The Championship 2020-21

2-0 now. The run continues?

 

Comedy goalkeeping from biscuit custodian.

 

Must win game today to hopefully cement second place, against a team who in reality are two points off the bottom.

 

Reading losing 2-0 to Stoke currently.

 

Norwich v Swansea draw suit us

 

Win and we go second if those two draw (or if Norwich win by less goals than us). Only 1 point off 1st if Reading lose. However, knowing us, we will lose today.

 

Not making too many excuses for them but they have 3-4 key players out through injury. I still think the strength of our squad will really start to tell from Christmas onwards (or even from now). Admittedly got to hope the performances improve.


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They had players out when they beat us!

 

I think, from what I’ve seen, the difference in this league from top to bottom is pretty narrow, significantly narrower than the PL. When it’s pointed out that we dropped points against the likes of Wycombe and Barnsley it’s kind of irrelevant, because when all is said and done there is a wafer between them and teams in and around the playoffs as far as quality is concerned.

Look at Boro, did they look any less good or bad than Coventry, or Derby or Luton? Yet they haven’t lost since we played them and are at the opposite end of the table to Coventry who we just beat.

 

Did he crumble in the box?

 

After 11 games Coventry have 8 points and -11 goal difference, Wycombe 7 and -13. They haven't got there by any other route than being very poor sides.

 

By that logic we must be very good indeed!

 

I didn’t really see any discernible difference between Reading, Derby, Blackburn, Barnsley, Stoke, Luton, Coventry, Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday.

They all seemed like generic championship teams to me and I wouldn’t be able to tell you who was who if you swapped their kits around.

 

Not when we've drawn with one of them and scraped a one goal win against the other.

As I've repeated elsewhere I have little issue with our points total or league position. What I have an issue with is a number of lacklustre performances and the fact we are yet to see even one thoroughly convincing, comfortable win.

 

How is Cocu still in a job ?

 

Well what you see in our matches against them means little amongst the bigger picture of the rest of their results. We are one, small sample point.

There will undeniably be teams this season who finish on 70+ points and a few who finish on sub 40. To say there's not "that much" difference between those sides just isn't right.

 

But Derby look utterly hopeless and they beat Norwich. Norwich look possibly the best side in the league and they lost to them. I think that's what a19 is saying. There's not too much value in analysing one off results against certain teams when this division always throws up strange results.

 

Apparently it’s the takeover, MM would’ve definitely pulled the trigger by now under normal circumstances but because he’s selling up he’s holding off to see what the new owners want to do and leave it to them.

 

But again, that's clearly the exception, not the rule? You could say that about any unexpected, one off result in football. Derby have 6 points and a -11 goal difference. Beating Norwich is a rare variant amongst of a sea of them being utterly crap and comfortably losing games so like you say there is little value in analysing one off results like that. What you can analyse is our own poor results/performances against sides who, on the whole, are proving to be the weaker sides in the league who are consistently losing games.

 

It's hard to sack someone off sick!

It depends on the takeover really as if that is quick they will want to bring in their own man so difficult for Derby to change managers right now unless they get Rooney to do an interim job.

 

They also lost against Luton and drew against Preston and Millwall. Every side in this league has had a couple of stinkers, and we were never going to be an exception. Looking at Barnsley and Wycombe's recent results, maybe our games weren't the total disaster we thought.

 

So what we are saying then, effectively, is that it's completely OK that - as one of the "stronger" sides in the league - we are yet to put in a single, highly convincing performance, even when having played sides who have lost multiple games and sit at the foot of the league with awful points tallies and goal differences and will likely end the season dozens of points behind whoever the top teams are?

Why we are pretending like their isn't a gap in quality between the top and the bottom I have no idea. That's my problem, the gap in quality is obvious, but we have not been applying ourselves correctly to make the most of that.

 

Ok, great. Go have a beer and relax now, we won.

 

78 points separated top and bottom in the PL last season but only 48 separated top and bottom of the championship with 8 extra games. The quality gap is rather significantly smaller from top to bottom, that’s a fact.

 

No one's arguing the difference between Liverpool and Norwich is bigger than anything you'll see in the Championship, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a relatively huge gap in quality between some of the top and bottom sides in this league.

It seems convenient to pretend as if everyone's of a similar standard to excuse our poor performances, even though it's clearly just not true at all. For balance there is already a 16 point gap between top and bottom in the Championship this season after 11 games.

 

If we do actually click, we genuinely could Piss the League. I'm not sure we will, and half expect the whole season to pass thinking it'll be next game it all comes together but if it does...

 

Ok, good point. It was the second most angry I’ve been watching us play this season. Not sure anything will beat the Wycombe game though. Even the Barnsley defeat wasn’t that bad!!


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From what I’ve seen, the quality of performance between top & bottom is not that noticeable. The differentiation seems to be in the ability to consistently grind out results.

 

Do yourself a favour mate and end it now, little point in seeing the season out.

 

We're not the only top Championship team to go toe to toe with some rather rank and file sides, the difference being that the teams at the top have those Premier League quality players who can come up with moments of magic. Still do hope that we will finally start to see a complete performance once Hughes is back, defence is a concern now even though it was our undoubted strength early in the season

 

We don't seem to like that part of the country, do we? Reading was annoying because even though we started off fairly well, we were toothless after the goal, Wycombe was just an absolute shambles, one where I came out relieved we had even got a point! Barnsley was not great by any means, but I suppose it would have been very different had the final ball been better and a few things had dropped for us

 

This division is nuts.

 

Are people somehow still whining about us being ‘awful’ in an ‘awful’ division? Baffling. It’s like people only remember being in the Premier League and don’t remember the Championship ever existing.

We are above average in a second tier league.