Championship Thread 2012/13

grenache

Leicester and Forest level at 1-1 after half an hour of the early game. Good game this.

grenache

Never a penalty in a million years. But its Forest's first for 15 months so they've earned it.

Chancer3001

bburn on target for yet another draw

antomorro-sei

Serious win for the Watford today. 6-1 in Elland Road.

Mushy

antomorro-sei wrote: »

Serious win for the Watford today. 6-1 in Elland Road.

Handy against 9 men, a tiny squad who can't buy a win for love nor money.

antomorro-sei

Mushy wrote: »

Handy against 9 men, a tiny squad who can't buy a win for love nor money.

Weren't Watford winning and controlling the game when it was still 11v11?

Anyway, pretty sure Leeds will be promoted this year or next.

grenache

antomorro-sei wrote: »

Anyway, pretty sure Leeds will be promoted this year or next.

I think you're being a little kind there. Leeds will do well to finish mid table. They score goals but have one of the worst defences on the league. It's the 3rd time in 3 years that they've conceded 6 goals or more in a home game. As my boss who is a Leeds fan says: that's what you get for signing half of Pompey's relegated side.

If Watford can get any kind of momentum, then I would fancy them to finish top 10 and an outside bet for the playoffs. Really impressed by Sean Murray of late, maybe a potential player for the Irish squad in a year or two. In Deeney and especially Vydra you will score goals but keeping them out will be the problem.

antomorro-sei

Unlucky today grenache :cool:

grenache

antomorro-sei wrote: »

Unlucky today grenache :cool:

We seem to always be "unlucky" against you lot I don't think we'd have done any better even with 11 men.

Zaha just scored one of the goals of the season for Palace.

Kiwi_knock

Another shocking result for Birmingham today, losing 3-1 to Bolton. See us slip down to 20th spot. And to make matters worse, Zigic went and got himself sent off. Which now leaves us with only one fit and available striker (Jake Jervis) for the next game, and Jervis has barely played any football at this level. Going to be a tough task to stay up at this rate.

mike65

Wolves sack Stale Solbakken after todays deafeat, Dean Saunders is favourite apparently which is nuts.
Sean O'Driscoll should be the first port of call.

Kiwi_knock

Wolves have made an official approach for Dean Saunders, that is a strange one. O'Driscoll would have been a better choice in my opinion.

Kiwi_knock

Saunders should be confirmed tonight. I still do not it is a good appointment. Do not think they will make the Playoffs.

Also O'Driscoll has turned down the Barnsley job. Smart decision, a better job will come available to him.

Kiwi_knock

Good win for Birmingham today, that young lad we signed for Stoke seems a good prospect . Happy we kept Burke, it could have been him scoring against us today. I think we are good enough to stay up, but have no chance at the playoffs at this stage. Would be happy with a mid table finish, especially considering everything else going on with the club.

grenache

Forest's Arab owners continuing on with their own mini 'Night of the Long Knives'. On Wednesday they sacked the following:

Academy director - Nick Marshall
Finance director - John Pelling
Media and communications manager - Fraser Nicholson
Operations manager - Brandon Furse

Walked:
Professional Development Coach - John Pemberton

This added to the three sackings last month makes it 7 for the season, and that's not including Sean O'Driscoll. Clearly they see these guys as having a prominent role in the failure that has been the last 15 years at Forest. On the plus side, they did hire Bobby Downes as the new head of recruitment.

Davies' first game back is tomorow's clash with Bolton. He's sure of a rapturous welcome back at the City Ground.

grenache

The question i want to ask......

IS THERE ANY STOPPING UDINESE B WATFORD??

Kiwi_knock

What will Watford do next season if they are promoted, when they can not rely on half their squad being loan players. I find it hard to rate how well Zola has done as well.

antomorro-sei

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

What will Watford do next season if they are promoted, when they can not rely on half their squad being loan players. I find it hard to rate how well Zola has done as well.

Sign the ones they want to keep...

EdenHazard

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

What will Watford do next season if they are promoted, when they can not rely on half their squad being loan players. I find it hard to rate how well Zola has done as well.

Haha this happened in Football Manager. Now IRL Watford will prob keep at least 4 of these players but in the game players didn't want to sign with them even after they were promoted. They didn't have much funds either so they were destroyed every week, think they conceded over 100 goals.
I find it a bit confusing the way Pozzo owns the 3 clubs. Obviously with how lucrative EPL is, he might give Watford number 1 priority? I'm not sure how the arrangement works tho.

SantryRed

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

What will Watford do next season if they are promoted, when they can not rely on half their squad being loan players. I find it hard to rate how well Zola has done as well.

