In the Championship – All change at the top again

Nathan Ellington - two more goals for Wigan

Reading have moved into second place with a 3-1 win over Gillingham. Former Cambridge striker Dave Kitson scored all three Reading goals with two of them coming from the penalty spot.

Gillingham are playing without manager Andy Hessenthaler for now, he’s decided to concentrate on managing. That should reduce the nastiness on the field by a reasonable amount although probably he’ll be causing mayhem on the touchline instead.

Stoke, previous leaders, are now third after a goalless draw against Nottingham Forest, a club still without a win and a club that looks to have a lot of problems.

They are slumped in the bottom three, star player Andy Reid is not being considered for the first team after asking for a transfer, and manager Joe Kinnear is constantly moaning about a lack of decent players when he has twice as many to select from as Steve Cotterill does at Burnley.

Kinnear won’t be stopping much longer, he rescued them last season but has not been able to maintain that start. Don’t be surprised to see him on his way before the end of the month – destination South Wales.

Right behind the top three are West Ham and Ipswich and they fought out a 1-1 draw at the Boleyn Ground on Saturday. West Ham have a new look defence and it was one of the new signings, Malky Mackay, who put the home side in the lead after just eleven minutes.

Pablo Counago - got the Ipswich equaliser at West Ham

I don’t think anyone expected to see Watford in the top six after nine games. They lost, undeservedly, at Preston on the opening day of the season and only the Clarets have beaten them since.

They played yesterday at Millwall and were 2-0 winners with Danny Webber again scoring to give them the lead. Heidar Helguson, recently a target for the Clarets, grabbed his first goal of the season to complete the scoring.

QPR and Sunderland are the sides in form right now, both of them have picked up nine points this week and are now just below the play off positions.

QPR’s latest win came at the wonderful Withdean where they came from behind twice to beat Brighton. A stoppage time goal from Matthew Rose won it for Rangers.

Sunderland’s recent wins have seen them score early goals with the games virtually over with in the first twenty minutes. That was not quite the case on Saturday.

They went in front at the Stadium of Light but Preston equalised from the penalty spot. The home side missed a penalty right on half time but hit home the rebound to go back in front and a second from Stephen Elliott in the second half saw them home comfortably.

Things really have changed at Preston and caretaker boss Billy Davies admitted they had lost because they didn’t play well with some of his players not playing to the best of their ability. I really do miss the Weary Whinger.

The bottom three didn’t score a goal between them on Saturday. We’ve already reported that Forest drew 0-0 at Stoke and bottom club Rotherham got the same result at Coventry.

I suppose it was a good result for the Millers who had lost their previous five games. They can’t score goals and Paul Shaw remains their leading, and only, goal scorer with two.

Lennie Lawrence - under pressure at Cardiff

Sam Hammam took over the press conference after the game and said there was no way that Lennie Lawrence would be leaving. He said they weren’t going up this season, they certainly wouldn’t be going down and so there was no reason at all to change manager.

He then said that if Lawrence did go he would not be replaced by new coach Terry Burton. Don’t be surprised to see Lawrence become the next managerial casualty and check further up the report for who could just be set to replace him.

Crewe 2 Leeds 2 – that’s a result that would have taken some believing not too long ago. Crewe actually playing Leeds in a league game would have been a shock never mind getting a result against them.

As it happened Leeds had to come from behind twice to get a point as the sides met in the league for the first time ever. Crewe’s goals came from the usual source, Dean (not Dave) Ashton and Steve Jones, the first from the spot, whilst Danny Pugh twice scored to rescue the point for Leeds.

In the last match, Wolves picked up their second win of the week with a 2-1 win at Plymouth. They had to come from behind after David Friio had given Argyle the lead and they did just that with a Carlton Cole penalty equaliser following a winner from Dean Sturridge.

Sean Gregan won’t be coming to Burnley – he was linked with us a few weeks ago but he signed for Leeds this week for half a million and made his debut in that draw at Crewe.

He wasn’t the only one making a debut this weekend after signing for a new club. Young Southampton defender Matthew Mills was in the Coventry side in their draw with Rotherham after joining the Sky Blues on loan.

Another loan signing, Birmingham’s 20-year-old midfielder Darren Carter, made a good start with Sunderland and scored their second goal in the win over managerless Preston.

Finally Tommy Black has signed for Sheffield United on loan and was introduced as a substitute at half time in their hammering at Wigan – he replaced Nick Montgomery.

Hopefully by the time we next look in the Championship the Clarets will at least be able to play Amadou Sanokho. The Italians are still holding up the international clearance, is it possible they could get their fingers out and sort it this week?