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In the Championship – Red Card Week
It didn't take too long for the first red card to come out and it was our old friend Richard Beeby at the televised game between Preston and Barnsley. It was the assistant who saw the handball by Barnsley goalkeeper Nick Colgan as Patrick Agyemang went through and without doubt this was a correct decision.
It was a night of Agyemang v goalkeeper and the only goal of the game came when the replacement keeper, Italian Vito Mannone on loan from Arsenal, parried a ball out only for it to hit the Preston striker on the nose and into the net.
Cardiff are now three points clear at the top of the league following their televised win yesterday at Southend, and there's no doubt that on that sort of form they deserve to be there. They were by far the better side and were very much with their three goal victory.
Southend fought to get back into the game in the second half and even introduced Michael Ricketts as a substitute with just over twenty minutes to go. It is his first appearance for the Essex club since signing from Leeds in the summer, a transfer that excited the Southend supporters.
Ian Moore was another former Burnley striker to come on as a substitute, as Leeds beat Birmingham 3-2 in their first game since the departure of Kevin Blackwell who is now apparently banned from Elland Road.
Caretaker boss named Moore on the bench but couldn't even find a place there for Robbie Blake who was left out of the sixteen altogether. It proved to be a tight game but Leeds won it to move out of the bottom two.
Leeds had conceded a daft goal of their own when a shot from Martin Taylor rebounded off the post, hit goalkeeper Tony Warner, and bounced in, but their winner was a cracking own goal from Olivier Tebily who believed he was under pressure from Moore.
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They had to wait an hour though to get in front with a goal from Ray Jones and Dexter Blackstock added a second with ten minutes to go, a result that moved them five places in the league.
Just above Hull now are fellow Yorkshire team Sheffield Wednesday who looked set for a win on Saturday until things all went wrong in the last ten minutes. They'd got in front against Derby through Chris Brunt and then saw the visitors reduced to ten men.
Mr Karren Brady came off the bench to equalise, although the goal should clearly have been ruled out for a push by the Canadian, and revitalised Steve Howard hit the winner from the edge of the box in stoppage time, a third goal in three games for the £1 million striker.
RK Sunderland got off to a good start at Portman Road against Ipswich, another cracking own goal this time from Jason De Vos. They thought they were on their way to a win but Darren Currie equalised before half time with a free kick and the home side went on to win it with two goals from Alan Lee.
The first of them was a good header but the second owed a lot to the defensive deficiencies of Ramon Varga, who seemed to have caught the bug we had recently of allowing the ball to bounce over him. It left boss Roy Keane suffering his first defeat and he said after the game that it had been a major setback.
I think most people would have marked Plymouth's home game against Norwich down as a draw with Plymouth not having won at home and Norwich failing to have won an away game.
It proved not to be the case although when Plymouth went 3-0 up they must have had their previous home game in the back of their minds when they led by the same scoreline against Cardiff only to draw 3-3.
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Not for the first time Norwich boss described his side's performance as not being good enough. “I asked for passion, desire and enthusiasm and it just wasn't there, we need to do much better than we did today,” he said after the game.
Another manager far from happy with the way his side are playing away from home is Coventry boss Micky Adams. He called his side a soft touch after they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace courtesy of a Clinton Morrison goal and added: “We know we are going to perform at home so it is difficult to see why we don't do that away.”
Wolves beat Stoke 2-0 on Saturday, that should be no surprise but this is the first time Wolves have scored more than one goal in a game all season. Leon Clarke gave them the lead with his first league goal since August last year whilst midfielder Seyi Olofinjana hadn't been on the scoresheet since January 2005.
Tony Pulis, who thought Stoke didn't get going until the second half last week, thought his side had once again started brightly. He's under pressure, he's talking in riddles, and it is already beginning to go dark on the new dawn at the Windy City.
There was no first league win for West Brom's caretaker boss Nigel Pearson although his side twice came from behind to earn a draw at Luton. They were without John Hartson up front but had Nathan Ellington deputising alongside Kevin Phillips. It took goals from midfielder Darren Carter and substitute Zoltan Gera to earn the point after Rowan Vine had twice given the home side the lead.