Sign them. Look at how Granada did it a few years ago.

grenache

EdenHazard wrote: »

Haha this happened in Football Manager. Now IRL Watford will prob keep at least 4 of these players but in the game players didn't want to sign with them even after they were promoted. They didn't have much funds either so they were destroyed every week, think they conceded over 100 goals.
I find it a bit confusing the way Pozzo owns the 3 clubs. Obviously with how lucrative EPL is, he might give Watford number 1 priority? I'm not sure how the arrangement works tho.

No doubting Watford being in the Prem (and they will go up automatically) will be of huge benefit to Pozzo but the very best he could hope for with them would be a low to mid-table finish. Udinese up to this season were a top four Serie A club and could still finish in Europa League places, so i'm certain they are still his 'priorità numero uno'.

grenache

Dougie Freedman starting to have an impact at Bolton. I wonder is it a minor hiccup for Cardiff, or is the interference from the owners and proposed name change having an impact on their performance. Hull are nearly on top of them now, who thought a Steve Bruce team could produce such football. Leicester are in free-fall. Big win for Mick's team today.

mike65

Cardiff are going to do it again aren't they?

Kiwi_knock

I always enjoy the yearly Cardiff implosion. However I think they should have enough to still get automatic promotion but maybe not winning it.

Very tight at the other end of the table, dreadful draw for Birmingham today. Should have pulled away today, but now firmly in it. Really hard to say who will go down, it could be any team in the bottom half of the table.

grenache

Kiwi_knock wrote: »

I always enjoy the yearly Cardiff implosion. However I think they should have enough to still get automatic promotion but maybe not winning it.

Very tight at the other end of the table, dreadful draw for Birmingham today. Should have pulled away today, but now firmly in it. Really hard to say who will go down, it could be any team in the bottom half of the table.

I enjoy the annual implosion too, but not so sure this current mini blip will do too much damage to Cardiff. They're still five points clear with two games in hand. Hull, Palace and Leicester behind them are all stuttering and even invincible Watford lost today as well. They've got Leicester, Wednesday and Peterborough in their next three games, they can surely take six points out of nine at least there. That should pretty much give them the momentum to secure automatic promotion by mid April.

The middle of the table is really really congested. 7 points separates 18th from 10th. Birmingham got a vital win over Derby today, that should see you safe for another year. Always rated Nathan Redmond, scored a cracker today. The sooner you get big earners like Zigic off your wage bill, the better. My tips for relegation would be Huddersfield, Peterborough and Barnsley.

Very happy with Davies second coming at Forest, 5 wins on the trot and now into the top six. Would be nice if a one of our strikers scored a goal though. Cox has 5 assists in the last 7 games but hasn't scored since November. Blackstock not since December and Sharp not since early Feb. Henderson has scored since Davies came but could be lookin at time inside for GBH! Typical that Bolton are making a great surge for the playoffs too, trying to steal our thunder.

Pudders

Billy has done a fantastic job so far with only 2 dropped points out of the last 18 is it? The run-in is very tough for forest though with both top two sides away and most of the teams in or around the play-offs. At least Billy has brought some optimism back to the city ground.

grenache

Pudders wrote: »

Billy has done a fantastic job so far with only 2 dropped points out of the last 18 is it? The run-in is very tough for forest though with both top two sides away and most of the teams in or around the play-offs. At least Billy has brought some optimism back to the city ground.

Leicester have an even more difficult run- in, we have 5 of the top 8 teams yet to play, they have 7. We'll fear nobody though. It's gonna be tough but the players are clearly enjoying their football again under Davies. The work rate has shot right up and he's made new players of Lansbury and McGugan in midfield and Collins at the back.

Mr_Spaceman

I was at Selhurst Park on Saturday for the Crystal Palace-Leeds Utd game (mate gave me his Palace ST for the day).

Great game, Palace looking good and Glenn Murray is such an underrated striker. Thirty goals already this season.

The Leeds fans certainly know how to get behind their team as well. Great support.

Jelle1880

****ing Burnley, cost me 200

Mr_Spaceman

Middlesbrough look like they've blown it. Losing at struggling Bristol City is pretty bad - and horrendous timing too.

He might be a born and bred smog monster but Tony Mowbray just doesn't seem to have a ruthless, winning mentality.

grenache

An interesting insight into the day to day life of a Championship manager:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21737406#asset

Pudders

Another great win for Forest today coming from behind. King Billy has now delivered 22 out of 24 points. Some performance!

Kiwi_knock

Forest are on some run, certainly in contention for automatic promotion. I think Hull, Watford and Palace will also be in contention for automatic but are assured of playoff places at least. Leicester really have fallen apart, can see them being overtaken by one of the chasing teams. Bolton most likely, but any of the mid table teams could put a run together and get into the playoff spots.

