One game down, forty-five to go as far as the 24 teams in the Championship is concerned, but what did the opening weekend of fixtures tell us? Many regard Doncaster’s 1-0 win at Derby as the performance of the weekend, but that’s only working on the assumption that Rovers were playing League One football last term, while their opponents were in the top flight. [Read the rest of this entry »]

The Daily Telegraph reckons that Birmingham City are “set to lose James McFadden” and we’d have to concur. [Read the rest of this entry »]

FA Cup-winning manager Harry Redknapp has admitted he is looking to sign Reading’s England international left-back.

Nicky Shorey, who won his first England cap against Brazil last year, is high on Pompey’s shopping list and, following Reading’s relegation to the Championship, could be close to a cut-price move to Fratton Park.

The move would be good for both sides. Pompey look to expand a squad that’s left with 3 players and a ball-boy whenever African international matches are played. Whereas, Shorey can get back in a successful team and perhaps push into Fabio Capello’s England squads. Redknapp told the Reading Evening Post:

Shorey is a player I like. He’s a good player and a good footballer. We’re looking for players who would give us something a bit different and he would do that.

Shorey was linked to Newcastle and West Ham last season, with Reading turning down a bid from the latter, but following the Royals relegation, the 27-year-old’s wages are likely to lead to his reluctant departure.

Pompey prepare for their first ever season in Europe and Harry Redknapp knows he needs a larger squad capable of challenging for honours:

He would give us something different to Hermann (Hreidarsson). Having said that, Hermann did a fantastic job for us and was brilliant for me. But we are going to need a squad and we are going to need cover.

We are going to be playing more games than ever next season and it’s going to be a lot tougher for us.

The last time Reading were in the Championship, they collected 106 points and stormed to the title. The Royals lost just two games on their way to automatic promotion and looked for all the world like a Premier League team. Sadly, after one brilliant season in the top flight, they are back in the division from whence they came, although fans will be delighted to see that Steve Coppell has decided to stick around as manager.

There had been speculation that the former Manchester City and Crystal Palace manager would step down at the end of the season, especially after falling through the relegation trapdoor. However, the Daily Mirror report that the scouser has decided to take a massive pay-cut and finish the job he has started at the Madejski Stadium.

He said: “The last thing I want to be remembered for at Reading is for a relegation. I wanted the chance to put it right. Now our motivation is to try to make next season memorable for all the right reasons.”

Are you betting on Reading to repeat their triumph of 2004/5, when they took the division by storm? It llargely depends on keeping hold of Dave Kitson, Kevin Doyle and James Harper but to name a few. You’d certainly expect the Berkshire club to be in and around the top six next term, although Sheffield United and Charlton proved last season that relegated clubs have no divine right to these placings.

After all, the Blues have quality all over the park. Chelsea’s second string would probably finish sixth or seventh in the Premier League, so why have Avram Grant’s expectations been exceeded by his team’s strong finish to the season, which could mean a domestic-European double this season?

Look at the players he has at his disposal! Perhaps Arsene Wenger should be the man that is making the below sort of quotes, considering the smaller squad and the terrible luck with injuries that Arsenal have experienced in the past few months. To hear Grant speak (through the medium of Sky Sports), anyone would think he was manager of Aston Villa or Everton.

“From day one our target was to be in the Champions League final and to improve our game,” he said.

“We’ve done more than I even expected, so we want to believe the season will end well and we will fight to the last minute.

“United have had a fantastic season. They’ve been champions many times before but this year we have given them a good battle and it is not finished yet.

“Even if they win the title on goal difference you must give my team respect.”

Hmmm, can’t see many neutrals ‘respecting’ Chelsea FC for their achievements, particularly as their success is down to a Russian billionaire deciding to pick them as his pet project and investing hundreds of millions to ensure that they become one of the world’s leading clubs and brands. Surely, Everton, Villa, Portsmouth and Sunderland deserve more respect for having decent seasons, while Stoke and West Brom should also be praised for scrambling out of the Championship without having a bottomless pit of cash.

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Quite why Milan Mandaric wasn’t at the Britannia Stadium to watch his Leicester City team draw 0-0 with Stoke is a puzzle in itself. After all, Potters chairman Peter Coates travels the length and breadth of the country to watch his team in action, collaborating with manager Tony Pulis every other day. It appears to be quite the opposite at the Walkers Stadium, where the Foxes chairman describes his role at Leicester as a ‘project’ and appears to be unconvinced that Ian Holloway is the man to take the club forward.

Sky Sports report that the former Portsmouth chairman is fuming after seeing Leicester get out of the Championship, but not in the way he intended. Poor Milan, he’s not going to make a profit out of selling the club at this rate. Get the violins out for this likeable fellow.

“It is not an easy moment. It is one I have never experienced before in any project, whether business or football,” Mandaric, speaking from the United States, told Sky Sports News.

“It is a dreadful experience. It is a shame. I feel let down and right now I am not a very happy man.

