Championship Fixtures 9th February Part 2

Leicester City v Doncaster Rovers
Leicester are back in the play-off places and will be hoping last weekend’s win over Blackpool will be the beginning of a nice winning run. Andy King is looking like another scoring run isn’t far off but Doncaster aren’t a Blue Square Premier side anymore. Even the defenders are scoring for them now, with defender James Chambers joking that he needs to score more in order to keep up with Gareth Roberts, who is “banging them in.” John Oster and Brian Stock are also both capable of scoring and creating goals although John is concerned about their inability to keep clean sheets so maybe he’ll be dropping back in order to cover for the goalscoring defence.

Middlesbrough v Barnsley
Come on Boro believes Danny Coyne suffered a knock during Middlesbrough’s last game but he completed the match and is apparently fine. But Rhys Williams could be missing for several more weeks with his pelvic injury. Boro will be determined to close the gap on the play-offs as much as they can but Barnsley have gone from being relegation contenders to being ahead of Boro on goal difference so it’s certainly not one of those so-called ‘easy games’ – if indeed they exist at all.

Preston North End v Sheffield United
Paul Parry is still out with a knee injury but Ched Evans might be playing up front for Sheffield United. If so, he really needs a goal. He’s been playing well for Sheffield United but he is a striker.

Reading v Plymouth Argyle
A win for Reading could haul them out of the play-off zone and I really hope Simon Church will get some more goals for them. He was unlucky in his last game, becoming the subbed sub after just twelve minutes when Reading had a man sent off and the manager decided to sacrifice Simon. This even beats his action-packed seventeen minutes on the pitch against Bristol City which saw him get a yellow whilst on the bench, come on as a substitute, score a stoppage time equaliser, get a second yellow and get sent off. Carl Fletcher believes Plymouth can get out of trouble. If so, they really need to be able to beat Reading for the three… or should that be six points?