We are a third of the way through the Championship season!
Birmingham City lead the way at the international break, while it is so close in the top half in the promotion and play-off race.
On the latest episode of the Essential EFL podcast from Sky Sports, Bily Sharp and Luke Chambers ran the rule over the key talking points from the second tier…
Birmingham City lead the way!
Birmingham City are top of the Championship after a brilliant run of form under Chris Davies. The Blues have won six of their last seven games, and have been beaten just twice all season.
Highlights of the Sky Bet Championship game between Birmingham and Swansea
Billy Sharp: You saw glimpses of it last season, but obviously they haven’t had the consistency that they’ve shown this season. They’ve done it very quietly, actually. Nobody’s really spoken about them.
He’s got the two settled centre-halves, which I’ve liked since last season when I’ve seen them both. He’s playing a 4-2-3-1, which really suits him at the minute. A lot of teams play that system, but he seems to have a settled side and has added a little bit of magic with Liam Millar coming in down one side.
Jay Stansfield got the two goals in their last game, which should do him a world of good because we know he’s got the ability. When he gets firing and scoring goals, he can win games for Birmingham.
I’m surprised they’re top of the league, honestly, I am. But I think we said something similar about Swansea last time. It’s still tight at the top and fair play to Birmingham for going into this international break in top spot. There’s a long way to go, though.
I didn’t think they’d have the firepower to be around the top of the league. I thought they’d be in and around the play-offs. Maybe having eight play-off places means teams can go out and try to win games away from home because they know they’re still in and around the play-offs if they don’t get the result.
Rather than going for a point, teams are trying to get that head start. At this stage of the season, I think that’s why it’s so tight at the top. Teams are just going for it rather than sitting back and trying to stay in the game. As you can see from the stats, Birmingham have got a good defensive record, but they’re also scoring goals. Fair play to them, Davies is doing a great job.
Are Middlesbrough too reliant on Lankshear?
It is two games without a goal now for Middlesbrough since star man Will Lankshear picked up his injury. Before then, he had scored 13 in 13 in the Championship.
Luke Chambers: “I think the last two games have shown us that Middlesbrough are heavily reliant on Will Lankshear. There was a time when he had a little spell coming off the bench and scoring, but if they don’t have the option of him on the pitch at any stage, there’s certainly a big drop-off between him and who’s come in.
He gives you energy, pace and tenacity up front, but when you don’t have that focal point, you lose something. Most of Lankshear’s goals have been one-touch finishes. He’s not someone who’s creating his own chances. The players are creating the chances and he’s putting them away.
You move on to Amario Cozier-Duberry, and he can’t continue to assist and score at the rate he has been either. With Lankshear in the side, they have so many threats that everyone has to cover, which leaves space for everyone else who’s on top form.
If you take that player out, Tommy Conway has been stop-start this season on the left-hand side as well. Jeremy Sarmiento hasn’t quite reached the heights he probably would have liked.
The injuries to Hayden Hackney and Morgan Whittaker last season really cost them that automatic promotion shot. They couldn’t score a goal. That would be the worrying thing for me, if it started repeating itself.
We’re at the stage now where this is the first time we’re questioning Middlesbrough. So far, we’ve been so impressed with them. Everyone’s waxed lyrical about how efficient and dangerous they’ve been, and how much they’ve learned from the disappointment of last season, when they weren’t creating and scoring enough chances.
Without Lankshear, they’ve obviously missed him. We can put it down to the coincidence of two games, but the most goals someone else has scored is three. He’s on 13, and it shows you the massive disparity that isn’t spread throughout the side.
That would be a concern for me. The more we talk about it, the more pressure builds on Middlesbrough. The players subconsciously start to think about it again and about those things repeating themselves. They’ll need to quieten that down a little bit.
Hopefully, after the international break, they can bounce back. He’ll hopefully be nearly ready to go again. But when you’re relying on one individual after what happened to them last season, those subconscious thoughts can start creeping in. You might think in the back of your mind that you can’t let this happen again.
West Brom’s strong start under Morrison
West Brom narrowly staved off relegation last season, but they have been exceptional under James Morrison so far in this campaign. They are fifth in the table and just a point off top.
Highlights of the Sky Bet Championship match between West Bromwich Albion and Millwall
BS: They’ve been up there, in and around where they are, since the start of the season. I had the opportunity to speak to Isaac Price in an interview a few weeks ago and get a little bit of inside information about what James Morrison has been like.
It seems to me like he’s giving that group of players a lot of freedom and belief to just go and express themselves. Obviously, they’ve got a philosophy, a way of playing and tactics, but they’ve got some special young players who seem to be really loving playing football at the minute.
Price is one of them, scoring big goals for them. Whenever I see him, I always wonder what position he’s playing because he’s popping up all over the pitch. He’s somebody who’s thriving with his game at the minute and has got a lot of self-belief.
