In the Championship – it is QPR's month

Jamie Cureton - hat trick hero for QPR

However, as they ended the month with a crushing 4-1 win over Coventry a new hero emerged, former Bristol Rovers and Reading striker Jamie Cureton. He hit a hat trick, his first goals of the season.

Coventry boss Peter Reid had been bemoaning the fact that his side had been drawing too many games, they had drawn the previous three. It is quite a clever way to get out of that sequence, getting stuffed at Loftus Road. I bet that was one of Adrian Heath’s ideas.

With two of the top three drawing against each other Wigan missed a chance to replace Reading at the top but could pick up a point in a goalless draw at Watford, a game that Watford boss Ray Lewington claimed was an exciting goalless draw.

Ipswich and Reading collected a point each in the 1-1 draw at Portman Road and according to Long Ball Joe his Ipswich side murdered them. They went in front early in the game through Shefki Kuqi but Dave Kitson was on the mark again for Reading midway through the first half to earn the visitors a point.

Sunderland missed out on a five win month when they went down to a Paul Shaw goal against Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. Former Claret Shaw became the first player to score for two clubs in the division with this goal, he is still leading scorer at Rotherham with his two goals in the first week of the season during a loan spell at Millmoor.

There were two players sent off in this game, Sheffield United’s Andy Gray and Gary Breen of Sunderland. Premiership referee gave them both red cards for violent conduct as he was alerted to an incident in the Sunderland penalty box by his assistant prior to a free kick being taken.

Gary Breen - sent off for violent conduct

They are both scheduled to start their suspensions on Saturday but if the appeal is not heard in time then the suspensions will be delayed until such time that it is. This leaves it all open to abuse and clubs will be able to appeal just to keep a player free for an important match.

You can always rely on the game’s administrators to get things wrong, the changes to the suspensions have left everyone confused this season.

Sunderland missed out on a chance to remain in the top six and it is Stoke and West Ham who take the two places below QPR and both picked up points on the road.

On Tuesday Stoke drew 0-0 at Leeds in a poor game and last night West Ham came from behind to earn a point at Derby. Both goals were scored in the first eleven minutes with Matthew Etherington equalising after defender Michael Johnson had given Derby the lead.

Leicester manager Micky Adams was talking earlier in the week about their discipline problems and again there was a player sent off in their match. This time though it was the opposition Gillingham who ended the game a man short and Leicester collected three points from a 2-0 win at the Priestfield.

Plymouth set off like a house on fire at the beginning of the season and led the table for a while. But September has not been good to them and the point they picked up at Deepdale against Billy Davies’ Preston was the only one they won all month.

Preston confirmed the worst kept of secrets before the game that Davies had replaced the Weary Whinger on a permanent basis and they were behind for over half of the game. Richard Cresswell got them an equaliser midway through the second half.

Mark Burchill gave Rotherham the lead

The Millers have hardly been able to buy a goal all season but this time got over excited and scored twice in a game for the first time since the end of last season. It did them no good though as Crewe scored three times with Dean Ashton getting a couple of them.

Loan player Mark Burchill had given Rotherham the lead but by the time Shaun Barker added a second it was nothing more than a late consolation.

Rotherham remain bottom, Cardiff next to them and Forest are back in the bottom three after they fell to defeat at home against Brighton last night. Kinnear still looks Cardiff bound and the Forest fans won’t be too upset with that.

They have won just once this season and that was a somewhat fortunate victory against West Ham last Sunday. And so many of us were predicting a good season for Forest this time round.

Some say the league table will have taken shape after the first ten games or so – well most of us have played eleven and the taking shape has left us in 9^th place. I cannot imagine many would be complaining if the table kept a similar shape for the rest of the season.

The weekend sees the last set of fixtures before the second international break of the season with two Clarets – Danny Coyne and Micah Hyde – on their travels again.