In the Championship – a red weekend

Steven Sidwell - scored the goal that took Reading top

Meanwhile previous leaders Wigan were held to a 1-1 draw at Derby with the goals coming in a two minute spell in the first twenty minutes. Former Watford player Tommy Smith gave the home side the lead but Lee McCulloch equalised for Wigan.

McCulloch was one of five players sent off, he got his marching orders near the end for a second yellow after leading with his arm. Despite the protestations of Paul Jewell he can have no real complaint.

And neither can Fabian Wilnis as ten men Ipswich fought back from 2-0 down to beat Plymouth 3-2. They were still behind when Wilnis went for an awful challenge and again there could be no complaints as he received a straight red card.

QPR and Sunderland are the two sides to watch right now and both have won their last four games. Sunderland beat Leeds at Elland Road on Friday night with Carl Robinson grabbing the only goal of the game whilst QPR had to come from behind at home to Leicester.

The Foxes were in total command after David Connolly scored his first goal for the club to give them a 2-0 lead. But he was then sent off for an elbow on Georges Santos and QPR turned the whole thing round to win 3-2.

Referee Paul Robinson, who had a nightmare in the West Ham v Burnley game last month, incredibly did not give Connolly a straight red and he only went having been previously booked.

Whether referee Michael Jones got the decision right or not to award a hand ball against Michael Duff on the Turf it beggars belief that he faces the same penalty as Connolly did for this coward’s act.

Simon Lynch - sent off for kicking out at a Crewe defender

The incident was reminiscent of Jordan Stewart’s dismissal against us last week and the referee was left with no option.

Of all the poor decisions this weekend the worst one has to be the awarding of a penalty to Brighton at Gillingham, it brought about the only goal of the game and moved Brighton above the Gills down in the lower reaches of the league.

Gillingham had a good shout for a spot kick turned down but then saw referee Ray Olivier, from all of six or seven yards away, get an easy decision completely wrong. The Gillingham defender clearly won the ball right in front of him and then Leon Knight fell over his outstretched leg.

I’m sure someone shopping in neighbouring Chatham would have been able to see there was no foul, but not Mr. Olivier. Mind you, isn’t it funny when it goes against Hessenthaler’s nasty lot?

The man of the moment this week has to be Rotherham’s Chris Sedgwick. Earlier in the week Sheffield United recalled former Burnley loan man Paul Shaw from his three month stint at Millmoor.

Now Shaw scored on the first two weekends this season and those two goals are the only league goals Rotherham have scored all season. So things were not looking too good when Paul Ifill scored to give Millwall the lead in South Yorkshire.

But up stepped Sedgwick with time running out to claim a point for Ronnie Moore’s men, they are still bottom but now within a point of Dario G’s Crewe.

As for Millwall there could be big changes at the top. Kebab seller Theo Paphitis is on his way at the end of the season and he looks to get himself back into women’s lingerie and there are rumours that Gianluca Vialli, a big friend of both Dennis Wise and Ray Wilkins, could well be set to buy the club. I’m sure the Watford fans will be having a good laugh at that one.

Dave Jones - his Wolves side are still to win at home

However, they dropped back into that bottom three yesterday when Nottingham Forest finally won for the first time this season when two late goals from Paul Evans and the abused Marlon King gave them a very unlikely and undeserved three points against West Ham.

It was a day of emotion at the City Ground, as it had been the day before at Pride Park, as they paid their respects to Brian Clough. Former players were there aplenty and many fans wore the trademark Clough green top.

Warnock’s Sheffield United came back from a goal behind to draw at home against Coventry. Andy Morrell had scored to give the Sky Blues the lead but new loan player Tommy Black header the equaliser for the home side.

It looked as though Stan was there for a minute at the end of the game as Warnock went berserk, verbally laying into someone. It turned out to be his own goalkeeper Paddy Kenny.

The transfer market livened up this week with Portsmouth having a big hand to play in it as they loaned out three players to Championship clubs.

Richard Duffy signed for the Clarets but striker Mark Burchill has joined Rotherham for a month whilst the highly rated Gary O’Neil has moved to Cardiff on a three month loan.

Neighbours Southampton loaned striker Brett Ormerod to Leeds and he had an impact this week when he had a penalty saved by Mart Poom in the home defeat against Sunderland.

Michael Bridges - back at Sunderland

Derby also went shopping at the Reebok and returned with young defender Jason Talbot and the Rams also went shopping abroad again, as did QPR.

Polish striker Grzegorz Rasiak arrived at Derby from Italian club Siena, I wonder if they had any problems in gaining international clearance. Rasiak played in the recent World Cup qualifier against England.

Finally QPR took their shopping basket to Germany and brought back Cameroon defender Serge Branco from a club the Clarets played in the Fairs Cup Vfb Stuttgart.

There’s a virtually full fixture list this midweek and by this time next week we will have played a quarter of the season. The fixtures are below with the result and stats from the weekend.