Results over the past seven days should show precisely how competitive and surprising the Championship ought to be – West Ham being walloped 5-1 at Ipswich was probably the most surprising result of the season. The leaders looked as if they’d got back into the game just before half time, but Lee Martin’s penalty in first half injury time more or less killed off the game.

Perhaps a bigger surprise came the following day when Leeds sacked Simon Grayson after their 4-1 home defeat by Birmingham City. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, promoted teams often rely on momentum and euphoria to sustain them through their first season and problems can often arise when the momentum becomes inertia. A lot of people – myself included – thought Leeds could kick on this season and mount a serious promotion challenge, but that’s not been the case and it’s easy to see why: their home form has declined since last year. Their current defensive record at Elland Road is worse than four of the current bottom six teams and only Peterborough have kept fewer home clean sheets.

Despite the surprises, nothing really changed. The top three are the same, although they can’t be caught this weekend. It’s not entirely clear who will be top this evening, but we’ll come to that in a minute. At the bottom there’s now a five point gap between Millwall and Doncaster and that could be significant – since February 2005 at least two of the three teams in the relegation zone have been relegated, although last season was the first time since 2005/06 that all three clubs at the bottom of the table at the beginning of February went down.

There are no less than three televised Championship games this weekend and so I make no apologies for focusing on them, especially as one is game of the week. The best way to preview these is to start at the beginning…at the Boleyn Ground at lunchtime where Millwall make the short trip across the Thames to play West Ham (Sky Sports 2, 12:30pm). The Lions have never beaten West Ham away from home and although they won at Barnsley (thanks to a hat trick from Darius Henderson) a couple of weeks ago they’ve not won consecutive away league games since the spring. As for West Ham, I can imagine Sam Allardyce will want to put Tuesday’s defeat behind his side as quickly as possible, especially as there’s a real prospect that the Hammers could end the day with a five point lead.

West Ham’s chances of extending their lead at the top also depends on the result of Birmingham v Southampton (SS2, 5:20pm) which is not only game of the week but better entertainment than what’s on BBC1 at the same time. Only five points separate the teams in second and fourth place at the moment and with Birmingham having moved into the play off spots after winning at Leeds, this evening’s game is an opportunity to for them to establish themselves as genuine promotion candidates. The Blues have won the last five games between them at St Andrews and Chris Houghton’s side still haven’t been beaten at home this season. I’d be surprised if Southampton came away with a win, but my recent predictions haven’t exactly been flawless.

This weekend’s programme finishes literally and metaphorically with a derby game – Nottingham Forest make the short trip to Pride Park (BBC1) where they won last season but haven’t managed consecutive away victories against Derby for over twenty years. The Rams have won their last four home games with teenage striker Callum Ball scoring three goals in those games – he’s definitely one to keep an eye on. It appears that Forest have worked out how to score goals again, but meetings between the clubs in Derbyshire are usually tight games: one team has failed to score in seven of the last ten.

The transfer window ‘slammed shut’ during the week and most of the last minute moves involved West Ham, who signed Ricardo Vaz Te from Barnsley, Nicky Maynard from Bristol City and Ravel Morrison from Manchester United. Probably the most interesting move was Marvin Sordell moving from Watford to Bolton – the 20 year old striker made his debut for the England U21 side last September and presumably Owen Coyle thinks he’s ready to be a success at the next level.

Having wondered if  Birmingham might face a tricky trip to Sheffield United, it was nice to be proven completely wrong – the Blues were 2-0 up at half time at Bramall Lane and ran out comfortable 4-0 winners, with Adam Rooney nabbing a brace. Jermaine Beckford also scored twice for Leicester who beat Swindon 2-0 but easily the performance of the weekend was Brighton beating Newcastle 1-0 at the Amex Stadium although it took an own goal from former Watford and Portsmouth defender Mike Williamson to settle the tie.

Blackpool, Middlesbrough, Millwall and Southampton all face replays: Ian Holloway’s side had to come from behind at home to Sheffield Wednesday and only salvaged a draw courtesy of an injury time penalty from Kevin Phillips.  It was a similar type of story at the New Den as Rickie Lambert opened the scoring for Southampton but the Saints were pegged back due to a late equaliser from Darius Henderson. Middlesbrough bucked the trend by taking the lead at the Stadium Of Light, but couldn’t hold on.

Yesterday’s draw for the Fifth Round looks as if it could be a major obstacle for any of the clubs left in the competition – all six Championship teams that could take part have been drawn against Premier League opposition. Birmingham and Brighton have to travel to Chelsea and Liverpool respectively, while Leicester will play Norwich at the King Power Stadium. Whoever prevails between Millwall and Southampton will fancy their chances against Bolton: if Blackpool can win at Hillsborough they’ll visit Everton while Middlesbrough’s incentive to beat Sunderland at the Riverside is a home game against Arsenal.

