Jobe Bellingham is shining just like big brother at Sunderland. Cesare Casadei delivered for Enzo Maresca at Leicester City. And there’s a buzz about the new-look Birmingham City. All this and more from the latest round of the Championship…
TEAM OF THE ROUND
Birmingham City
There’s definitely something cooking at Birmingham City. Blues fans would be the first to admit that under their previous ownership they’d become a perennial bottom half Championship team with as much of an eye on the relegation zone as the potential ramifications of their historically problematic balance sheet. This summer everything has changed, new owners in, the ground is being spruced up, a much more competitive transfer window, as well as some superstar visitors to the club attracting plenty of eyeballs.
We all know that the encouraging off pitch activity must transmit into success on the pitch and so far that appears to be the case. Birmingham are unbeaten in their first three games and, having capitalised on Leeds contract chaos last week, followed up with back to back wins at Bristol City this weekend.
The team that won at Ashton Gate had very much a new look, summed up by the first goal being scored by new signing Koji Miyoshi after a corner by new signing Keshi Anderson. Don’t worry though, the second goal scorer was the hugely familiar Lukas Jutkiewicz. Sometimes players like Jutkiewicz who serve a club well but during a bad time don’t get remembered quite as fondly as they should, perhaps if he’s able to hang around a season or two longer his and Birmingham’s standing might be about to change.
PLAYER OF THE ROUND
Jobe Bellingham (Sunderland)
It always has been, and always will be, a bit of a headache for the younger sibling of a footballing superstar to be able to develop their career outside of the shadow of their high profile relative. People like myself tasked with writing about people like Jobe Bellingham get accused of making ‘lazy’ comparisons to his older brother Jude, but we surely can’t just ignore the presence of an England and Real Madrid player being part of the family.
Like Jude, Jobe Bellingham moved away from Birmingham City, not to a European super power, but to join Sunderland this summer. It was a bit of a bold move that took him from the comfort of his hometown club into the intense and unique atmosphere of north east football.
I’m sure we’d all agree that the best recipe for stopping the endless comparisons to Jude Bellingham, is for Jobe Bellingham to do his own thing and create a career and legacy of his own. He’s already building currency as a Championship footballer and his first senior goals came in Sunderland’s 2-1 victory over Rotherham last weekend.
Bellingham has been used in the ten position for a Sunderland side operating without key striker Ross Stewart, and he put on an excellent display of finishing and movement in the Scotsman’s absence. Bellingham got on the end of Dan Neil’s header back across goal for his first and stroked home Bradley Dack’s clever touch for the winner. Like it or not, the comparisons to Jude are never going to stop, but on the basis of his start at Sunderland that doesn’t look like bothering Jobe one bit.
TALKING POINT OF THE ROUND
Wednesday’s Lone Zero
It’s an unfortunate distinction to have, but Sheffield Wednesday are the only team in the Championship still on zero points after three games. Wednesday’s third straight defeat under new boss Xisco Munoz came at home to Preston at the weekend and the Owls are unsurprisingly bottom of the early league table. Xisco said after the game “If they ask me if I want to play like Preston, I don’t,” and while he’s as entitled as any of us to take a philosophical position on how football should be played, the Wednesday fans will need to see some points on the board for that view to have any credibility.
As time passes Xisco will grow to take on full responsibility for where Sheffield Wednesday ultimately end up this season, but the poor start can’t be put purely at his door. Wednesday were one of three teams who put extraordinarily high points totals on the board during promotion from League 1 last season and the chaos at the club this summer is perhaps best illustrated by looking at how their promoted colleagues have started this campaign.
Plymouth have four points on the board and their only defeat came in stoppage time to Southampton, a club playing two divisions above them last season. Ipswich have a perfect three wins out of three, the polar opposite of Wednesday and further fuel to the theory that keeping things calm after promotion can help maintain the winning habit. The habit for Sheffield Wednesday so far has been a losing one that Xisco will want to turn around as soon as he can.
LOANEE OF THE ROUND
Cesare Casadei (Leicester City on loan from Chelsea)
The feeling that Leicester haven’t got out of second gear yet just won’t go away. Three games, three wins and nine points is objectively a perfect start, but that could’ve been a very different number under the circumstances. I’ll always say in situations like this, this can go one of two ways; either Leicester will go up through the gears and won’t stop winning all season, or they’ll start to drop points in these narrow margin situations.
The latest win for Leicester came courtesy of a 92nd minute winner against Cardiff from Chelsea loanee Cesare Casadei. The Chelsea man joins fellow Italian Enzo Maresca who is in charge at the King Power and came off the bench to make a dream debut. This all came after Cardiff had got level in proceedings with a brilliant Aaron Ramsey goal and had a great chance to go 2-1 up through Yakou Meite in the 81st minute.
It’s almost hard to gauge how well Maresca is doing so far at Leicester. Some will view it purely on results and if the task is to get the Foxes back first time by any means then he has no case to answer. Until Leicester move through the gears and dispatch a team or two more comfortably, others will reasonably reserve judgement.
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