Buzzin Championship Football

An unusual weekend in so far as it’s spread over four days and there are three televised matches as well as three Yorkshire derbies.

The programme starts with the first Yorkshire derby: Doncaster’s trip to Middlesbrough (tomorrow, Sky Sports 1, 7:45pm) is Boro’s first game without Tony Mowbray being in charge for just over three years. Rovers have never won at Middlesbrough in the league: their only victory was in an FA Cup tie at Ayresome Park sixty years ago.

The final word on Tony Mowbray – for now. His overall career numbers actually aren’t that bad. He’d lost around 34% of his games since taking over at Hibs almost a decade ago but that number had gone up recently. On his watch Boro only finished in the top ten once and failed to make the playoffs: considering that this is Middlesbrough’s longest period outside the top tier since Mowbray played for them I think it’s fair to say that his stewardship was unsuccessful.

Saturday lunchtime’s game is the South Yorkshire derby between Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday (Sky Sports 1, 12:15pm) which looks as if it could be a cagey meeting between two struggling teams. Although the Tykes have only kept two home clean sheets in the last 10 games and currently have the worst defence in the Championship, last week’s win over Middlesbrough will have provided a morale boost. Wednesday haven’t won an away league game since April but have only lost once in their last five games at Oakwell.

Unfortunately, the biggest game of the weekend – and possibly the season – won’t be televised. It’s first versus second when Burnley entertain QPR and if either side is top at the end of the game, the reward at the end of the season could be massive. In five of the last six seasons, the team that lead the Championship at the end of October went on to win automatic promotion. Long term readers won’t be too surprised to find out that Cardiff (first place in October 2010) were the only team to miss out and only two of those teams (Wolves in 2009 and Cardiff last season) went on to win the Championship, but it’s a strong correlation nonetheless.

Remarkably, 41 years ago this week, Burnley were top of the old second division, one point ahead of QPR. Apart from a blip in March 1973 following a home defeat by Sheffield Wednesday, the Clarets – managed by club legend Jimmy Adamson – led the table from early October onwards. Although Rangers drew at Turf Moor in September and won the return in January, they finished one point behind Burnley. If – like me – you’re of a certain age and you can’t quite remember what you were doing at the time, ‘Mouldy Old Dough’ was number one and Gordon Banks had been seriously injured in a car crash that eventually cost him the sight in his right eye.

Back to tomorrow’s game – and once again I’ve got to mention that in my opinion QPR haven’t been tested yet. Six of their eight wins this season have been against teams that are currently in the bottom half of the table and last week’s 2-2 draw at Millwall was the first time they’ve conceded more than one goal this term. Rangers’ form at Turf Moor isn’t exactly inspiring either: they’ve failed to score in five of their last six visits and have only won once in the last 30 years.

That being said, Burnley have only had a marginally tougher set of fixtures this season. Three of their four wins at Turf Moor this season have come against clubs currently in the bottom six although beating Reading at the start of the month indicates that the Clarets may very well be as advertised.

There’s also the mouthwatering prospect of having three of the top ten goalscorers in the Sky Bet Championship on the pitch at the same time. Between them Sam Vokes and Danny Ings have scored fourteen of Burnley’s 22 goals this season. Charlie Austin – who joined QPR from Burnley in August – has notched six goals in 2013/14 but Rangers look a bit thin at striker at the moment: former England international Andrew Johnson is the only other QPR player to have scored more than one goal so far.

The only other game that could have an impact on Saturday evening’s table is at Huish Park where Nottingham Forest are the visitors. Yeovil won their first ever  league meeting in Somerset against Forest almost exactly eight years ago but lost the next three encounters without scoring – and the Glovers have only scored once in front of their own fans this season.

It’s the next round of the Capital One cup next week but with a rare televised Monday night game (Brighton v Watford, Sky Sports 1) I’ll be back on Monday with a round up of the weekend’s games so far plus a look at how the remaining Sky Bet Championship teams might do in the cup.

Last of all: don’t forget to put your clocks back on Saturday night!

More on Friday, but this is hardly a surprise: Tony Mowbray left Middlesbrough earlier today after three years at the Riverside.

I mentioned in both the season preview and in the post about Nigel Clough’s dismissal at Derby that I felt that Mowbray was unlikely to last the season. Like many clubs in the Sky Bet Championship, Middlesbrough should probably be doing far better than their current position but they’ve been awful since the start of 2013 and defeat at Barnsley was obviously the final straw for Chairman Steve Gibson.

Former Leicester, Wolves and Ipswich defender Mark Venus will take over for the short term.

Having had a week off and with the headlong dash towards Christmas about to begin, I’m going to take a look back at my predictions for the season this week.

