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Championship Round-up
Off to the job centre this morning then, Simon?
Lone Ranger makes big impression for Geordies
Newcastle United went two points clear at the top of the Championship with a hard-fought 1-0 win over newly-promoted Leicester City at St James’ Park last night. Danny Guthrie’s thunderbolt was enough to separate the sides although the Sky commentators were left purring over the performance of youngster Nile Ranger who played up front for the Geordies in the absence of Shola Ameobi and Andy Carroll. Leicester gave a good account of themselves although you couldn’t help feeling Steve Howard could have done with better support up front as he won countless headers to no avail. Nigel Pearson is clearly doing a great job at Leicester, though, and it wouldn’t be unrealistic to suggest they will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season.
Fergie set for relegation scrap?
In yesterday’s other game Peterborough and Crystal Palace had to settle for a point apiece at London Road. Alan Lee’s close-range effort cancelled out Shaun Batt’s strike from outside the box and despite having Patrick McCarthy sent off late on the visitors held on for a point fairly comfortably. Peterborough remain winless in their maiden Championship campaign and look set for a season of struggle while Palace too are likely to find themselves down the wrong end of the table this season.
Davey wavey goodbye
Simon Davey was sacked following Barnsley’s fourth successive league defeat on Saturday; their 3-1 reverse at home to Reading leaves Barnsley bottom of the league with just the one point they picked up at S6 on the opening day. Reports this morning suggest that Brentford manager Andy Scott is being lined up to replace Davey at Oakwell while other candidates include Aidy Boothroyd, Mark Robins and Tony Adams although the latter link has been rigorously denied by Barnsley director Barry Taylor.
Keano and Sturrocko struggling
Two other managers looking down the barrel already are Roy Keane and Paul Sturrock at Ipswich and Plymouth respectively. Both sides are in the bottom three and winless in their opening five games this Championship season. Keane of course is not one to quit when the going gets tough (!) and is set to bring in several new faces before today’s 5pm deadline with the Mirror today claiming Keane is after Wednesday defender Richard Wood in an ‘£800k swoop’. Sturrock explained he was ‘exasperated and dumbfounded’ following Argyle’s latest defeat to the Owls on Saturday while agreeing with the penalty decision that went against his side despite the claims of cheating by one match report on a Plymouth fan site. According to one Plymouth blog some season ticket holders are refusing to go to Home Park until KPS is sacked although it seems the Argyle board is keen to give Sturrock time and I can only wish him the best of luck for what he did at Wednesday.
Deadline day go away
Today is of course transfer deadline day and there’s all sorts of rumours flying around. There’s unlikely to be any movement either in or out of Hillsborough despite the Wood rumours but elsewhere there has already been movement with Swansea signing Trinidad & Tobago defender Radanfah Abu Bakr and Celtic defender Darren O’Dea moving to Reading on loan. Sadly that’s as exciting as it gets but for all the latest transfer news watch Sky Sports News or summat if you’re into all that.
Newcastle on tele...again
The international break means there’ll be no Championship fixtures for the next fortnight which means next weeks’ Championship Round-up could be a brief one! Looking ahead though I see that the Cardiff-Newcastle game is kicking off at 2.05pm on the Sunday, surely the first time in the history of the Football League there has been such a daft kick-off time? Of course this is because the game is on SKY as Newcastle feature for the third time this season!
Enjoy your football.
Creg,
