping back into the third tier for the first time since 1964. Follow strugglers Nottingham Forest ended their goal drought when Marcus Tudgay opened the scoring after five minutes in their 3-1 win at Ipswich, but the Tractor Boys only picked up one point in their three games and could be sucked into a relegation battle.

Ipswich have been terrible recently – nine defeats in twelve games have seen them drop from sixth in mid October to 20th going into next week’s game at Birmingham City. The East Anglian side have conceded the most goals in the Championship so far this season (only Doncaster have a worse away defensive record) and it looks as if their form at Portman Road will be crucial over the next month: Cardiff, Middlesbrough and West Ham all have to travel to East Anglia.

For at least one weekend all the Championship clubs can put the league aside: the third round of the FA Cup takes place this weekend. Although I’ve pointed out more than once that the chances of a second tier club winning the competition are remote, it’s also worth pointing out that Championship clubs have reached the quarter finals at least in each of the last five seasons.

Blackpool, Watford, Middlesbrough, Brighton & Reading seem to have the best chances of making it to the fourth round, while Burnley, Cardiff, Leeds and Portsmouth already look as if they’re the teams that are going to be concentrating on the league for the rest of the season.

Three games involving Championship sides are being televised, starting with Birmingham v Wolves (ESPN Saturday 12:30pm) – these two were playing in the Premier League last season, but both were in the second tier when they last last met in the cup sixteen years ago. On that occasion Wolves won the replay after a draw at St. Andrew’s, which looks like it could happen again as this game looks as it if could be short of goals.

Sunday lunchtime’s game between Peterborough and Sunderland (ITV Sunday 1:30pm) is only the third meeting between these two sides at London Road in all competitions, but the Posh will be hoping to avoid a repeat of the first time they ever played Sunderland: a 7-1 defeat in the fourth round of the cup at Roker Park in 1967. That scoreline is unlikely to be repeated, but I’d not be surprised if there are goals in this one: the hosts have only failed to score in one home league game this season but have also only kept one home clean sheet in the Championship in 2011/12.

The last game of the round is also the final game on TV: Leeds drew with Arsenal at the Emirates in last year’s competition before losing the replay at Elland Road so Monday evening’s game  (ESPN Monday 7:45pm) gives the Yorkshire side a chance of revenge. Thanks to the Leeds fans it should be a good atmosphere at the Library, but there are a couple of big problems for Leeds if they want to progress: they haven’t won away since November and it looks increasingly likely that they’ll have to contend with the second coming of Thierry Henry.

I’ll be back on Tuesday with a roundup of the notable stories from the FA Cup plus a preview of the Carling Cup semi final first leg between Crystal Palace and Cardiff City and any transfer news that’s worth printing.

At the other end of the table Bristol City are four points from safety – the Robins were one of four sides who failed to pick up any points from the six available in the last two games, but will have a new manager in place before Sunday’s game with Birmingham City. Former WBA and Millwall midfielder Derek McInnes took over at Ashton Gate on Wednesday after two years as manager of Scottish Premier League side St. Johnstone; as we mentioned last week, Nottingham Forest appointed Steve Cotterill as manager, which leaves Portsmouth as the only club needing a to make an appointment.

It was a good week for both Peterborough and Crystal Palace, who won both beat Bristol City on their way to achieving maximum points. The Posh have maintained the type of form that earned them promotion from League 1 last season: despite having failed to keep a single clean sheet in the league so far, Darren Ferguson’s side have only failed to score once and only Southampton have scored more goals this season – which makes Ferguson’s decision to sell Craig Mackail-Smith to Brighton look like a very astute piece of business indeed. This weekend’s games begin when Leeds travel to London Road for only the second league meeting between the clubs and it looks like a game that won’t finish 0-0.

It was a bad week for Doncaster, Watford and Burnley all of whom emulated Bristol City’s inability to pick up a single point. Donny’s mini revival under Dean Saunders seems to have hit the skids following consecutive defeats while Watford have failed to score in seven of their twelve games this season and haven’t scored at all since Craig Forsyth scored the winner against Millwall at the end of September. Whilst we weren’t sold on either Doncaster or Watford before the season started, Burnley’s current difficulties aren’t immediately obvious until you realise that they have only won five of their last fifteen games at Turf Moor and are another side currently having trouble scoring: if you can stop Charlie Austin scoring you’ve effectively stopped Burnley.