Despite being a quarter of the way through the campaign, it’s remarkable that there have only been three games between the current top six. Although QPR are odds on to win promotion I don’t think they’ve been really tested yet. All but one of their games have been against teams that are currently in the bottom half of the table and if things stay more or less as they are now, Rangers will have very tough sets of games at both Christmas and Easter. Don’t be too surprised if I link back to this post at some point in the future!

Reading, Leicester, Nottingham Forest and Watford are all handily placed right now, but I’d hesistate before calling Burnley a surprise team.  I think it’s fair to say that Sean Dyche was partly responsible for Watford’s resurgence a couple of seasons ago and that his work at Turf Moor won’t go unnoticed by some of the bigger clubs in England.

For me the biggest surprise at the top of the table so far how well Blackpool have done. I’d also not rule out Wigan at this point but a lot depends on how the Europa League develops. They meet tomorrow lunchtime at Bloomfield Road (Sky Sports 1, 12:15pm) and although it should be a decent game, I wouldn’t expect lots of goals. If you want a stat to amaze your friends with tonight, none of the eight Saturday lunchtime kick offs this season have been won by the home team and only one of those games has produced more than two goals.

At the bottom Sheffield Wednesday and Barnsley are doing about as well as I thought they would. The Tykes have been a poor side for some time and  are currently on pace to concede over 100 goals this season. In Barnsley’s defence they’ve won precisely one more match than Wednesday have – and with neighbours Sheffield United struggling in League Two, this is beginning to look like a poor season for the Steel City.

I’m going to admit that my forecast for Yeovil looks as if it was unjustifiably optimistic so I’m going to make another: that the Glovers and Barnsley may well find themselves adrift at the bottom of the Championship at the beginning of 2014, leaving one relegation spot to be fought over.

Surprise strugglers: Charlton. I thought they’d shown enough at the end of last season to progress into a team that’s capable of challenging for the playoffs at the very least, but they look like one of those frustrating outfits that are capable of playing well against superior opponents yet badly against poor sides and that can sometimes indicate a dramatic decline may be round the corner.  Having said that they’re only five points worse off than they were this time last season so they may not be struggling for long, but we’ll see.

The top two are both away on Saturday afternoon, which gives the group immediately behind them a chance to catch up. If either of them slip up, Leicester could move into the automatic promotion places with a win over Huddersfield but as we’ve seen in the past this is exactly the type of game that makes the Championship unpredictable.

The weekend finishes with Birmingham playing Leeds on Sunday lunchtime (Sky Sports 1, 1:15pm) which is yet another example of Sky Sports picking a game that looked attractive on paper before the season started. Both clubs are in the bottom half of the table – the Blues are only four points away from the relegation zone – but Leeds have only beaten Birmingham once in the last five meetings in Yorkshire since 2003.

I’ll be back next week, but there’s little doubt what the game of the week will be: Burnley v QPR.

An eventful midweek programme saw three clubs establish a four point lead at the top of the table whilst at the bottom there’s the merest suggestion that the strugglers may be cast adrift sooner rather than later.

In the games I looked at in the last post, Hal Robson-Kanu gave Reading the lead at Barnsley but Chris O’Grady struck again for the Tykes who remain bottom on goal average. Nottingham Forest didn’t have their own way at Charlton: Andy Reid gave the visitors a very early lead, but Marvin Sordell equalised not long after half time.

My hunch that Yeovil would score in front of their own fans for the first time this season was correct: James Hayter scored, but that was after Leicester had already found the back of the net twice. Following their win in Somerset the Foxes are only third on goal difference.

Result of the night came at Pride Park: four goals in the first fifteen minutes saw Ipswich steam into a 3-1 lead and when Daryl Murphy put the Tractor Boys even further ahead with ten minutes left in the first half the game looked done and dusted. At half time Steve McLaren appeared in the home dressing room, Craig Bryson scored a brace (including a very late equaliser) and the spoils were shared.

Birmingham v Bolton (Sky Sports 1, 12:15pm) is the only televised game this weekend but this looks like a classic Sky decision to pick a game that looked good on paper before the season started. The reality is a little different and it’s fair to say that the opposition is showing a far better game.

I’ll come to game of the week in a moment, but there are a couple of matches to keep an eye on: QPR can go back to the top of the table if they beat Barnsley by five goals and neither Leicester nor Burnley win. The Tykes haven’t won at Loftus Road since January 1950 and are literally pointless on their travels this season, but Rangers have yet to win a home game by more than one goal. Middlesbrough and Yeovil are only separated by four points but that shows how far these clubs have travelled in the last decade. Less than ten years ago Boro reached the final of the UEFA Cup; that same season Yeovil were playing their first season in the third tier. The only previous meeting between them was a 5-1 win for Boro in a League Cup game in August 2008.