Still a pretty tight table, more than half of the teams are not safe yet. I should be happy that Birmingham are in the top half of the table, but still can not relax as I still have to look back at the teams below.

dd972

Not a BCFC fan, but anyone agree that they must be one of the most absurdly under achieving football clubs in England, even with Rovers in the same city, they're easily capable of filling a newly built ground in the Prem with 35,000 people every week if they got their act together.

Paully D

Nice gesture from Ipswich player Tyrone Mings who gave a fan who couldn't afford to get to the game two free tickets:




Great to see that.

mike65

Ipswich win again 17th I think which is not nearly good enough for comfort yet! The table is even more compressed than a couple of weeks ago.

EdenHazard

tris is fairly reserved with his thanks

Kiwi_knock

Vydra, Murray and Ince are up for Player of the Year. Tough one to pick, probably between Vydra or Murray.

Vydra and Ince are also up for Young Player of the Year along with Zaha. So one of them two will probably win.

Will go with Murray for Player of the Year and Vydra for Young Player of the Year.

mike65

Vydra is on loan from Udinese (or something) isn't he? If so he won't win it.

Pudders

Murray looks a shoe in for player of the year from the With nearly 30 goals. Young player is a toughr call and is a coin flip between the 3 really but I agree the Watford lad deserves it I think.

Kiwi_knock

Vydra wins players of the year, while Ince gets young player of the year. Always annoys me when a player gets best overall player but does not win the best young player as well. Well deserved for Vydra though.

Cox gets Goal of the Year award as well, that was definitely well deserved.

mike65

That's always an odd one all right. Happy for Ince though. Liverpool academy product and all that. Hopefully Liverpool first team squad player next season

irishmanmick

Great seeing goal of the season going to Simon Cox. What a goal. Here it is below

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma50sgnD1PI

Link below is an even more ridiculous version of that goal from a few years back

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIDuAYYdSBE

grenache

Saw this posted on one of the Championship forums I frequent earlier today

[Conor Sammon] comes into the Caff I work at, Thinks he's a bit special and likes to hold court with a few drooling sheep fans. Last week he announced that he was "looking forward to the new man for next season" this followed by a conspiratorial huddle and some stunned looking Sheep.
According to my man on the table next to them he said the squad aren't happy with Nige and he's expecting him to get the boot sooner rather than later.

Could be aload of cods wallop, but would not at all be surprised if Derby were to part company with Clough. They've had nearly 5 years of mediocrity under him. Not that any Forest supporter like me is complaining.

Kiwi_knock

Very revealing article in the Guardian about the running of Birmingham City, shows how dodgy the people who are running the club are. Probably one of the worst run clubs in Britain, and no end in sight to their ownership.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/mar/27/birmingham-city-peter-pannu

According to internal documents the Guardian has seen, in June 2010 Pannu claimed by email to Birmingham City finance staff that Yeung had given him complete, sole authority over the club and its business dealings. At the time, Pannu was not even a director of the club, or the parent company, Birmingham International Holdings Limited.

Pannu also claimed that he had an agreement with Yeung, from June 2010, which entitled him to be personally paid 10% of "whatever I bring into the club by way of earnings and profits". Pannu asked that the club's finance department pay him £300,000 under this commission arrangement into his personal HSBC bank account in the UK.

Boots234

Big game this weekend with Forest v Brighton. My prediction is Cardiff and Palace to go straight up with Hull winning the playoffs, very difficult to call though. Unfortunately Middlesbrough look to have blown it again, only 2 league wins this since December

grenache

Boots234 wrote: »

Big game this weekend with Forest v Brighton. My prediction is Cardiff and Palace to go straight up with Hull winning the playoffs, very difficult to call though. Unfortunately Middlesbrough look to have blown it again, only 2 league wins this since December

I don't think Palace have the consistency to go up automatically, I would fancy Watford to do it. I think Hull have more about them than Palace, can see them winning the playoffs.

Forest v Brighton is massive for both teams. Forest looking to win 7 on the trot, and Brighton looking to stay inside the playoff places. Two teams who like to keep it on the deck, should be a great game.

dreamers75

watching palace and brum, stupid that Palace got a free for a high foot by Zigic. Palace player should have conceded the free for dangerous play, he stooped to head the ball and Zigic kicked him in the head unintentionally. Shouldnt have his head that low.

brum 1 up nice goal too.

Fahey starts for 1st time since october.

Kiwi_knock

Lovely goal for Redmond. We are playing well so far, defence looks secure. Hope we can hold on.

Kiwi_knock

2-0 to Brum now, Delaney O.G. Upset definitely on now, a third would give me a bit of confidence that we could get all 3 points.