Wigan Athletic showed resilience to shock Birmingham City, Josh Sargent is proving his class at this level with Norwich City and we try to explain Preston’s successful defensive record. All this and more from the latest round of the Championship…
TEAM OF THE WEEK
Wigan Athletic
It’s a second promoted League 1 club in a row as Wigan follow Rotherham’s selection from last week. While Rotherham’s stand out week was based on an absolute first half blitzing of Reading, Wigan had to do things very differently in their 1-0 win over Birmingham at St Andrews.
Just ten minutes into this matchup things looked like they had swung very decisively in the direction of a home win as Wigan were reduced to ten men. Juninho Bacuna’s excellent first time ball split the Latics backline and a wily Lukas Jutkiewicz made sure to run across the path of covering full-back Joe Bennett ensuring any contact would leave the referee little option than to produce a red card. You could have forgiven the Wigan fans at this point for assuming this trip may ultimately end in failure, but their players had other ideas.
Wigan held firm and despite giving up nearly 60% possession and 14 shots their stubbornness was rewarded in the final ten minutes when Charlie Wyke slipped in Nathan Broadhead to hit a logic defying winner. Looking at this result we learn plenty about Wigan, they are undefeated, durable and although they’ve been up against it, this team has tenure and knows their way to the final whistle of a game. There’s a long way to go, but the fact two promoted teams are undefeated and the other is in the top six bodes well for the success of those who made the jump from League 1 last season.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Josh Sargent (Norwich City)
I was going to set this commendation of Norwich’s Josh Sargent by suggesting he was a bit of a lightning rod for angst over the Canaries’ failure in the Premier League last season. That definition wouldn’t strictly be true, not to say that Sargent was a roaring success last season, more that he certainly wasn’t the only person at Norwich who came in for some criticism.
What would maybe be fairer on Sargent is to say he arrived into a difficult situation, we all know the binary nature of Norwich’s fortunes in the Premier League and Championship recently and he certainly arrived on the uphill part of the journey. In the Premier League, Sargent was deployed over to the right and scored two goals in a side who finished 16 points from safety at the bottom of the table. Norwich are now back in happier surroundings in a Championship environment where a 90 point total has been secured on their past two visits. They will be expected to dominate and win games and their attackers will be expected to score plenty of goals.
If the Premier League was a difficult terrain for Josh Sargent to arrive into, the Championship should be considered a big opportunity. Sargent is 22 years old and, despite Norwich paying a decent fee by Championship standards, can become a valuable asset should he deliver at this level. During the past two games, in the absence of Teemu Pukki, Sargent has moved to a central striking role and scored three goals. Given the service Pukki has given Norwich it would be tough to see him moved aside, but it looks like Sargent is ready to go and if he continues at his current pace, has certainly given the Norwich management another option.
TALKING POINT
Deepdale meets Fort Knox
Those of us who love a statistical quirk will be heavily drawn to the number nine position in the Championship table, that’s where Preston North End sit with their fascinating goals for and against numbers. To add some context to what I’m about to say, it’s worth seeing how many goals other sets of fans have seen in these first five rounds. If you were a Middlesbrough fan you would’ve seen 16 goals so far, while Millwall, Hull and Sunderland fans have all seen 15. Preston fans have seen one.
Let’s be very clear, the one goal Preston fans did see was an absolute worldie from Brad Potts, but that’s it. There’s two sides to every story though and while the goals aren’t going in at the attacking end for Preston, the defensive end is equally extreme and they’ve recorded five straight clean sheets. Nobody can score past North End! But how is this happening, are Preston massively defensive in their approach? Is their goalkeeper having the season of his life?
The numbers in Preston’s game tell us more a story of missed opportunity than anything else. From an attacking point of view Preston are having the third most shots per 90 in the division, with striker Troy Parrot third in the division for those who have played all five matches. Preston’s xG for number suggests they would’ve expected closer to seven goals rather than the one they’ve scored. From a defensive point of view things are equally befuddling, North End are 16th in terms of fewest shots faced and have conceded an xG of nearly six. I’d love to put it all down to keeper Freddie Woodman but that doesn’t seem to tell the whole story.
In short the good news for Preston fans it looks like they’ll see some goals in their games soon but sadly we can’t compare their defensive strength to the Inter Milan teams of the 1960s. Embrace the statistical anomaly for now, knowing the Championship there’s a 4-4 draw on the way for Preston very soon.
LOANEE OF THE WEEK
Nathan Tella (Burnley on loan from Southampton)
At the moment Burnley feel like a hob that won’t quite fire up, we’ve all been there, the gas comes out, that clicking sound persists but no flame. In situations like this you either give up and try one of the others on the cooker or woof, the flame finally ignites. It looked like the Burnley hob had well and truly fired up this weekend with the catalyst being loan signing Nathan Tella.
Tella has made the journey up from Southampton to Turf Moor, he immediately went into the first team squad and made sub appearances in his first two games at the club. The Lancashire derby against Blackpool marked Tella’s first start and he took very little time to make a very big impact. After Josh Brownhill’s spectacular opener, Tella was slipped in by Taylor Harwood-Bellis and ruthlessly chested down and sprinted in behind to make it 2-0. Blackpool got one back but Tella did his bit once again, shifting the ball onto his right foot in a congested penalty box and angling into the far corner to make it 3-1.
It was a brilliant first half from Tella and an indication that he can be a difference maker for Vincent Kompany. Don’t worry, I’m not glossing over the fact that Burnley didn’t go on and win this game, the Clarets are still not the finished product. Tella’s direct running and finishing may solve a goal scoring issue but the learning how to win issue is one that needs to be solved by the team as a whole.
Follow Benjamin Bloom on Twitter @BenjaminBloom
The Benjamin Bloom Football Channel – www.youtube.com/benjaminbloom