Finally, Watford and Derby lost to Premier League opposition but Hull became the second Championship team to lose to Crawley Town in this season’s competition. Last season’s Conference Champions have beaten both the Tigers and Bristol City without conceding a goal: at this rate it may not be too long before Crawley feature in these posts regularly.

I’ll be back tomorrow to take a look at the midweek league games and a look at anything interesting that happened before the transfer window closed.

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.

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.

Seven clubs will be playing Premier League sides with half of them having home ties, although it seems odd writing about Burnley’s trip to Norwich as it was only last season that this would have been a league game. Barnley’s game against Swansea at Oakwell could be the best chance of an ‘upset’ even though once again this was league fixture in 2010/11. At the other end of the telescope, Portsmouth have to visit Chelsea in a repeat of the 2010 final but given Pompey’s poor away form I’d be surprised if that tie finished with a 1-0 scoreline this time round.

The Championship is guaranteed at least four clubs in the fourth round: Nottingham Forest play Leicester City, Southampton travel to Coventry, Derby entertain Crystal Palace and Hull take on Ipswich at the KC Stadium. That leaves nine clubs playing opposition below the Championship, although at the moment only Brighton (who will be playing Wrexham in the first FA Cup tie at the Amex Stadium) are the only club playing opposition outside the football league. If Fleetwood Town beat Yeovil in next Tuesday’s replay then Blackpool will have to make the seven mile trip north to visit the Trawlermen.

The FA Cup ties don’t take place until next month and so it’s back to league action – and there were some real coupon busters last weekend. Billy Sharp scored the only goal of the game as Doncaster Rovers beat Southampton and Burnley came from behind to beat West Ham at Upton Park for the first time since 1973. Those results meant that the goal that Kenny Miller scored for Cardiff against Birmingham on Sunday lunchtime was very significant: the Bluebirds could overtake West Ham this weekend but more of that later. Middlesbrough needed some questionable referring at Ashton Gate to record their sixth win away from home this season, while Hull’s two wins in the space of a week means they’re back in the top six.

At the bottom of the table, Coventry’s defeat at Portsmouth and Doncaster’s surprise win means that Sky Blues fans could be facing a very miserable Christmas as their team is now rock bottom. Nottingham Forest  join them in the bottom three – since Steve Cotterill took over in mid October, Forest have lost five of their nine league games and have failed to score in their last three.

There are two televised games this weekend: the first is between Southampton v Blackpool (Sky Sports 2, 12:45pm) both of whom were outside the Championship last season but have made good starts in 2011/12. Although the Tangerines won the last time these two met in the league, it’s not been a happy hunting ground for them over the years and considering Saints impressive home record Ian Holloway’s side could struggle at St. Mary’s.

Although there’s no outstanding candidate for game of the week, there are a couple of 3:00pm kick offs that could be worth keeping an eye on as they involve teams at either end of the table. If Cardiff City win at the New Den and West Ham lose at Reading, the Bluebirds will move into the second automatic promotion spot – although it’s a big if as the Welsh club haven’t won at Millwall since September 1982 and the last four league games between the sides in South London have ended all square.

Hull travel to the Ricoh Arena having lost two of their last three away games but there are some signs that caretaker manager Nicky Barmby has removed the ‘defence first’ mentality that characterised the Tigers under Nigel Pearson. To make matters even worse for the hosts, they’re still far too reliant on Lukas Jutkiewicz for goals: rumours are beginning to circulate that Coventry’s leading scorer could be on the way to Southampton during the transfer window – a move that would ensure the short term financial future of the club but would appear to cast doubts over their future as a Championship team.

The teatime game is Barnsley v Ipswich (Sky Sports 2, 5:20pm) – under the management of former Rochdale boss Keith Hill the Tykes have quietly crept up the table and are now just three points off the playoff positions. There are no household names in the Barnsley side, but when you’ve got a promising young goalscoring defender like Jacob Butterfield playing behind Craig Davies and Ricardo Vaz Te then you probably don’t need them. I wasn’t very complimentary about the Tractor Boys last week and despite taking the lead against Watford on Saturday thanks to Keith Andrews, two goals in four minutes meant a seventh consecutive defeat for Paul Jewel’s side, who are now only outside the bottom three on goal difference.

The winners of manager of the month and player of the month awards for November were announced on Friday afternoon and although I don’t normally mention them, under the circumstances I think it’s worth highlighting that Billy Sharp of Doncaster Rovers won the award for player of the month.  In case anyone’s forgotten Sharp’s story, you can read it here: he deserves an award – however inconsequential – after the terrible few weeks he’s been through.

