Cardiff City turned it on for manager Erol Bulut, Viktor Johansson performed heroics for Rotherham and both QPR and Sheffield Wednesday just can’t catch a break at the bottom of the table. All this and more from the latest round of the Championship…
TEAM OF THE ROUND
Cardiff City
Not for the first time this season I was left saying ‘wow’ when it came to Cardiff City. During September their brilliant four game winning streak certainly had the ‘wow’ factor and persuaded plenty of Championship watchers that maybe manager Erol Bulut wasn’t going to see the same fate as three separate Cardiff managers did in the previous campaign.
There were no wins in three immediately following the glorious four game winning streak but it was back to ‘wow’ territory again with the midweek win at Huddersfield. From Callum Robinson’s back-heeled opener on two minutes, to Yakou Metie powering the Bluebirds 3-0 up before half time, to Perry Ng’s long range free kick to seal the deal.
For Huddersfield it was a night to forget and I think the actions of the manager and owner sum things up quite succinctly. Boss Darren Moore made a quadruple substitution at half time, which tells you way more than any public comment about what he thought about his team’s performance.
Owner Kevin Nagle didn’t need his actions interpreted, his words were enough when he took to twitter to call the defeat ‘an unacceptable performance’ and that Huddersfield ‘have to do better, from the boardroom to the pitch, and it starts with me.’ Let’s not diminish Cardiff though, who’s supporters got to enjoy that lovely feeling of travelling home following a 4-0 win on the road.
PLAYER OF THE ROUND
Viktor Johansson (Rotherham United)
If you remove all the nuance and look only at the results, Rotherham are in great form. Of course it would go against all my beliefs to do that but when you’re struggling down in the bottom three, scoring four points in two games is absolutely priceless and the midweek win over Coventry made sure of that. There are caveats here though, some good some bad. Firstly the draw against Southampton was a long time ago because we didn’t see Rotherham in action at the weekend due to Mother Nature getting in the way of their scheduled game with Ipswich.
Secondly the draw against Southampton had some very interesting underlying data that to put it mildly if repeated wouldn’t see too many points scoring efforts for the Millers. Also at St Mary’s, keeper Viktor Johansson was outstanding and pulled off seven saves as Saints huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow the metaphorical house down.
It’s always a mixture of good and bad when a club’s keeper is the standout player, on the one hand it’s great that you can rely on the man between the sticks, on the other it’s worrying that you should have to. Well, Johansson was at it again against Coventry with another seven saves, but this time on the way to a Rotherham win. Obviously in an ideal world Rotherham fans would love to see their club have better players than everyone else and thus dominate the ball and give away very few chances. Millers fans are a sensible bunch and understand that the football hierarchy doesn’t really allow for that, what it does allow for though is for them to have a really excellent goalkeeper who doesn’t really care about the football hierarchy in the slightest.
TALKING POINT OF THE ROUND
Best & Worst Case Scenarios
It’s very easy to argue that a team at the top of the table gets lots of good luck and a team at the bottom gets lots of bad luck. We tend to look at the high achieving teams getting their own way when it comes to the big moments and forget the many hundreds of small details compounding around those instances. Conversely with sides at the bottom it’s easy to look at something hapless occurring as the cause of a problem, when it’s actually more often the effect of multiple problems.
This midweek it would be very easy to say that everything went for Leicester and Ipswich at the top and everything went against Sheffield Wednesday and QPR at the bottom. The Foxes survived a penalty shout and some poor Sunderland finishing, while at Ashton Gate I’m still not quite sure how Harry Cornick’s shot trickled along the goal line and couldn’t find its way over it. The truth is winning sides find a way and we can’t just focus on individual moments that went for the top two. In the same way at the bottom we can’t focus purely on the crazy red card for QPR’s Jimmy Dunne in their defeat at West Brom, or the horribly timed Plymouth double just before half time that did for Sheffield Wednesday.
I’ll defend the in-game luck narratives when it comes to the top and bottom two sides in the table but, where things did seem fated was in the other games surrounding them. At the top Leicester and Ipswich were the only sides in the top eight to win and at the bottom all four of the other bottom six sides won as Sheffield Wednesday and QPR lost. Obviously the more you do you conform to the stereotype the more chance you create for other results to perpetuate it, and perpetuate it they did this midweek.
LOANEE OF THE ROUND
Sam Greenwood (Middlesbrough on loan from Leeds United)
We’re normally talking about players borrowed from a different division or even country at this point in the column, but it’s a rare Championship to Championship loan deal that gets the nod this week. I suppose if you put yourself in Leeds boss Daniel Farke’s shoes you can see why he allowed Sam Greenwood to head out on loan to last season’s play-off semi-finalists Middlesbrough. They’re not exactly short of attacking options at Leeds having added in Joel Piroe to Patrick Bamford, Georginio Rutter, Willy Gnonto, Crysencio Summerville, Dan James, Ion Poveda and Joe Gelhardt.
Simply put, Greenwood was lost in the shuffle below a host of attacking talent and Middlesbrough and Michael Carrick stepped in to offer him regular Championship football. There’s always been a fair bit of noise around Greenwood, who has twice commanded fees to jump from Sunderland to Arsenal and then Arsenal to Leeds.
Sometimes in these situations it’s as much player choosing club as club choosing player and Middlesbrough and Carrick certainly put themselves front and centre in terms of a loan destination with their excellent work last season with the likes of Ryan Giles, Cameron Archer and Jacob Ramsey at the Riverside.
Although he hasn’t quite exploded to the level of the loan class of 2022/23, Greenwood’s 2023/24 is looking exciting and he grabbed his second goal of his loan spell in Boro’s sixth straight win this midweek at Norwich. As always we say that all parties benefit from a good loan, so far so good for Boro, Leeds and Sam Greenwood.
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