That leaves Leicester who took on Colchester at the Crisp Bowl and this time Colchester got exactly what they set out to get at Burnley two weeks earlier, a 0-0 draw. It was a less than inspiring encounter but leaves newly promoted Colchester on a run of five games without defeat.
It is Colchester who get the Championship games underway this coming weekend – their home game against Ipswich is live on Sky this Friday. The full fixtures are below with the weekend stats.
The Weekend Results | |
Friday 22nd September | |
Preston 1 Barnsley 0 | . |
Saturday 23rd September | |
Burnley 2 Southampton 3 | Luton 2 West Brom 2 |
Crystal Palace 1 Coventry 0 | Plymouth 3 Norwich 1 |
Ipswich 3 RK Sunderland 1 | QPR 2 Hull 0 |
Leeds 3 Birmingham 2 | Sheffield Wed 1 Derby 2 |
Leicester 0 Colchester 0 | Wolves 2 Stoke 0 |
Sunday 24th September | |
Southend 0 Cardiff 3 | . |
The Weekend Stats | |
Biggest win | Cardiff 3-0 v Southend (away) |
Total goals scored | 34 |
Player scoring most goals | David Healy (Leeds) |
Highest Attendance | 23,659 - Sheffield Wed v Derby |
Lowest Attendance | 7,901 - Southend v Cardiff |
Total Yellow Cards | 47 |
Total Red Cards | 7 |
Most cards in a game | Ipswich v RK Sunderland (8Y 1R) |
The leading scorers (league only) | |
8 | Grzegorz Rasiak (Southampton) |
7 | Robert Earnshaw (Norwich) |
6 | Michael Chopra (Cardiff) |
5 | Jon Parkin (Hull) Rowan Vine (Luton) |
4 | Nicklas Bendtner (Birmingham) Jamie Cureton (Colchester) Andy Gray (Burnley) Barry Hayles (Plymouth) Paul Hayes (Barnsley) David Healy (Leeds) Mark Richards (Barnsley) |
3 | Patrick Agyemang (Preston) Jay Bothroyd (Wolves) DJ Campbell (Birmingham) Freddy Eastwood (Southend) Steve Howard (Derby) Chris Iwelumo (Colchester) Stern John (Coventry) Steve Jones (Burnley) Joe Ledley (Cardiff) Alan Lee (Ipswich) Michael McIndoe (Barnsley) Gifton Noel-Williams (Burnley) Paul Peschisolido (Derby) James Scowcroft (Crystal Palace) Simon Walton (Ipswich) |
Hat Tricks (league only) | |
26th Aug | Jamie Cureton - COLCHESTER v Derby |
12th Sep | Gifton Noel-Williams - BURNLEY v Barnsley |
Disciplinary Record (all games) | |||||
| Club | Y | R | Club | Y | R |
| Barnsley | 14 | 2 | Luton | 11 | 2 |
| Birmingham | 18 | 4 | Norwich | 20 | 0 |
| Burnley | 13 | 3 | Plymouth | 18 | 0 |
| Cardiff | 17 | 2 | Preston | 19 | 2 |
| Colchester | 8 | 0 | QPR | 17 | 0 |
| Coventry | 18 | 1 | Sheffield Wed | 15 | 2 |
| Crystal Palace | 11 | 0 | Southampton | 13 | 0 |
| Derby | 24 | 2 | Southend | 12 | 0 |
| Hull | 19 | 1 | Stoke | 15 | 1 |
| Ipswich | 23 | 0 | RK Sunderland | 17 | 2 |
| Leeds | 23 | 1 | West Brom | 24 | 0 |
| Leicester | 13 | 1 | Wolves | 14 | 1 |
This Week's Fixtures | |
Friday 29th September | |
Colchester v Ipswich | . |
Saturday 30th September | |
Barnsley v Luton | Hull v Crystal Palace |
Birmingham v Leicester | Southampton v QPR |
Cardiff v Wolves | Stoke v Preston |
Coventry v Plymouth | RK Sunderland v Sheffield Wed |
Derby v Southend | West Brom v Leeds |
Sunday 1st October | |
Norwich v Burnley | . |