“You don’t have to be Einstein. If you look at the support I have given to my managers and my players, both financially and morally, and what do you get in response?

“You expect rewards and results. We didn’t get it and you have to feel let down.”

Perhaps Mandaric let himself down at Leicester. After all, there was a distinct lack of continuity, with four managers taking charge at various points in the season. Who knows whether the club would have found themselves in this position if he’d stuck with Martin Allen for a few more months.

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They’ll be dancing in the streets of Hanley and Newcastle-under-Lyme after Stoke City bagged themselves the second automatic promotion spot on Sunday. The Potters have done magnificently this season, coming from behind on several occasions to land wins or draws against Championship opponents and it’s hard to argue that they don’t deserve their place in the Premier League next season.

Quite whether they’ll stay there for longer than a season is another matter. Many have commented that this season’s Championship has been bereft of quality, with West Brom winning the league with the lowest points total for over two decades. Not that the Baggies or Stoke care at this particular moment in time, with the BBC reporting Tony Pulis, the manager of the latter, in a bullish mood.

“I have to say a special ‘thank you’ to the chairman. Peter showed a lot of character to buy this club and spent a lot of money on it.

“This is a great day for this club and an opportunity for us to build and push on for next year.”

However, the fun starts next week when Pulis and Coates have to start planning for next season. With just eleven points on the board this season, Derby County have demonstrated how promotion to the top flight can go terribly wrong and while the Rams will be much richer for their season in the big time, it’s obvious that the promoted three will be desperate not to disgrace themselves in such a manner.

The new boys will take heart from Sunderland’s efforts this season, a team who were floundering in mid-table of the Championship when Roy Keane took over and have now completed a successful season of consolidation in the Premier League. Birmingham too have shown that the gulf between the teams at the bottom of the top flight and the top of the second division isn’t that great, while the Baggies and Potters will also be confident of finishing above at least one other team – the one who is promoted through the play-offs and has less time to prepare for the new campaign.

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There’s an almighty scrap at the top of the Championship to determine who will be playing Premier League football next season, which teams will the likes of West Brom and Stoke City be replacing? The bookmakers still don’t give Fulham much of a chance, despite their heroic comeback at Manchester City last weekend. A victory against fellow-strugglers Birmingham on Saturday would mean that their top flight safety could potentially be in their own hands!

Surely Reading fans are a touch on the concerned side, considering their team’s inability to score, let alone win a game. OK, so they managed a creditable 0-0 draw at Wigan last weekend, although the decision to bring back Leroy Lita from his loan spell at Charlton smacked of desperation, while the Daily Mirror report tension in the camp ahead of Saturday’s game against Spurs. The Royals record signing won’t play for his ’stupid team’ anymore apparently.

“It is not clever at all to suspend your own players, it is stupid,” said the 24-year-old. “The sanction is heavy – two weeks!

“I cannot understand their attitude. I refused to play with the reserves and they said: ‘Okay let us meet on Thursday’.

“But in the meantime I received a letter saying I am axed.

“They are not courageous enough to tell me things in the eyes, man to man, in five minutes.

“I am an adult, I can recognise when I make mistakes. I can also admit to people when I am wrong. The team needs all their players for the last two games.

“For sure my future is not with Reading.”

Not exactly what you need when you’re teetering on the edge of the drop zone, although perhaps this will galvanise the rest of the Reading squad, who face a last-day trip to Derby after the weekend game against Spurs. Bolton are in action at home to Sunderland and will at least have the comfort of the Black Cats having nothing to play for after their 3-2 win over Middlesbrough last weekend.

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This is not a Leeds-baiting article. Far from it, COS thinks it’s a damn shame what’s been allowed to happen to this football club over the past few seasons, which has resulted in a double relegation, administration, desperation, frustration and now consolidation. Fans of the club thought that it might be a case of celebration after Ken Bates & Co appealed against their fifteen point deduction made at the start of the season, but Sky Sports report they’ll will have to tough it out in the play-offs if they are to be promoted this season.

Whatever the rights and wrongs were surrounding this deduction (which were in addition to the ten points docked towards the end of last season), it would have been one thing restoring some or all of the deficit in the early part of the season but not when there’s only one match of the regular season remaining. It simply wouldn’t have been fair to the likes of Carlisle, Doncaster and Nottingham Forest, teams who are on the verge of securing promotion through that second automatic spot.

The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators have therefore made the correct decision and it’s safe to assume that part of their thinking was an overturning of points would have almost certainly led to a series of counter-appeals by some or all of the teams mentioned above. The Football League will also breathe a sigh of relief that they have been found not guilty of acting unfairly towards Leeds in deducting the fifteen points.

United have a chance to now secure promotion to the Championship and will be favourites on the basis of their recent form, their huge following and perhaps the burning sense of injustice being felt at the club right now after this decision.