There are two games between the top six on Saturday afternoon. Derby travel to Middlesbrough: the last time the Rams picked up a point on Teeside was in January 2000 and Boro have won the last five meetings at home since then. However, despite being unbeaten at the Riverside this season, the hosts last home win was back in August and there are signs that their impressive start could be on the rocks: they’ve failed to score in four of their last five games and – like Burnley – are over reliant on one player (Marvin Emnes) to provide the goals.

Game of the week is between two clubs that have shown significant improvement this season. Whatever changes Paul Jewell introduced after Ipswich were thrashed 7-1 at Peterborough in August seem to have worked: they’ve only lost once in the eight games since and have won at West Ham and drawn at Cardiff in that spell. Crystal Palace’s resurgence is down to their metamorphosis away from Selhurst Park. The Eagles have already won more away games this season than they did in 2010/11 – including victories at Brighton and Hull – but still look as if they’re a work in progress rather than genuine promotion candidates.

The last game on Saturday is Reading versus Southampton (Sky Sports 2, 5:20), but this weekend’s round of matches continues until Monday. Birmingham have to play two games in four days (at Bristol City on Sunday and at home to Leeds on Wednesday) and with West Ham’s trip to Brighton on Monday (Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm) coming the day before the Carling Cup ties between Championship teams it’s almost as busy as Christmas.

With two guaranteed qualifiers for the last eight in the Carling Cup the Championship is well represented but it’s difficult to see any of the four teams left in the competition getting any further. Only Southampton have ever reached the final (in 1979); Burnley, Crystal Palace and Cardiff have all reached the semi finals before, but have been knocked out every time they’ve reached that stage so once again it looks as if Championship clubs might have to be content with being knocked out before the final by a Premier League club. We’ll see.

Oh yes – one club playing in the Europa League, two clubs without managers (although an official announcement from Nottingham Forest is expected over the weekend), three clubs in the top six that weren’t in the Championship this time last year and four clubs left in the Carling Cup with two guaranteed quarter final places.

There are some great looking games this weekend – starting with a game between two of the three teams from Yorkshire left in the top half of the football league when Leeds travel to Doncaster (SS1 19:45). Leeds won at the Keepmoat in the Carling Cup earlier this season but it’s not exactly been a happy hunting ground for United in the league over the years: they’ve managed only two wins at Doncaster (the last in April 1956) and their more recent away form is less than convincing – Leeds have won two of their last ten road trips.

There’s only been one game between any of the sides that have been in the top six this season, but that’s going to change on Saturday when there are a pair of them. There are some interesting comparisons between the two contenders for game of the week:  Hull’s trip to Brighton (kick off at 5:30pm) should be interesting – the Tigers haven’t won at Brighton since August 1965 and have failed to score in eight of their last ten trips to Sussex.

Southampton’s record at Derby County is almost as bad. The Saints have only won twice in their last 20 league outings at either the Baseball Ground or Pride Park and although Nigel Adkins’ side got off to a great start, there are signs their away form is beginning to fall away. Since winning 5-2 in Ipswich in mid August they’ve only picked up one point from the nine available on their travels.

Middlesbrough are ideally placed to take advantage of any slip up by the current leaders, but although Boro are the only undefeated team left in the Championship their recent record at the Riverside is puzzling. They’ve drawn four of their five games in front of their own fans this season and failed to score at all at home in the league in September – Marvin Emnes’ goal against Coventry on August Bank Holiday Weekend was the last time Boro hit the net at the Riverside! The hosts could exploit Millwall’s inability to score away from home – the Lions have scored one goal in their last four away trips – and although the visitors won the corresponding game last season, they’ve never had consecutive successes on Teeside.Co

There’s a six pointer at the other end of the table when Nottingham Forest travel to the Ricoh Arena but unlike the games at Brighton, Derby and Middlesbrough, this is a fixture that the away team has dominated over the years. If the rumours flying around on Friday lunchtime are to be believed – Steve Cotterill leaving Portsmouth to take over at the City Ground – then it may be a good time for Forest’s currentt squad to extend that run.