When I spoke to him, he backed himself and really believes in his team-mates as well. To me, it looks like Morrison is giving that group a really happy dressing room. Price also said the lads really love playing under Morrison, so it seems to be a good recipe at the minute.
He knows the club inside out and has definitely got the fan’s backing. It just seems to be going really smoothly, from the fans to what’s happening on the pitch with the players.
Even when they’ve had a bad result, you’ve seen that they’re working for their manager. There doesn’t seem to be any unrest in the camp and there’s no negative talk in the media about West Brom. Everything we talk about with West Brom is positive, about good, young, hungry players.
Can Parker get West Ham firing?
Just a point so far for Scott Parker in his brief tenure in charge at West Ham. They fought back for an unlikely point at Cardiff in a 3-3 draw in his first game in charge, before going on to lose 2-1 at Blackburn. After 15 games, the Hammers find themselves sat outside the top eight.
LC: I think he’ll be pleased that he ultimately did take on the Cardiff game when it shocked everyone. I was actually covering that game and they went 3-0 down by half-time. I just couldn’t believe my eyes, that a group of players at that level, with that much ability and playing for that football club, could put in a performance like that.
Thankfully, he was able to give that team talk, make the changes at half-time and they got themselves back into it.
We all know, and he’ll know, that when you go anywhere in this league, it doesn’t matter who you are. Especially when you’re going to West Ham, as Blackburn Rovers did, players raise their game. Me and Billy have been there. You play against teams on a better run and you’re expecting more of yourself sometimes, so you raise your game to another level.
That’s what West Ham are going to have to get used to. There’s going to be a media circus following Scott Parker’s appointment and the story of him going back there after being a player at the club. But he’ll certainly understand the task ahead of him.
He needs to change the mindset and probably the culture in the group because they’ve been used to losing for a few seasons now. We all expected them to bounce straight back and at least be further up the table.
These two results, a draw and a defeat, have damaged their league position. When Nuno was let go, they weren’t too far off it. They’re still only six points away from the top two and well within the fight for a play-off place. There’s a long, long way to go.
This international break will have come at the perfect time for him and his players to have a reset and for him to get his ideas across. It’s still going to be a massive job because he’s got to get the fans back onside and give them some sort of impression that this side can achieve everything everyone is desperate to achieve. The only goal is promotion for West Ham this season.
Are Wrexham underperforming?
It has been an underwhelming start to the season for Wrexham. Phil Parkinson’s side sit in the bottom half, having won just four of their first 15 games.
Highlights of the Sky Bet Championship game between Wrexham and Wolves
BS: I don’t think it’s the Wrexham of last season. They’ve brought in so many players that some of them are probably still learning the way Wrexham play.
I go back to two or three weeks after they got beaten at Sheffield United. I was really looking forward to that game because I thought it was going to be a big occasion. There seems to be a bit of rivalry between the two, but there was no needle whatsoever. There were no tackles and no real urgency from Wrexham. They were passive in the press and had some big players missing.
They didn’t put balls into the box for Kieffer Moore to get on the end of and didn’t really do anything to Sheffield United. It was pretty comfortable for Sheffield United in the end.
Phil Parkinson said some strong words in the press afterwards. He wasn’t throwing the players under the bus, but he said that wasn’t the Wrexham he wanted to see. It was probably the worst Wrexham performance he’d seen in many years.
He definitely got a reaction because they’ve picked up a little bit since then.
I think they’ve had a big turnaround of players and, whenever I see that team, I always wonder if there are going to be changes in the next game. I just don’t think they’re quite settled.
Is there hope for Preston?
It was a huge win last time out for Preston. They claimed a first three points under Graham Alexander as they beat Southampton 1-0 at Deepdale. But they are still bottom of the Championship, and seven points adrift of safety.
LC: What a result that was. Who saw that one coming? Southampton have been absolutely flying.
Under Graham Alexander, I think he was always going to need time with this group of players. You talk about a team and where they want to be, where they expect to be and where the fanbase expects them to be.
I can only relate it to this time when I was at Ipswich, where it was probably underfunded for so long. There was a lack of vision to drive things forward and a lack of a really clear plan.
We ended up falling out of the league because we signed players who we hoped would step up from a division, and we weren’t able to replace the ones who were proven at that level.
I look at the squad now at Preston and I do fear the worst for them, for Graham Alexander going in there. Yes, it’s a fairytale for him going back to the club where he played so many games, but sometimes I really don’t see where the miraculous turnaround is going to come from.
I don’t want to write them off, but I do think it’s going to be a really tough time for them over the next few months to try to stay in the Championship. For me, that’s the only thing they’re playing for at this stage of the season.
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