Everyones favourite little overachievers Bristol City are in danger of running out of steam before the finishing line. The previous Championship toppers have finally fallen into the play-off spots. With 2 games to go, 4 points between them and automatic promotion and their horendous playoff record, the Robins look set to miss out on the big time and spend another year in Championship. West Brom and Stoke are leading the way and Hull are sitting in 3rd blocking City’s path. All three are looking like they have come into form just at the right time, just as the Robins fall on hard times.

However, although they have only won once in the last nine games, it is not all doom and gloom at Ashton Gate. Last year they were in the League One, trapped in a division they should have escaped on several occasions over a 7 year period. Will fans be dissapointed if City fail to reach the ‘promised land’ or will they simply reflect on the outstanding achievement of a newly-promoted team, seemingly lacking in goalscorers? (City have a goal difference of -1)

I personally think Gary Johnson has done amazingly well to get City out of League One, let alone challenge for promotion to the Premiership. I think next season will be more of a reality check for Robins fans. Yet, not everyone agrees with me. Defender Bradley Orr seems to think promotion is still possible.

I’m not going to say ‘we can’t', we’ll go right to the end and see what happens. We’ve just got to go and do the job that we can do, affect the games we can and hope other people do us favours. We’ll go right to the end and see where it takes us.

The last two games are going to be exciting and we’ve got to get over this disappointment [Losing to rivals Stoke] and go again.

Thoughts?

The heat is on at the bottom of the Premier League after a Bolton win meant it’s a three-horse race to the Championship that nobody wants to win. Although Reading put up a deent second-half performance away at Arsenal on Saturday, it wasn’t enough to stop them losing 2-0 and manager Steve Coppell appears to be feeling the pressure.

Sky Sports report that Coppell is unhappy that Alexander Hleb got away with slapping Graeme Murty during the match, when a red card should apparently have been brandished instead. His captain was knocked to the floor as a result, with the officials taking a leaf out of the Arsenal manager’s book and ‘not seeing anything’.

Coppell said: “Hleb slapped him across the neck and it is clearly visible on the video. It is there to see.

“I don’t know how the procedure is at the Football Association. It seems some mystery man phones in and says ‘have a look at the tape’.

“The whole process is unexplainable and arbitrary. Maybe someone in their front room somewhere will do something about it.”

It’s getting tight at the foot of the Premier League table, with just one point seperating Birmingham from Bolton and Reading. It appeared that the Royals had hauled themselves clear a few weeks ago, but last week’s defeat at home to Fulham means the prospect of returning to the Championship is a very real one.

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Surprise promotion contenders Bristol City are starting to feel the pressure of the promotion chase accoring to manager Gary Johnson.

Without a win in five and without back-to-back defeats, the newly-promoted side are still somehow 2nd in the Championship with Watford and West Brom snapping at their heels.

And the man who looks like a roly-poly comedian more than a manager knows this:

We are feeling the pressure, but then so are West Brom, Watford and Stoke. It is something I have to deal with. It comes down to characters and personalities and which of them can get their game going under this amount of pressure.

Some of them will and some of them won’t. It is up to me to find the ones who will. We need to get the selection right between now and the end of the season and go with those lads who can actually handle the pressure. I think we have enough lads who can do that.

We are an honest bunch and we always hold our hands up when we have not turned up.

City have defied all expectations, being on a promotion hunt as opposed to fighting relegation, but is football so fickle that Johnson is pleading for his job should the Robins not make the promised land?

Arsenal is to young football talent what cheese is to burgers – and by this I mean they go well together.

If you don’t like cheese in your burgers, this metaphor does not work but hey-ho, back to business. Arsene Wenger is said to be eyeing up an additional cog to his young footballing wheel. I must remember to stop using bad metaphors (yes you must, ed).

According to the Daily Mirror, Wenger is jumping to the head of the queue for Cardiff’s young midfield dynamo Aaron Ramsey and is plotting a shock raid.

The 17-year-old Caerphilly lad has already had a taste of first-team action this season and appears to like it. Apparently last summer the Welsh club turned down a £1m bid from a London-based club.

Could that have been Arsenal? The odds suggest so.

If Scott Carson can’t even get a game at Anfield, what’s the point in them buying another goalkeeper called Scott?

Rafa Benitez is apparently looking to the future and attempting to beat a host of clubs to the signature of Watford’s up-and-coming goalkeeper Scott Loach (various).

But Liverpool face stiff competition from Newcastle for the 19-year-old who is currently on loan to League Two side Bradford, making him the youngest first-team keeper in the country.

Stuart Pearce is also said to be interested in calling him up for the England Under-21 squad.

Liverpool obviously have a history of great goalkeepers and in Pepe Reina they have a sound first-choice stopper. Obviously, things didn’t work at Anfield for Chris Kirkland, who was similarly impressive at a young age,

Scott Carson – on loan at Aston Villa – looks set to leave Merseyside also. One thing is for sure, Anfield reserve keeper Charles Itandje hasn’t impressed many with his uncertain displays. Clearly one for the future, Loach would be a good addition to the growing crop of young stars being accumulated by Benitez.