There are two other televised games this weekend: Barnsley’s trip to Portsmouth is live on Sky Sports 2 at 5:20pm on Saturday evening and Birmingham entertain Leicester City on BBC1 on Sunday lunchtime – then there’s a full midweek programme, the highlight of which is probably Southampton v West Ham on Tuesday night.

Still, it’s a morale boosting victory for Rovers: they’re one win away from escaping the bottom three and might fancy their chances at home to Hull tonight – the Tigers have failed to win any of their last five league trips to Doncaster.

The weekend got off to a cracking start when Brighton drew 3-3 with Leeds; the visitors scored twice within twenty five minutes but two goals from Craig Mackail-Smith and an Ashley Barnes penaltygave the Seagulls the leadwith less than ten minutes left. However, Ross MacCormick’s second goal of the game and eighth of the season meant the points were shared.

If anyone was expecting Friday night’s game to the curtain raiser on a goal packed weekend, they would have been disappointed as there were only fifteen goals in nine games and three of those came in Derby’s win over Millwall. However, two of them were significant: Jacob Butterfield’s strike for Barnsley was the first goal Birmingham City had conceded in the league at St Andrews this season and Brett Pitman’s header for Bristol City against Hull was the first goal the Robins had scored at Ashton Gate in all competitions since May.

Burnley v Southampton finished all square: the Clarets took the lead through Charlie Austin but French midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin equalised for Southampton ten minutes before full time and his goal meant that the Saints remain top of the table going into tonight’s games.

The Carling Cup draw on Saturday could have been worse: Championship clubs are guaranteed two quarter final places but we’ll be covering those games nearer the time.

There’s almost a full slate of games tonight and on Wednesday – Birmingham are excused due to their Europa League group game with Maribor in Slovenia on Thursday evening – and apart from Crystal Palace’s first visit to Brighton for almost six years there are a couple of intriguing games.

The bottom six clash between Millwall and Watford at Vicarage Road is something of a warning to clubs looking to sell strikers to the Premier League: having sold Steve Morison and Danny Graham respectively, the Lions and the Hornets are struggling to find the back of the net. Millwall have failed to score in their last three away games, while Watford have achieved that feat in three of their four home games this season. This is also a low scoring game traditionally – only two of the last ten league meetings between these two in Hertfordshire have featured more than 2.5 goals.

On Wednesday night, it’s the only midweek game this week between teams in the top six when Southampton travel to Cardiff. This is a potential pitfall for the Saints: they’ve not won in the Welsh capital since Christmas 1965, the Bluebirds have beaten them in their last six meetings and this is the first time that Nigel Adkins’ side has played any of the other teams in the top six.

We’ll be back on Friday with a review of the midweek games and a look at Saturday’s matches, but if you’re going to a game tonight rather than watching the Champions League then you should be proud of yourself!

Despite having the apparent support of many pundits (most of whom probably couldn’t name half the teams in the Championship but heard somewhere that O’Driscoll was a ‘good young manager’), Doncaster Rovers’ recent record speaks for itself: already four points adrift at the bottom of the table, without a win since March and without a home win since the start of February. It’s probably fair to say that if any of the teams that were relegated had shown any signs of life towards the end of last season then Rovers would have started this season in League 1.

O’Driscoll’s departure means that Kenny Jackett of Millwall becomes the longest serving manager in the Championship, followed by Derby’s Nigel Clough: without including the circumstances at Doncaster, exactly half of the teams in the competition have changed their mananger since last October. To be fair to Rovers, they acted swiftly – Dean Saunders left Wrexham to take over the vacant position at the Keepmoat Stadium.

Amongst the highlights of last weekend’s games, the old cliche of  how difficult it is to play against ten men was proven yet again. After five minutes at the City Ground, Nottingham Forest fans would have been delighted: a goal up following Frankie Fielding’s rather dubious dismissal for a collision in the penalty area with Ishmael Miller had given them the ideal start. Ninety minutes later and Derby had collected all three points.

