When two yellows don't make a red

Two yellows for Vinnicombe

It's the big talking point from yesterday's game with Russell now facing investigation by his bosses at the PGMOL for his catastrophic blunder. The first card came in the 8th minute and their game at Huddersfield was only in the 23rd minute when Helan received his second yellow card.

The problem came because Russell, in booking him the first time, wrote down the number 7, that of Michail Antonio, rather than the number 24. Interestingly, Sheffield Wednesday boss Dave Jones brushed it off as something and nothing but Simon Grayson felt aggrieved.

"He's made a mistake," Grayson said. "He has clearly shown Helan a yellow card and I think instead of writing his name in the book he has written Michail Antonio's. How you can do that I don't know. Everyone in the ground knew what he had done.

"It was a difficult afternoon for the referee and he made some very poor decisions. Something like that should never happen; the referee has assistants to help him."

I'm not sure what might happen now. Yellow cards can be appealed for mistaken identity but I can't imagine Wednesday will want to appeal this one and leave themselves a player short for a game.

There are precedents. The best known is when Graham Poll yellow carded Croatia's Josip Šimunić three times in a 2006 World Cup game and I certainly was at Bootham Crescent on the night when Uriah Rennie twice yellow carded Chris Vinnicombe playing for Burnley against York.

Yesterday, Wednesday won a point in a 0-0 draw. They haven't conceded a goal in any of their last four games and remain one place above the drop zone after their recent recovery.

Below them are Bristol City, Peterborough and Barnsley and yesterday's home defeat against managerless Blackburn proved the final straw for the Barnsley board who promptly sacked manager Keith Hill.

Sean O'Driscoll, sacked on Boxing Day by Nottingham Forest, and Phil Brown have been installed as joint favourites for the Barnsley job and either of them could be in charge for our cup meeting next week.

Meanwhile at Blackburn it is still quite chaotic as we await news of Derek Shaw and Paul Agnew after their meeting with Mrs Desai in Pune. We do know Judan Ali has been at Brockhall but, according to the ever reliable word of Shebby Singh, he was not coaching and will not be joining the club.

We're still above them going into 2013, just, and the four North West clubs in the Championship are now in consecutive positions, 12th to 15th with only one point between us. I think it would take a major effort for any of us to make that top six and I don't see any of us dropping close to the drop zone either, unless Shebby can come up with another Henning Berg.

Well done to Cardiff. They lead the Championship at the start of the year. The last time the team leading the league going into the New Year didn't go up automatically was eight years ago. Then it was Ipswich who ended the season in third place with 85 points and lost their play off semi-final.

I wouldn't bet against there being two Welsh clubs in the Premier League next season.