The Bluebirds reached the semi finals on Tuesday with a straightforward 2-0 win. Rovers’ manager Steve Kean seems to have confused the words ‘forfeit’ and ‘forego’ in his post match comments, but he cannot escape the fact that the Bluebirds deserved the win and are currently only three places behind Blackburn in the league.

On Wednesday evening goals from Darren Ambrose and Glenn Murray helped Crystal Palace beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. While not wishing to lessen Palace’s achievement, it’s probably fair to say that most of the teams in the Championship would have had a decent chance of beating the side Fergie Sr. picked to play the Eagles. As I pointed out last weekend, Palace have been struggling to score recently and the fact they scored two at the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ says more about the quality of United’s second string back four than Palace’s ability in front of goal.

The semi final draw means that there’ll be a club from the Championship in the Carling Cup final for the first time since 2001 as the draw paired the surviving clubs. The first leg will be held at Selhurst Park during the week commencing 9th January with the return two weeks later.

Back to the league programme this weekend and I’m going to make a rash prediction: the rest of this season is going to be about the playoff places and the last relegation place.

Southampton and West Ham have established what might be an insurmountable six point gap at the top: both clubs are averaging over two points per game, which is important as all of the last 20 sides to win the second tier title have averaged at least 2.03 points per game. It’s not unreasonable to expect that one of the top two will fall away slightly but the question is which one.

In playoff terms, the clubs that look likely to maintain their positions are Middlesbrough, Cardiff City (again!), Birmingham City and Leeds, although obviously plenty can happen before the end of the season.

At the bottom, Doncaster and Coventry are both eight points from safety and they’re currently on target to at least equal Rotherham’s meagre 29 point total in 2004/05: the Millers finished were relegated, having finished 15 points adrift at the bottom.

Tuesday’s results meant that there are only two points separating the clubs in 17th to 22nd position, but a glance at the form table shows a very different picture. I’ve mentioned Bristol City’s improvement under Derek McInnes recently, but Sean Dyche deserves a  mention for the work he’s done at Watford in the past month: the Hornets are have only lost one of their last six games and could have taken more than a point from Bristol City if Adam Mariappa and Scott Loach hadn’t combined to score a classic own goal.

The biggest headscratcher in the Championship at the moment is what on earth is going on at Ipswich Town. As recently as mid October the Tractor Boys were sixth: six consecutive defeats later and they’re one place above the relegation zone. The quick answer may be the worst defence in the division.

This weekend the games are spread over three days: Crystal Palace play their second televised game in 48 hours when they entertain Derby at Selhurst Park later on (Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm). Although the Rams haven’t beaten the Eagles away from home since Septmber 2002, they must fancy their chances: injuries to Sean Scannell and Dean Moxey at Old Trafford could weaken a Palace side that may be exhausted both physically and mentally.

The first game on Saturday is between Leeds and Millwall tomorrow lunchtime but arguably the pick of the 3:00pm games is the  clash between Portsmouth and Coventry. The hosts well documented financial problems appeared to be over but Russian owner Vladimir Antonov stepped down on Tuesday after having been arrested following an inquiry into asset stripping; it remains to be seen if Antonov’s arrest will have any impact on Pompey’s immediate future.

On the pitch, things aren’t that bad at Fratton Park: Portsmouth haven’t lost at home since the end of September and have conceded fewer goals at home than five of the top six clubs. However, their away form is almost as bad as Coventry’s: the Sky Blues haven’t picked up all three points on their travels since beating Portsmouth in April – their only win away from home in the last year.

The last game on Saturday is at Ashton Gate, when Bristol City take on Middlesbrough (Sky Sports 2, 5:20pm): the visitors have won two of their last three visits to the South West but haven’t won a game since the start of last month and can’t really afford to drop any more points if they’re going to keep up with the league leaders.

The weekend’s action finishes in Cardiff on Sunday lunchtime, when Birmingham City are the visitors in a game that was moved due to both a rugby union international and Blues’ game in Braga on Wednesday night. It’s an important game for both sides: although Cardiff can’t overtake West Ham they can establish themselves in third place if they win and Middlesbrough fail to win at the other end of the Severn Bridge on Saturday evening. Birmingham are running out of games in hand (they play Hull on Wednesday night) and could do their playoff chances a lot of good with a win: under those circumstances it’s probably pointing out that there’s not been a draw between these two in a league game in South Wales for nearly 40 years…

If you believe the bookies then only Cardiff City of our two remaining representatives have much chance of reaching the semi finals. The last time the Bluebirds met Blackburn Rovers in South Wales was in the FA Cup at Ninian Park in January 2005; the game finished 1-1 and Rovers won the replay at Ewood Park. However, poor form in the Premier League, fan unrest surrounding the manager and the board and the prospect of appearing in these posts next season mean that if Cardiff win it could be the last straw at Blackburn.

