Buzzin Championship Football

I took the executive decision not to write a weekend preview last Friday: the weather was incredible and as I knew there was a midweek programme followed by the last round of  games before the snooze fest of the international break, I decided against it. It’s the last non-holiday midweek round of the year, which is always a reason to be happy.

The penny seems to have dropped at Blackpool and Leeds, both of whom appointed managers with Championship experience last week. There are good and bad aspects of Lee Clark’s appointment at Bloomfield Road but both of those factors boil down to one thing: he’s had plenty of experience at the wrong end of the table with Birmingham and he might be more successful in building a team that can win promotion from League One. I wrote a couple of posts ago that I can’t be bothered with Leeds for the rest of the season and all I’m going to write is that Neil Redfearn should have been given the job after Dave Hockaday was sacked.

On the field of play last weekend, Watford took over at the top by beating Millwall whilst former leaders  Derby lost at Brentford and were overtaken by Bournemouth, Middlesbrough and Wolves. At the bottom, Blackpool are now five points adrift after losing at home to Ipswich, but with only six points separating Millwall and Bolton this week is arguably as important as any of those left in the run up to Christmas.

This evening there are two games of interest, but having become slightly bored with Watford and Birmingham recently, I’ve decided to take a look at a couple of teams that have been quietly getting on with their business over the past few weeks.

This is a big test for Middlesbrough: none of their wins this season have been achieved against teams in the current top ten and they’ve only picked up one point from nine against their immediate rivals for promotion. That was at Charlton at the end of September but tonight’s game is followed by a visit from Bournemouth on Saturday and I think it’s fair to say that we’ll know more about Aitor Karanka’s side by this time next week. One of the finds of the season has been Kike, who arrived in July from Real Murcia for £2.7m. The striker – who celebrates his 25th birthday later this month – has been remarkably consistent: he’s averaged a goal every three games in both La Segunda and the Championship and I’d not be too surprised if he’s already caught the attention of some of the bigger clubs.

In contrast, Norwich have only lost one of their three games against the clubs that are currently above them and have won more games on the road in 2014/15 than they have at Carrow Road even though they’ve failed to score in two of their last three road trips. That being said, victory over Bolton on Friday night was their first win in five games, a run during which they surrendered first place in the table but this is a side with a strong spine and two proven goalscorers in Cameron Jerome and Lewis Grabban.

Teeside is not a happy hunting ground for the Canaries though. In their last ten trips to either Ayresome Park or the Riverside, Norwich have managed one win since New Year’s Eve 1977 and that was 26 years ago. Another aspect of this one that should bother the visitors is that in the seven games between the current top six, there have been precisely zero away wins, so it looks like the Canaries will have to break some trends to get anything out of this one.

All being well, I’ll be back later this week.