Championship Results 21st August 2010 Part 1

Bristol City 3-3 Barnsley
Bristol City doubled their points tally by drawing with Barnsley but with all their Welsh defenders out, of course they’re going to struggle. Barnsley will be disappointed with a draw after taking the lead not once but three times.
Gavin Williams made an 89th minute appearance for Bristol City. If they want to see how good he is, they really need to bring him on earlier. Christian Ribeiro didn’t make the bench despite reports that he might.

Burnley 3-0 Leicester City
Burnley are pushing for promotion as expected (if you can push to promotion when you’re only six points from the bottom of the table) but what has happened to Leicester? True they lost their manager but they got quite a good one to replace him. They were in the play-offs last year but if they don’t improve it could be the League One play-offs next season.
But you don’t want to concede a penalty against Burnley. I can’t find the exact statistics but his winning goal was something like the 73rd he’s converted in 78 attempts. Although I suppose that does mean he’s missed more than Gareth Southgate…
Andy King played the full match for Leicester. He probably should have scored but maybe it was harder than it looked.

Cardiff City 4-0 Doncaster Rovers
It was always going to happen wasn’t it? Craig Bellamy was one of the best in the Premier League last season. Now he must be the best in the Championship. I just feel bad for Jason Koumas. His move was brilliant for Cardiff and a bit of a step-down but Craig has put him in the shade. But Doncaster are still in the top half of the table and I don’t think losing to an inspired Cardiff is any reason to worry. They didn’t even play badly.
Craig Bellamy… what can I say? (Not even he knew what to say.) I’d welcome him at Arsenal with open arms but I’m thrilled to see him at Cardiff. I just hope he doesn’t retire for a very long time. True, a top class Premier League player is probably always going to look brilliant even when playing for a good Championship side but what a great signing – a great pair of signings, let’s not forget Jason – for a team who really looked up against it before the season began.
Craig got the assists for the first and third goal (so where was he when the second went in?) before finishing the performance with a deserved winning goal from a brilliant free kick. He left the field to a standing ovation but I’d like to think some of the applause was for Jason, who replaced him. Jason hasn’t played competitive football for several months and it looks as though he actually had an injury in the second half of last season, rather than just being ignored so it might take a while before he’s able to play a full match but once he’s ready, he’ll be able to show the Championship how good he is. And maybe he can show the Premier League how good he is at the same time because for one reason or another, I’m not sure they know.
When I first looked at the BBC Sport page, Darcy Blake was in the starting line-up and Adam Matthews was on the bench but when I looked later on, Adam was in the starting line-up and there was no sign of Darcy. I decided that either I was going mad or Darcy had suffered an injury in the warm-up and unluckily for Darcy it was the latter – he rolled his ankle. And luckily for Cardiff, they clearly hadn’t handed their team-sheet in so they were able to give Adam his place and get an extra squad member to sit on the bench (if the team-sheet had been handed in, Adam could still have been promoted to the starting line-up but they’d have to do with just the six substitutes).
Brian Stock played in midfield for Doncaster and nearly scored a couple. For both sides, the Welsh captain was the best player. But you can’t blame Brian for texting Craig and asking him to delay his move to Cardiff for another week!

Coventry City 2-1 Derby County
Coventry are joint-second after a win over Derby that was arguably deserved but looked far from easy.
Freddy Eastwood was unable to add to his two goals although he came close but he did get a yellow card for not retreating the required distance for a free kick which isn’t great and I don’t think he should do it again but at least it provides a bit of a contrast from the fouls players usually get them for.
Robbie Savage made his 500th appearance for Derby. He played a part in Derby’s (then) equaliser and also helped out defensively. He didn’t get a yellow card either although defender Gareth Roberts did.Before the match, Gareth said he hoped Derby would be up for the challenge and I’d say they were really but that won’t be much consolation.