At the weekend, Bristol City’s victory over Southampton showed exactly how competitive and surprising the football league is, both Burnley and Reading came from behind to win away from home and Leeds managed to go up the table despite losing to Barnsley at Elland Road.

Overall, the gaps at the top and bottom have closed up: West Ham could overtake Southampton if results go the right way tonight, while the bottom half of the table could be unrecognisable by Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, we also had plastic bottles thrown on to the pitch at Selhurst Park during the South London derby and the entire weekend was overshadowed by Gary Speed’s untimely death. Speed began his short managerial career in the Championship with Sheffield United last season, but was at Bramhall Lane for less than two months before being appointed as Wales manager.

Game of the evening in the league is Middlesbrough against West Ham at the Riverside, but a quick look at the form book is inconclusive other than suggesting that a stalemate is highly likely – even though the Hammers have only won one of their last ten trips to Teeside.

Once again though, it’s the bottom of the table where the situation is most fluid. Coventry and Doncaster both lost on Saturday and are now six points behind Bristol City and seven points from safety: both clubs have one fewer point than Preston did at this stage last season and we all know how that turned out.

Doncaster travel to Millwall in their first away game against a team in the current bottom six: the Lions have already beaten both Coventry and Nottingham Forest at the New Den this season and even though they’re currently in the middle of the roughest patch of form since they were promoted, Kenny Jackett’s side don’t look as if they’ll lose this one.

The most intriguing game at the wrong end of the table is Bristol City’s trip to Watford: the Robins have won three of their last four trips to Vicarage Road and could move out of the bottom three with a win. Watford’s precarious position is based on their away form and although they’ve won three on the bounce at home and seem to have tightened up defensively in recent games, it’s probably the worst time for them to run into tonight’s opponents.

Tomorrow night Crystal Palace will be attempting the seemingly impossible at Old Trafford in the Carling Cup: they’ve not beaten Manchester United since December 1989, they haven’t scored an away goal since the end of last month and haven’t scored a goal in any competition since Jermain Easter’s penalty against Southampton in the Carling Cup.

I’ll be back later in the week with a roundup of the midweek action, which starts on Friday night when Palace – who’ll probably be exhausted by then – play Derby.

Game of the day is Bristol City v Southampton: at first glance this looks like an uneven contest but a look at the form tables shows that this one could be far tighter than expected. Obviously both sides need to win this for different reasons: Southampton can increase their lead at the top, but but City – who have yet to lose at home to any of the top six – will be motivated by the prospect of being able to move out of the relegation zone if they win and other results go their way.

Whatever happens, 0-0 is unlikely: it’s significant that Nicky Maynard has started scoring for the hosts since Derek McInnes took over. Saints’ Rickie Lambert will be a stern test for the Robins defence but he might well have some extra motivation: he joined Southampton from Bristol Rovers in 2009.

There are a couple of other interesting games this weekend: Hull against Burnley features two sides apparently going in opposite directions. Nick Barmby’s first win as a manager last weekend pushed the Tigers into the playoff spots, while Eddie Howe’s side have now lost four consecutive games after Chris Burke’s late winner at St. Andrews bagged all the points for Birmingham City on Tuesday night.

However, this is another match where the outcome isn’t necessarily as cut and dried as might be expected. The Clarets have won their last two trips to Hull (including a 4-1 win when both teams were in the Premiership) and Hull’s home form has been inconsistent this season. There never seem to be many goals at the KC Stadium and although Burnley are struggling they’ve scored in all but two of their away games this season and could easily nick a point.

In the only game between teams in the bottom six, Doncaster entertain Watford at the Keepmoat in one of those games that looks terrible on paper but could actually be very competitive: in case you’re wondering how bad Donny’s home form is, they’ve only won 2 of their last 20 games at home and they’ve not scored more than one goal in a game since New Year’s Day. Watford’s away form is just as bad: three wins since January and an inability to score away from home – the Hornets have been shut out in three of their last four away games and current top scorer Marvin Sordell hasn’t scored in an away game since August.

Today’s final game on sees Derby travel to West Ham (5:20pm, Sky Sports 2): historically this has been a game that West Ham don’t usually lose, but with five draws in the last ten league meetings at Upton Park between these two it’s not one you can say that West Ham should win either. The Rams haven’t won an away game since their controversial win at Nottingham Forest in mid September and although they’re clearly a different team from last season their recent form indicates that early season optimism may gradually turn into mid table reality.

I’ll be back on Tuesday with to take a look at what happened this afternoon and to take a look at the midweek games – which include Middlesbrough v West Ham and Southampton v Hull.