Leeds United were the second club to benefit from having a player sent off. With the score level at 1-1, Patrick Kisnorbo was sent off having given away a penalty following a rugby tackle on Bristol City’sNicky Maynard who then missed the spot kick. It was a costly mistake: Ross McCormack’s late winner means that the Robins are now second bottom in the table.

Southampton and Middlesbrough leapfrogged Brighton, who suffered their first defeat of the season when Yuki Abe scored the only goal at the King Power stadium to earn Leicester all three points. It’s still fairly tight at the bottom: Reading’s first win of the season took them out of the bottom three to 14th and with only seven points between the relegation spots and the play off places there probably won’t be any further managerial changes this month!

The pursuit of the Carling Cup is now down to four teams: Burnley, Cardiff, Crystal Palace and Southampton will carry the Championship flag in the next round. The draw will be made on Sky’s ‘Soccer Saturday’ show tomorrow morning and in all likelihood the best we can hope for is one of those four teams will be drawn against Aldershot Town.

Back to the league and it’s another packed week that starts today when Leeds visit Brighton (Sky Sports 1. 7:45pm KO) and finishes on Sunday lunchtime when Cardiff entertain Leicester for the second time in less than a week. There’s a day’s rest on Monday before pretty much a full programme on Tuesday night.

Game of the week is Burnley v Southampton – the Clarets won the last meeting in the Championship in December 2008 but haven’t beaten the Saints in consecutive home games since the mid 1970s. The hosts have yet to win at Turf Moor in the league this season – their last home win came in April – and although Southampton have started extremely well, Eddie Howe’s side are rapidly gaining a reputation as home draw specialists and will have to cope with Rickie Lambert, who is currently joint top scorer with Ross McCormack. This isn’t a ‘must win’ for either team, but it’s exactly the kind of game that could test Southampton’s promotion credentials.

Finally this week – but probably for the only time this season – BBC2 will be showing a live Championship game on Saturday teatime that won’t be competing with a talent show. Watford v Nottingham Forest will be probably be overwhelmed by ‘Celebrity Masterchef’ but if you like laughing at people making fools of themselves, Steve McClaren could provide a hilarious alternative to ‘New You’ve Been Framed’…

A quick look back at the Championship table from a year ago shows that although QPR were top with the same amount of points as Brighton have this season, only one club from from the current top six were in the playoff positions last September: Cardiff City, who were eliminated in the playoff semi finals.

It’s a similar story at the bottom of the table – a year ago only one of the clubs that were eventually relegated featured in the bottom six (Preston) and only Bristol City find themselves in a similar position to the one they were in last season: the Robins eventually finished 15th.

Another indication that we’re still too early to make any sense of what’s happening is that there are six teams that are unbeaten away but have lost at least once at home. That group includes four teams in the top ten, including West Ham and -yes, you’ve guessed it – Cardiff City.

There were some significant results last weekend. Despite – or possibly because of – a fan protest against the current owners Coventry picked up their first win of the season when they beat Derby 2-0 having only won six of their last 20 games at the Ricoh Arena: Watford’s victory by the same score at the Madejski Stadium was a rarity as Reading hadn’t lost consecutive home games for almost two years.

This weekend, five of the top six and four of the bottom six are away from home and there are a couple of local derbies, although that’s probably the most understated way of describing them.

The action starts at 12:30 on Saturday lunchtime when Millwall travel ten miles or so across London to West Ham for a league game for the first time in six and a half years; the Lions have never won at the Boleyn Ground but even though the Hammers picked up their first home win of the season against Portsmouth last weekend, there was yet another late goal. Greg Halford’s 97th minute strike for Pompey didn’t make any difference to the outcome, but once again West Ham have shown that they have a tendency to switch off at the end of games if they think the job is done.

Half an hour later the game between Derby and Nottingham Forest kicks off at the City Ground and it’s almost a ‘must win’ for Steve McClaren as if results go against the Tricky Trees they could find themselves in the bottom three of the Championship for the first time since they narrowly avoided relegation in 2008/09. History appears to be on their side though: the Rams have only won once in their last ten trips along the A52 and although Forest are notoriously slow starters they generally perform well at the City Ground.

