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In the Championship – it's fun at Cardiff
Off he went and then the fun really started. He wasn’t so keen to go and as the arguments continued Collins got involved with David Livermore. Collins got a second yellow, Livermore a straight red and that led to Dennis Wise losing it on the touchline and being sent to the stands.
Not bad, three players and a manager sent off right at the end, and for good measure the other manager slating referee Michael Jones for a dreadful performance – he who sent off Michael Duff earlier in the season.
We are led to believe that Theo Paphitis neither saw nor heard anything at all.
The defeat saw Cardiff drop down a place with Plymouth recording a 3-0 win at home to Sheffield United that left the visiting manager Neil Warnock somewhat red faced on his return to Home Park.
They were already trailing 1-0 to a Graham Coughlan goal when keeper Paddy Kenny had to go off with a hip injury but Warnock doesn’t bother with substitute keepers. Phil Jagielka had to go in and he looked anything but a keeper in the two moves that led to Paul Wotton and Dexter Blackstock completing the scoring.
Warnock cannot understand why anyone would want to sign for Burnley rather than his club, maybe not bothering with a keeper as a matter of course on the bench suggests a somewhat amateurish approach.
Coventry are the closest to the bottom three again after losing 2-1 at home to Wigan who are now back on top of the league following Ipswich’s surprise home defeat, by the same score, against Watford.
It looked as though the Sky Blues might just earn a point after an improved performance but Nathan Ellington became the first player to hit twenty league goals this season with a stunning strike.
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The Tractor Boys pulled one back from the penalty spot but they couldn’t rescue a point in the closing minutes and fell to just their second home defeat all season.
Sunderland remain right on the heels of the top two and hit four for the second successive home game. They had too much for struggling Rotherham for whom the game must really be up now.
Usually reliable goalkeeper Mike Pollitt gifted them two goals and the other two came from excellent long range free kicks from Sean Thornton, a former Burnley target.
Poor Rotherham are now even further behind with Nottingham Forest winning for the first time since New Year’s Day. They are certainly starting to become Megson like and haven’t conceded a goal in any of the last three games, interestingly the three games played since Michael Dawson dropped out of the side.
They are still not scoring so many but they did win this one with two goals in the last thirteen minutes to inflict defeat on Preston for the first time since the Clarets beat them in mid-December.
Paul Evans and the impressive Kris Commons were the goalscorers but it still leaves Forest six points from Coventry.
The other side in the bottom three, Gillingham, fell to a 1-0 home defeat against West Ham and they have now gone five games since they last tasted victory and have Wigan visiting this Saturday.
Gills’ boss Stan Ternent admitted that his side really need to put a run together and said, “If I can get them all fit we are more than capable of winning three, four or five games on the bounce. At the moment we have got some young boys and we are sending them on men’s errands really.”
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Leicester opened and closed the scoring but Stoke stunned their fans with three in between. It will have brightened things up for the Stokies who are currently very concerned that their club appears to be in some sort of turmoil.
Marcus Hall left for Coventry last week having a real go at the Chairman and recently Ade Akinbiyi staged a sit in after problems with his new contract. The fans are not happy at the Windy City.
Two 1-1 draws to end with. Wolves came back at QPR with a Carl Cort goal after Kevin Gallen had given the home side the lead. It was Gallen’s first goal since he scored against the Clarets back in October.
And over 5,700 were packed in at Dario G’s place to see Luke Varney give Crewe the lead before the fit again cheating and moaning Dave Kitson equalised for John Madejski FC (aka Reading).
A very forward thinking club though are Crewe and they have opened their AGM this week to all supporters and not just shareholders. Well done to them.
On the transfer front, apart from Akinbiyi and Hall leaving Stoke for Burnley and Coventry respectively there have been one or two more moves.
Micky Adams, still perusing the mess left by Peter Reid and Adrian Heath has been busy strengthening. Robert Page has joined Hall in moving to Highfield Road after being frozen out at Cardiff.
Page was a top target for Steve Cotterill in the summer but he made the mistake of joining Cardiff, the team he had always supported. It hasn’t worked out for one reason or another and he’s had to move on whilst keeping involved with the relegation battle.
Stoke have got Ricketts – Michael from Leeds that is. He’s signed on loan for a month after struggling to get into Blackwell’s team and finally Preston have resolved what had become a goalkeeping crisis.
When you have three goalkeepers and lose one to a serious injury you can cope, when a second gets injured you can just about cope. But when you decide to release the third one then life can get a bit more difficult.
Lonergan and Ward are injured and they have now released Jonathan Gould. That left them running round looking for someone on loan. They got Chris Day from QPR and he made his debut in the defeat at Forest just after meeting the players. Seems a bit of a strange way to do things.
Day will make his home debut against the Clarets this weekend in a full fixture list as shown below.
The Midweek Results | |
Tuesday 22nd February | |
Cardiff 0 Millwall 1 | Plymouth 3 Sheffield United 0 |
Crewe 1 Reading 1 | QPR 1 Wolves 1 |
Gillingham 0 West Ham 1 | Stoke 3 Leicester 2 |
Ipswich 1 Watford 2 | Sunderland 4 Rotherham 1 |
Wednesday 23rd February | |
Coventry 1 Wigan 2 | Nott'm Forest 2 Preston 0 |
Derby 1 Burnley 1 | . |
The Midweek Stats | |
Biggest win | Sunderland 4-1 v Rotherham (home) |
Total goals scored | 29 |
Player scoring most goals | 2 - Sean Thornton (Sunderland) |
Highest Attendance | 23,993 - Ipswich v Watford |
Lowest Attendance | 5,703 - Crewe v Reading |
Total Yellow Cards | 22 |
Total Red Cards | 3 |
Most cards in a game | Cardiff v Millwall (3Y 3R) |
The leading scorers (league only) | |
20 | Nathan Ellington (Wigan) |
18 | Dean Ashton (Crewe) - now with Norwich |
16 | Jason Roberts (Wigan) |
15 | Darren Bent (Ipswich) Paul Furlong (QPR) Shefki Kuqi (Ipswich) |
13 | Dave Kitson (Reading) Kenny Miller (Wolves) Teddy Sheringham (West Ham) |
12 | Richard Cresswell (Preston) Stephen Elliott (Sunderland) Marlon Harewood (West Ham) David Healy (Leeds) - 5 with Preston Heidar Helguson (Watford) Grzegorz Rasiak (Derby) |
11 | Marcus Stewart (Sunderland) |
10 | Robbie Blake (Burnley) - now Birmingham Lee McCulloch (Wigan) Peter Thorne (Cardiff) Danny Webber (Watford) |
9 | Carl Cort (Wolves) Tommy Smith (Derby) Paul Wotton (Plymouth) |
8 | Bruce Dyer (Watford) Andy Gray (Sheffield Utd) Barry Hayles (Millwall) Paul Shaw (Sheffield Utd) - 2 with Rotherham Marcus Tudgay (Derby) |
The Weekend Fixtures | |
Saturday 26th February | |
Brighton v Millwall | Plymouth v Crewe |
Coventry v Stoke | Preston v Burnley |
Gillingham v Wigan | Reading v Leicester |
Ipswich v QPR | Sheffield Utd v Rotherham |
Leeds v West Ham | Sunderland v Cardiff |
Nott'm Forest v Derby | Wolves v Watford |