Around One – Baggies back in business with 1-0 wins

Rob Hulse - his goal took West brom to the top

It also saw George Burley’s Derby go bottom, they now have just the one point from five games and this was their third defeat on the bounce. Burley tried to strengthen his squad last week but was turned down in a move for Alun Armstrong on loan.

West Brom weren’t the only one of the relegated clubs to record a win yesterday, in fact all three did. West Ham are still celebrating the departure of Glenn Roeder and have now moved into the play off positions with their second win of the week under caretaker boss Trevor Brooking.

Brooking doesn’t want the job although it does look as though everyone else at the club wants him to take over on a permanent basis. The former England international who made his debut for West Ham at Turf Moor enjoyed a 2-1 win at Ipswich yesterday. They were 2-0 up through Defoe and Roeder’s mate David Connolly but had to withstand some late pressure when Long Ball Joe’s struggling Ipswich pulled a goal back.

Meanwhile Sunderland’s wins are something similar to a bus service. Prior to last Saturday they hadn’t won a league game since they beat Liverpool at the Stadium of Light in mid-December of last year.

Yesterday’s 4-0 win at Bradford was their third in a week. Suddenly they have shot up the table after this crushing win, they played Bradford off the park. The match also included the goal of the day from Julio Arca who Mick McCarthy is converting into a left back. The Argentinian won the ball in the left back position but must have forgotten his new role and went on a run. He just kept going and going until he unleashed a shot from just outside the box after something like a 70 yard run.

Nathan Ellington - a third goal in three games

Cardiff earned a point at Walsall with a goal from Gareth Whalley three minutes into stoppage time after a Jorge Leitao goal early in the second half looked to have won it for the home side.

The game ended with ten a side and to quote the Walsall web site, "The game was starting to boil over with Cardiff’s Alan Lee at the heart of it all." Well what a surprise!!!

Lee was sent off with Walsall’s Zigor Aranalde who had just missed the chance to put Walsall two up from the penalty spot. Walsall boss Colin Lee thought bemoaned the lack of a striker and admitted that they desperately needed one. So it’s not just us.

The Claret beat the other promoted club Crewe with the Richard Chaplow goal as previously reported.

Red card Palace were at it again. Apart from losing top spot after a 1-1 draw at Millwall they saw Tommy Black red carded by referee Howard Webb. They looked an undisciplined outfit at the Turf on the opening day of the season when both Wayne Routledge and Shaun Derry were sent off. Tony Popovic and Michael Hughes have also seen red this season taking the club’s tally to five already.

A goal from Belgian international and former Burnley target Bob Peeters in stoppage time won a point for Millwall after Palace had led with a first ever goal for Ben Watson.

Reading are not surprisingly doing well and have now gone second after a comprehensive 3-0 win against Franchise at a packed Selhurst Park. Over 2,000 saw the Goat score twice as Franchise recorded their fourth consecutive league defeat.

Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United are up there again, currently in the same 3^rd place they finished last season. Yesterday they beat strugglers Coventry but could count themselves very fortunate.

Jack Lester - scored the winner for Sheffield United

Michael Brown scored from the spot but former Blade Patrick Suffo equalised midway through the second half and it took a goal three minutes from time from the impressive substitute Jack Lester to win it for the home side.

The Weary Whinger Craig Brown got some respite as Preston recorded their first win of the season against Stoke with a 1-0 win courtesy of a Paul McKenna goal. Brown is under pressure, even Chairman Derek Shaw failed to back him this week when he said it was too early to be talking about changing a manager. He is now favourite to be the next to go in our division.

The might have signed Gareth Taylor but the two main strikers scored the goals that saw Forest beat Norwich 2-0 at the City Ground. The first from our former loan man David Johnson has to be the funniest goal of the day. Norwich keeper Robert Green had saved and was preparing to clear the ball. Instead of kicking from his hands he elected to drop the ball and kick it from the ground. He got as far as dropping the ball but the alert Johnson just nipped in to take it away and put it into the empty net leaving Green rather Red faced. The second was from the spot after Johnson had been fouled.

Finally Watford secured their first point of the season, just like us against Gillingham. They led twice through Heidar Helguson and Danny Webber but had to settle for a 2-2 draw as the Gills came back with goals from Paul Shaw and Danny Spiller, the Spiller goal coming after a bad error by keeper Alec Chamberlain.

Next week’s fixtures have been somewhat disrupted by international calls and only five games remain as follows with all of them kicking off at 3:00 p.m.

Crewe Alexandra v Preston North End
Gillingham v Millwall
Norwich City v Derby County
Reading v Walsall
Stoke City v Burnley

4: Dougie Freedman (Crystal Palace)
4: Shaun Goater (Reading)
4: Lee Hughes (West Brom)
4: Mark Rivers (Norwich)
3: Robbie Blake (Burnley)
3: Jermaine Defoe (West Ham)
3: Nathan Ellington (Wigan)
3: Marlon Harewood (Nottm Forest)
3: Paul Merson (Walsall)
3: Scott Murray (Reading)
3: Marcus Stewart (Sunderland)

The average attendances are for league games only. Burnley’s average for the purposes of this list is taken from the paid attendance figures so in reality our actual attendances are lower than those of Bradford City and Millwall.

The big drop in the attendances at Norwich are due to the now reduced capacity at Carrow Road because of the building of a new stand whilst the average for Franchise is artificially high due to one of their home games being against landlords Crystal Palace.