And so to game of the week: Burnley v Reading at Turf Moor. The Clarets took over at the top on goal difference on Tuesday night, although it took a penalty and an own goal to beat Doncaster at the Keepmoat. Although the Royals have won last two meetings in Lancashire, they’ve never won three league games in a row at Turf Moor and tomorrow’s game may not be a goal fest – only one team has scored in the last seven league matches between them in Lancashire.

Burnley haven’t lost at home since March but can be inconsistent. They had a six streak without a win at home between the end of January and April Fool’s Day and they’ve not won three consecutive games at Turf Moor for nearly a year. Reading are only the second top ten club they’ve faced at home this season so this will be a test for the defence, which has kept three clean sheets in their last five home games. In that context it’s not much of a surprise then that Kieran Trippier and Jason Shackell have been ever present so far this season but another difference this season might be that Sam Vokes appears to be finally living up to his potential. Between them, Vokes and Danny Ings have already combined for twelve goals this season but Vokes always seems to be one game away from getting injured and missing a large part of the season.

Reading need to win this to keep the pressure on the top three: it’s probably fair to say that consecutive defeats at Blackpool in the league and Peterborough in the Capital One Cup over a three day spell at the end of August served as a wake up call. The Royals haven’t lost since although it’s probably fair to say that – like Burnley – they’ve not faced any of their current rivals for promotion. There are other ways in which they’re similar to Burnley: they also have three ever presents so far – a pair of Alexes (McCarthy and Pearce) and Sean Morrison – and also possess one of the best known strikers outside the Premier League in Adam Le Fondre.

There are no games next week due to the final round of World Cup qualifiers so the next scheduled post will be in two weeks – if you’re at a lose end next weekend, why not visit our League One site at Buzzin’ League One football for an insight into which teams could be playing in the Sky Bet Championship this time next season.

It’s one of those midweek programmes in the Championship that might give us some clues to the long term prospects: with the exception of QPR (week off due to the Europa League) all of the top six are away from home, with half of them playing struggling sides. With the emergence of a five point gap between the seventh and eighth clubs after the weekend games, there’s plenty of potential for the first ‘breakaway’ of the season.

Before we go any further though, there are a couple of stats to keep in mind while the season develops. In the last fuve seasons, at least one of the teams in the top six at the end of September has been promoted and in four of the last five campaigns it was the leaders who went up. Brighton were top of the table this time last year and didn’t go up.

It’s a similar story at the bottom: at least one of the teams in the bottom six at the end of September has been relegated but who that might be is anyone’s guess. Last season Wolves were third at the end of September.

Here are tonight’s games that are worth keeping an eye on:

Barnsley v Reading

Looks like one way traffic to me with another potential battering for the hosts. The Tykes dropped to bottom of the table following their 2-1 defeat at Leicester on Saturday whilst Reading moved into the top six with a straightforward win against Birmingham. Barnsley’s last home game against a top six club was their 5-1 mauling by Watford a couple of weeks ago: Reading are undefeated in games against the bottom six and have only lost three of their last ten league games at Oakwell.

Charlton v Nottingham Forest

The Addicks lost 3-0 at Burnley at the weekend whilst Forest beat Derby on Saturday lunchtime in the final game of the Clough dynasty. Charlton’s last home win (against Leicester) came at the end of August but although Forest have won the last two league meetings between the sides at the Valley, I don’t think they’ll have it their own way this evening.

Yeovil v Leicester

The Glovers almost sneaked their second win of the season at Bolton on Saturday, but even though a late equaliser meant that they earned one point rather than three, Gary Johnson’s team were able to escape the relegation zone. As I mentioned above, Leicester beat Barnsley on Saturday and won their only previous visit to Huish Park in the league but I wouldn’t be surprised if Yeovil manage to score tonight.

Elsewhere, it’s the first game of the ‘After Nigel’ era at Pride Park when Derby entertain Ipswich with Steve McLaren watching from the stands. Clough’s sacking has been described as ’shocking’ elsewhere, but he was recruited to take the Rams to the next level – which is something he’s conspicuously failed to do. For example, over their last ten seasons in the second tier, on average Derby finished in 13th place. In Clough’s two full seasons in charge, that improved to 11th.

There’s also the fact that the Rams lost an average of 17 games in those two seasons – only one team has been promoted in that period having lost more than 15 games (Hull last season). The defeat to Forest on Saturday merely confirmed the suspicion that Nigel Clough was not the manager to turn Derby County into a team that could reach the playoffs on a regular basis, let alone win promotion. Steve McLaren has already made all the right noises, but he’s not going to find this a walk in the park.

I’ll be back on Friday with a look back at tonight’s action and I think I’ve already decided which match will be game of the week this weekend!