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.

34-year-old former Liverpool, Leeds, Blackburn Rovers and Scotland defender, Dominic Matteo has played 24 times for Stoke since joining them in January 2007.  Matteo was the club captain.

Stoke have also released goalkeeper Russell Hoult, defender Marlon Broomes and youngster Adam Garrett.

First-half goals from Soares (23 minutes) and Fonte (45 minutes) were enough to give all three points to Crystal Palace, as they held on to take all three points. Whelan pulled one back with five minutes to go for Stoke, but it wasn’t enough.

Crystal Palace now find themselves in the top six for the first time this year, inline for the play-offs.

In the post match interview Neil Warnock said:

“It’s not easy coming to Stoke, you know you are going to be very physically tested throughout [...] I thought we played some great football at times and we scored a couple of good goals too, which helped [...] we were positive and I’m proud of them as the tackles were flying in. It was a great win, I love winning like that.”

Crystal Palace have made a sensational rise from relegation possibles to play-off contenders under the guidance of seasoned and out-spoken manager, Neil Warnock. The meteroic rise up the table is similar to a couple of seasons ago when Ian Dowie managed a similar run of victories that ended with Crystal Palace winning the play-off final victory and promotion to the Premiership.

The top six in the Coca-Cola Championship table are separated by a meagre eight points, and below Crystal Palace are Wolves, who have sneaked up to seventh, only a point behind Palace with two games in hand.

West Brom lost 4-1 to Leicester and with it missed a chance to leap frog Watford into third place, after Watford and Stoke drew 0-0. Even so, Stoke go to the top of the table after Bristol City surprisingly lost 2-1 in a south west derby match with Plymouth.

There is now only 10 points between the top seven teams, after wins for Plymouth and Hull. Hull thrashed Southampton 5-0, who are now surprisingly staring down the barrel of a relegation gun!

Stoke and Bristol City are now joint top with 67 points, though Bristol City have a much inferior goal difference to all the other teams battling for promtion.

In fact, Bristol City, in second place, and Leicester City in 20th position have the same goal difference of two.

It’s amazing to consider that if Watford and West Brom were to lose three games while teams below them were to win three, they could drop out of the play-off places altogether and miss out on any chance of promotion to the Premiership; when only weeks ago it was considered to be Watford and West Brom for automatic promotion and the rest fighting it out for the play-offs.

Sorry to keep going over the same points, but I really am enjoying the topsy turvy unpredictable world of this season’s Coca-Cola Championship race for Premiership promotion.

I only hope which ever three teams eventually gain promotion to the Premiership they are going to fair better than Watford last season, and Derby County this season!

After Michael McIndoe tripped Watford’s Tommy Smith from behind in the penalty box, Basso made a terrific save from Darius Henderson’s second half penalty kick.

Both sides had chances to win the game, with Bristol City having more of the play. And though both teams stay in first and third place in the Coca-Cola Championship, Stoke City helped their automatic promotion chances by beating Norwich with a Mamady Sidibe second-half header that puts them just one point behind the leaders.

“It was very important that if we weren’t going to win the game we didn’t lose it” said Gary Johnson, the Bristol City manager in a post-match interview.

The big game tonight is between West Brom, who now have three games in hand over the other title contenders, and Crystal Palace.

Bristol City couldn’t score as they drew 0-0 away at Ian Holloway’s struggling Leicester.  While Stoke City came from behind to draw 1-1 at home to Burnley.

Watford (62 points) didn’t have a fixture and now have a game in-hand over Stoke (63 points) and Bristol City (66 points).

Things are looking good for West Brom.  Five points ahead of Charlton, in fourth place and only five points behind leaders Bristol City, with two games in hand.

Weather permitting, there are 10 games scheduled for tomorrow night, including the mouth-watering Bristol City v Watford.

Stoke are away to Norwich; and Charlton will need to beat Burnley at Turf Moor, if they are to keep any dream of automatic promotion alive.

Cardiff and West Brom, who both won through to the FA Cup semi-finals at the the weekend, play on Wednesday night.  Cardiff are at home to sixth place Hull, while West Brom entertain ninth place Crystal Palace.

Bristol City are now two points clear of Stoke City, with a game in hand.

Stoke lost 3-0 at QPR, and were already 2-0 down when referee Andy D’Urso sent off Andy Griffin in the 44th minute. Stoke claim D’Urso has admitted the red card was a mistake.

Watford, West Brom and Charlton were the pre-season favourites to be battling it out for automatic promotion. As it stands, they are jostling for play-off places.

Watford lost further ground on the leaders as they could only manage a 2-2 draw at Burnley, while West Brom beat Plymouth with a convincing 3-0 win over Plymouth. And Charlton scored late goals in both halves to win at Sheffield United 2-0.

Before Christmas most pundits were talking down Bristol City as serious contenders for the Championship title, though all agreed they play very attractive ball-to-feet football. But now Christmas has gone and we are in the home straight, and Bristol City are still looking strong.

Can anyone remember the championship odds at the beginning of the season for Bristol City to win the Championship title?

Stoke were looking for three points to put the pressure on second place Bristol City. But like Watford and West Brom before them, it appears no team wants to run away with the lead.

Chaplow scored twice for Preston North End in the first half, while no less than four Stoke City players picked up yellow cards in what turned out to be a frustrating evening for Tony Pulis and the Stoke fans.

Other scores in the Coca-Cola Championship tonight:

Barnsley 0 QPR 0

Burnley 2 Coventry 0

Stoke City beat Ipswich 1-0 at home, while Bristol City won at Colchester 2-1 to keep the push for the two automatic promotion places.

But Watford and West Brom both slipped up again. Watford disappointed their home fans with a 0-0 draw with Preston, while West Brom have gone completely off the boil, losing 2-1 at home to Hull.

The goal fest of the weekend has to go to Blackpool who beat Charlton 5-3!

After Blackpool taking a two goal lead (McPhee and Gorkss), Charlton fought back to draw 2-2 with two goals from Ambrose – all in the first 30 minutes. But in the second half Black pool came out firing on all cylinders to take a 5-2 lead; three goals (two for Taylor-Fletcher and one for new boy Paul Dickov) in a 25 minute spell, before Charlton pulled one back.

Here’s a complete list of Saturday’s results:

Blackpool 5-3 (HT 2-2) Charlton

Colchester 1-2 (HT 0-0) Bristol City

Coventry 2-0 (HT 1-0) Leicester

Crystal Palace 0-2 (HT 0-0) Wolverhampton

Norwich 1-0 (HT 1-0) Barnsley

Plymouth 3-1 (HT 2-1) Burnley

QPR 1-1 (HT 1-0) Sheff Utd

Scunthorpe 1-1 (HT 1-0) Southampton

Sheff Wed 1-0 (HT 1-0) Cardiff

Stoke 1-0 (HT 1-0) Ipswich

Watford 0-0 (HT 0-0) Preston

West Brom 1-2 (HT 1-1) Hull

Watford are now in 3rd place on 60 points, two behind Bristol City and four behind Stoke.

Coca-Cola Football League Championship Table

Stoke came from two goals down themselves on Friday night, to beat Scunthorpe 3-2 with goals from Richard Cresswell and two from Liam Lawrence.

Stoke now lead Watford by goal difference, two points ahead of Bristol City in third.