While Billy Sharp celebrated, West Brom were despairing of yet another defeat. Something has to change.
Winners
Billy Sharp
Billy Sharp scores goals. That is news to no one, but his predatory strike against Peterborough on Saturday night was more than alright, making him the Championship’s outright leading goalscorer since the Championship was invented in 2004.
Sharp’s 122nd goal in the league came just a week and a half after levelling with David Nugent against Preston. His first came just under 13 years ago against Coventry City, but the immediate future is what matters most to Sheffield United and skipper Sharp, who is the club’s top scorer despite his veteran years.
The victory is another tip of the hat to head coach Paul Heckingbottom, who continues to defy his critics with a fifth win from seven league games. The Blades are now six points off the play-off spots with two games in hand on sixth-placed Middlesbrough. There could yet be another chapter of success to be written into Sharp’s quite fantastic career.
Krystian Bielik
One year to the day since last playing a game of senior football, Derby’s enforcer Bielik could have just forced himself into Pride Park folklore with a cameo appearance to rival any other. Coming on for his first appearance in a year with the Rams 2-0 down, Bielik witnessed a great strike from teenage striker Luke Plange to halve the deficit before going one better in every sense with an overhead kick with the last act of the match.
Was it offside? Undoubtedly. Was it a high boot? Potentially. Was it a moment of magic? Without question. A point at home to Birmingham may not be the sort of result that keeps Derby up, should they even survive to the end of the season, but another comeback and a point closer to survival in front of a sell-out crowd shows this club will fight to the very end.
If the injury Bielik sustained in landing awkwardly after his bicycle kick is the worst-case scenario, he may fail to make another appearance this season. But his sole 15 minutes of football this campaign could prove to be the most important by any single Derby player in this or any other season.
Shota Arveladze
The transformation for Hull City over the last few weeks has been astounding. Acun Ilicali’s long-awaited ownership has begun with three wins from three, including a couple against the Championship’s top two sides. That those scalps came under Grant McCann, who was harshly but unsurprisingly relieved of his duties this midweek, meant there was some pressure on his replacement Shota Arveladze going into this game against Swansea.
Any pressure the Georgian felt was relieved within 17 minutes as Hull took a two-goal lead thanks to goals from Tom Eaves and golden boy Keane Lewis-Potter, still being linked with a move to Premier League Brentford. But the defiance of owner Ilicali in keeping their prized asset is promising and fills the MKM Stadium with more optimism, Hull’s stadium feeling at its most jubilant in years in the victories over Blackburn and now the Swans.
For Arveladze, being in charge of the third win in a row which all but takes Hull out of the relegation battle, is wonderful. A bundle of energy on the touchline, Hull are reportedly set to be busy over the last 24 hours of the January transfer window, making the second half of the campaign potentially a very exciting one.
Emil Riis Jakobsen
For all of Preston’s positives over the last near-decade punching above their weight in the Championship, consistent and regular goalscorers have been hard to come by. In Danish striker Emil Riis Jakobsen, the Lilywhites have that source of strikes that is making all the difference.
Against Bristol City, Riis twice levelled for Ryan Lowe’s side with his 11th and 12th goals of the campaign, including a sublime volleyed effort with virtually the last kick of the game. It wasn’t quite the heights of their midweek victory at West Brom, but this is more evidence of progression under Lowe as Preston entrench themselves firmly in midtable and looking up.
Only four players have scored more goals in the Championship this season than 23-year-old Riis. He is not yet a household name, but he has the attributes to become one.
Benik Afobe
This week saw Millwall striker Benik Afobe open up about how leaving England allowed him to grieve for his two-year-old daughter and in doing so, has allowed him to play some of the best football of his career. Against West Brom, Afobe scored one of the goals of his career, turning Matt Clarke inside out on multiple occasions before slipping the ball past ‘keeper David Button.
Millwall’s first win of 2022 was most welcome, with it being anything but a happy new year through most of January for the Lions. For Afobe, performances like these are a joy to behold to Millwall fans and neutrals alike. It is wonderful to see such a talented footballer regain that belief and confidence in his own skills, and most importantly, do it all with a smile on his face.
Andraz Sporar
While Middlesbrough lined their attacking ranks this month with the dual loan signings of Aaron Connolly and Folarin Balogun, it has been Slovenian forward Andraz Sporar who has inflicted damage upon many of Boro’s opponents this month. Against promotion rivals Coventry, the 27-year-old loanee netted his fourth goal in six games.
Three of those strikes have been the difference between draws and victories, exemplifying the winning approach Chris Wilder has brought to the Riverside Stadium. What’s more, each of Sporar’s seven goals for the club have come in victories, making him a good luck charm and a good goal scorer in equal measure.
QPR
January was going to be make-or-break for QPR, with three of their star players away for much of the month at AFCON. Thirteen points from five league games have put paid to any worries of it being the latter, and ending the month with a 4-0 demolition of their fellow hoops Reading showcased the gulf in difference between the two sides.
They are as good a bet for the top two as Blackburn and Bournemouth right now, and it’s all a far cry from QPR of a decade ago.
Lyle Taylor
His career never really took off with Nottingham Forest, but in his first game since swapping the City Ground for a loan spell with Birmingham City, Lyle Taylor made himself a popular figure by the Trent. Taking just six minutes to open the scoring against his parent club’s bitter rivals with consummate ease and precision, Taylor looks made for this Brum side.
Jordan Hugill
Ctrl C + Ctrl V. A lacklustre first half of the season on loan at West Brom ensured he was recalled by parent club Norwich after seven goalless starts at the Hawthorns. Having signed with Cardiff for the second half of the season over the weekend, Hugill looked more dynamic than at any point during his brief time at the Hawthorns. He had acres of space for the goal and made more for himself, but the finish was sublime in how easy he made it look.