It’s hardly ‘game of the week’ material, but probably the most important match this weekend is when the bottom two clubs meet at the Madejski. Although Doncaster’s poor start was expected, the curse of the playoffs seems to have really affected Reading as they’ve only won one of their last five home games in the Championship.

Having said that, the last time Rovers won at Reading ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’ was about to replace ‘Careless Whisper’ at Number 1 and the Yorkshire side have failed to score in half of their last ten visits to Berkshire. Once again, it’s far too early to tell but Doncaster might be in for the type of season Sheffield United in 2010/12.

Birmingham’s trip to Southampton and Ipswich v Coventry (Monday night, Sky Sports 1 at 7:45pm) complete the league programme for this weekend, but then we’re straight into the third round of the Carling Cup. With only one guaranteed place in the fourth round and five clubs facing Premier League opposition, it’s fair to say that the chances of a Championship club winning the trophy are slim at best. However with Leeds (Manchester United), Brighton (Liverpool) and Cardiff v Leicester all being showcased on Sky next week there’s a good chance to show the standard of Championship football to an audience that may not normally be interested.

The biggest surprise in what used to be known as the League Cup this week was West Ham crashing out to Aldershot on Wednesday night. Junior Stanislas gave the Hammers the lead after 16 minutes but when Callum McNaughton was dismissed after half time, Aldershot’s Luke Guttridge equalised and Danny Hylton’s 89^thminute winner gave the Surrey side a deserved win. It’s the third time this season that West Ham have conceded a vital goal in the last five minutes, a trend that ought to be worrying Sam Allardyce.

Last weekend Southampton continued their impressive start with a 1-0 win over Millwall and Derbyhad no trouble dealing with Doncaster but the biggest surprise was Peterborough’s 7-1 thrashing of Ipswich in the tea time game on Sky. Although Keith Andrews gave Ipswich an early lead, the game was effectively over at half time with Town having conceded four goals in ten minutes and having Lee Martin dismissed for a reckless challenge on Mark Little. Things went from bad to worse immediately after the re-start: Tommy Smith had only been on the field for two minutes before being giving away a penalty and being sent off for a foul on Lee Tomlin, who scored a hat-trick for Posh.

At the bottom of the table, Coventry and Watford played out a 0-0 draw but they still occupy two of the bottom three spots – Doncaster’s defeat means that they’re already two points from safety and they’ve not scored since the opening day defeat at Brighton.

It’s still far too early to discuss what could happen over the rest of the season but with a five point gap between the last play off place and the current leaders, by mid September we may have an idea of the shape of things to come and there are three games this weekend that could provide some pointers this weekend. Game of the week this weekend is Peterborough’s trip to Brighton, which is the only clash between teams in the top six. Posh lost 3-1 at the Withdean in League One last season and have only won one of their last six trips to Brighton in the league and it’ll be interesting to see how Craig Mackail-Smith does in his first game against his old club.

Burnley visit Pride Park in a game that has been tricky for the hosts over the years – Derby haven’t beaten the Clarets at home since January 2007 and lost this game last season – and although Eddie Howe’s side are one of the four teams yet to win a game this season, they’ve played one game less due to Birmingham’s European adventures.

The game with the biggest impact at both ends of the table is Middlesbrough v Coventry. Boro are undefeated while the Sky Blues have only won one of their last fifteen games in the Championship: they’ve also only won once in their last ten visits to Teeside.

 There’s only one televised game this weekend and once again armchair West Ham fans will have their Sunday lunches ruined again when the Hammers travel to Nottingham Forest for a league game for the first time since Boxing Day 2004 (Sky Sports 1, 1:15).Forest have a poor record at home to West Ham and having started the season with two draws at the City Ground it wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if this game ended all square.

Finally this week, congratulations to Birmingham City who reached the group stages of the Europa League on Thursday with a 3-0 aggregate win over Nacional of Portugal. Although this post was published before the draw had been made, it’ll be fascinating to see how the Blues do in the competition and hopefully they’ll be able to fly the flag in Europe for all Championship teams.