THE FLP EXAMINES THE STATE OF PLAY IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP
APPARENTLY you can’t look at the table until after ten games but hey –what’s one fixture between friends?
Nine games into the season, there are three managers gone, an unlikely clutch of names in pursuit of the golden boot and a team who finished last season in stinking form perched at the Championship summit.
Plenty of subplots were bubbling away nicely when the second tier knocked off for yet another international break – here are some of the most intriguing ahead of its return next weekend…
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SUNDERLAND THE SURPRISE PACKAGE
NO STRIKER? No problem. After a fourth transfer window elapsed without the arrival of an established forward, nobody dreamed the Black Cats would sit top of the pile heading into October.
Yet there they are, defying all expectations under the unheralded Regis Le Bris. Relegated from Ligue 1 with Lorient last season, the 48-year-old Frenchman only got the job because others knocked it back, but has transformed last season’s youthful rabble into free-scoring entertainers and the Stadium of Light into an impenetrable fortress. Winger Romaine Mundle, meanwhile, is quickly making supporters forget all about departed hero Jack Clarke.
Can it last? Four of Sunderland’s next six games are away from home. Come through those unscathed and they will have to be taken seriously.
A lack of depth, experience and – as ever – strikers means a sustained title tilt is probably unrealistic but the January window provides an opportunity to upgrade on all three fronts.
The worry for supporters is that owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus will just buy more French teenagers instead.
COOPER SHOWING HIS CLASS
SIGNING goalkeepers never excites supporters, even if they do cost big bucks. Already, though, Sheffield ed’s decision to pay Plymmakes big saves and is really UnitCoops is great, but he also outh £2m for Michael Cooper, tidy in everything he does. below, in August looks like We’re really pleased.” one of the best moves of the season.
HAVE LUTON GONE SOFT?
The 24-year-old was scouted by a host of Premier the eve of the season, Lu SPEAKING to The FLP on League clubs before the ACL ton’s Tom Holmes said the injury that put him out of message from manager Rob action for a year and the Edwards was to maintain Blades capitalised on lingering question marks over his following relegation.
“Premier League standards” recovery by pouncing early. So far, the Hatters have Since then he has conceded three goals in eight games, pionship standards. Five struggled to even hit Cham- kept six consecutive clean defeats from nine games sheets and brought a sense sees Luton on the fringes of of serenity to the Champion-the relegation zone, despite ship’s meanest back four.
Most importantly, Cooper’s quality in sion has allowed lowed boss posses-Chris Wilder to completely reinvent the Blades as a side who build from the back – a style that has taken them joint-top of the table.
“In the modern game, one of the most important things is how your goalkeeper deals with the football,” said Wilder. “From that point of view keeping the majority of last season’s squad and spending a club-record fee on defender Mark McGuinness.
Edwards isn’t under pressure yet, not least because he signed a new four-year contract in June.
And it must be noted that a paltry return of eight goals from nine games of chances Luton have created, as illustrated by a top-half xG figure of 13.1.
At the back, though, there’s no hiding place. No team in the Championship has conceded more goals from open play and only six have allowed more shots on their goal. A team once infamous for its physicality and organisation has become a soft touch. Forget top-flight standards -Luton must get back to basics.
TIME FOR A ROO-THINK?
PLYMOUTH’S 4-0 mauling at Sheffield Wednesday on the opening weekend drew sage nods from all quarters.
Didn’t we all say that Wayne Rooney was out of his depth? That may yet prove to be the case, of course, but credit where it’s due – the former England captain has rebounded from a winless August by winning his last three home games, including a 3-2 victory over table-topping Sunderland.
He’s been helped by some shrewd summer recruitment, with the likes of Hungarian defender Kornel Szucs helping to rid the Pil-
does not reflect the number grims of their reputation as little to quell the dissent. lightweight pushovers. Gone, too, is the gung-ho ‘You score six, we’ll score seven’ mentality that ultimately proved unsustainable last season.
Underlying stats are somewhat worrying, and suggest the Pilgrims are – at present – the easiest side in the Championship to create chances against. So far, though, there is nothing to suggest Rooney’s appointment is the catastrophe many feared.
MANNING UNDERPRESSURE
WHEN a manager takes aim at his own supporters, the end is usually nigh. Ask Ryan Lowe, whose ongoing war of words with the Deepdale faithful culminated in his departure from Preston just 24 hours into the current season.
Manning lost his rag after his Bristol City side drew 0-0 with Sheffield Wednesday at Ashton Gate recently, describing the jeers of supporters as “unjust, unhelpful and disappointing”. He then claimed that a team lying 16th in the Championship was approaching its “optimal level”, which did
Robins fans have never truly warmed to Manning since he replaced Nigel Pearson last November; too much talk of systems and processes, not enough signs of substance and progress.
The 38-year-old desperately needs a run of positive results to stem the tide of public opinion, so a trio of home games against Leeds, Sheffield United and Burnley after the inter national break will be about as welcome as a hole in the head.
NEW-LOOK NORWICH HITTING THEIR STRIDE
LAST season was a curious one for Norwich. Though the Canaries reached the playoffs, they did so under the yoke of an unpopular manager who kept his job only because results never dipped enough to justify his dismissal.
Everybody – including David Wagner himself – knew the axe would fall at the end of the season and the whole situation fostered an atmosphere of apathetic drift.
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Yet the trio currently lead the way in the race for this year’s golden boot, with West Brom’s Maja, below, and Norwich flyer Sainz on seven apiece and Watmore two behind.
Early favourite Mateo Joseph – who bullishly told the Athletic that this was “my year” before the campaign kicked off – has scored once for Leeds and isn’t even starting regularly. At Middlesbrough, Emmanuel Latte Lath hasn’t found the net since an opening day penalty against Swansea.
It’s a wide open race, but one man certainly worth watching is Josh Sargent. The USA inter national has scored four times for an increasingly potent Norwich side and had the best goals-per-minute stats in the entire Championship prior to suffering an injury last season.
If he can stay fit, the 24-year-old is a formidable force.
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