Josh Bowler
Having been linked with Fulham in the build-up to Blackpool’s clash with the Cottagers, it was almost inevitable that former Everton youngster Bowler was going to light up Craven Cottage. On a day when football was secondary to the tragic events that ultimately took place in the stands, Bowler showcased his magic on more than one occasion. That has become the norm this season for a player who is proving to be one of the most dangerous dribblers in the division.
Adding more firepower to his end product, as he did with the leveller against the league leaders, will only serve to progress the 22-year-old’s career further still. If Blackpool can get at least another half a season out of their golden wonder, the results could be tangibly fascinating.
Losers
Bristol City dropping points
Déjà vu might be the understatement of the season when it comes to Bristol City dropping points in injury time. Against Preston, the Robins twice took the lead and were twice pegged back. The second of the two equalisers came in the 95th minute. It was incredibly frustrating for everyone connected to Bristol City, but not in the least bit surprising.
The opening day of the season was the benchmark for disappointment after the fourth official’s board went up, with Shayne Lavery’s 93rd-minute leveller for Blackpool being the first two of 13 points dropped in second-half injury-time this season.
There are plenty of positives to be had in this Bristol City team – only three players have scored more Championship goals than Andi Weimann, Antoine Semenyo is coming to the fore and midfielder Han-Noah Massengo is one of the most exciting players in the league. But dig deeper and go further back through the team and the problems come to the fore. New signing Timm Klose was a necessity to improve fortunes at the back with a defence usually containing Cameron Pring, Nathan Baker and Tomas Kalas making far too many individual and collective mistakes this term. Wholesale changes are needed across the board to stop this from happening again and again.
West Brom…again
It isn’t just Bristol City for whom old habits are dying hard. Having lost their first home game of the season in midweek, a trip to a Millwall without a win this calendar year offered the opportunity for Valerien Ismael’s side to claw back some credit back in a week which has seen the season’s potential saviour Daryl Dike ruled out for eight weeks and Andy Carroll announced on a short-term contract.
Otherwise, it was status quo in a never-ending nightmare for everybody of a West Brom persuasion. This was a fourth successive away game without scoring and the Baggies have quickly gone from out of the race for automatic promotion to looking over their shoulders to hang on to a play-off place. There are few teams underperforming quite so spectacularly across the EFL as West Brom this season. It can only go on for so long before something needs to change.
Reading…again
We are starting to sense a theme here. The losers in the league are doing so on an increasingly repetitive basis. While West Brom’s sins will likely see them staying in the Championship, Reading’s repeated wrongdoings on and off the pitch make them shoo-ins for League One.
A shadow of their early season shelves, the six-point deduction received late last year is beginning to look like both a turning point and inconsequential as current form would have Veljko Paunovic’s side down by more than half a dozen points unless they get their collective act together quickly. On Saturday’s evidence, that is not close to being the case. There are far easier games on the horizon than QPR away, but Reading have looked less likely to win games than Barnsley and Peterborough in recent outings.
Nottingham Forest’s back four
It may have been a one-off, and we shouldn’t read too much into that, but this was a shambles of a performance from back to front for Nottingham Forest. Against a team without a clean sheet in 24 league games, Forest hardly looked like registering a shot on target, never mind scoring a goal until Keinan Davis’ consolation.
It was both goals conceded though that caused the greatest cause for concern, with boss Steve Cooper opting for a back four and a centre-back partnership of Steve Cook and Scott McKenna, neither of whom are famed for their pace. Considering Cardiff’s woes in front of goal and their near-constant source of them being from crosses – no team has scored more goals from crosses in the Championship – they got through the Forest backline at will, including for the opening goal of the contest.
Rarely has a collective defence looked as lethargic and slow as Forest on multiple occasions in south Wales, the entire team playing on delay in the build-up to Cardiff’s second goal which killed the contest off. There have been few bad days for Forest under Cooper, and those that have occurred have generally been quashed with subsequent performances, but this was reminiscent of Chris Hughton’s time in charge at the club. It should not happen again.
Crowd trouble
The two biggest incidents of crowd trouble came in League One with a section of MK Dons fans singing quite frankly disgusting chants about Wycombe’s Adebayo Akinfenwa, while a Rotherham United supporter threw an object at the assistant referee from Crewe’s away end, the second time in a matter of weeks a member of the Millers’ travelling contingent has disgraced themselves.
A flare thrown onto the pitch at The Den by a West Brom supporter was the hat-trick of such incidents which caused the EFL to issue a statement insisting they will hold those responsible to account. Having experienced life without live football for over a year, and then recounting all the joy being back in the stands and on the terraces has brought to match-going fans’ lives, it is a desperate shame there are always some idiots trying to ruin it for the rest.
Gavin Ward
Regular readers of this column will be aware that we don’t go in on referees easily. They are an easy target to blame when things don’t go your way, and sometimes even when they do. Any criticism of referees, particularly in a division without VAR, should be pushed towards the inability to train the officials to be of a better standard.
But Friday night was a low point for Gavin Ward, who missed a potential career-ending challenge in front of his very eyes from Huddersfield’s Josh Koroma on Stoke City loanee Taylor Hardwood-Bellis. Koroma’s studs landed squarely and highly on the defender’s upper leg and both men are extremely fortunate it didn’t end up in serious injury. Not only did Ward not brandish the obvious red, but he didn’t even call the foul. That Koroma opened the scoring in an eventual 1-1 draw added insult to injury, thankfully only of the figurative sense.
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