While the Premiership table starts to take shape as expected the Championship is, as usual, looking tighter than Ian Holloway’s haircut. At this point in the season you are always a couple of wins from the top or a few loses from the bottom, so let’s not get over-excited. Or should we? Let’s have a look:
Blackpool 2-2 Colchester
Bristol City 2-2 Burnley
Cardiff 2-2 Preston
Charlton 2-0 Leicester
Crystal Palace 3-2 Sheff Utd
Ipswich 4-1 Coventry
QPR 1-1 Watford
Scunthorpe 2-3 West Brom
Sheff Wed 1-0 Hull
Southampton 2-3 Barnsley
Stoke 3-2 Plymouth
Wolves 2-0 Norwich
Well, there doesn’t seem much there at first glance. But then football fans, like a teenage girl receiving a text from a boy she fancies, have a habit of reading far more into things than are actually there.
For those who haven’t already worked it out in their head, that leaves Watford and Charlton as the top two, and it’s only September. Is it simply too easy to turn parachute payments into a bungee back up to the big league? Perhaps all relegated clubs should be made to take Bryan Robson as manager? Or is confiscating Aidy’s ProZone the only way to level the playing field?