Hornets sting their promotion rivals and key wins for Wednesday and Rotherham | The Championship Report

How did these Championship sides fair this week?

Billy Schreibke
23rd March 2021
Twitter @BCFC
Welcome to a new feature on The Courier, where I run down all of the action from the Best League in the World™, the Championship.

As the division heads into its final international break of the season, teams prepare for a final sprint up the table when they return over the Easter weekend. This week saw some surprising results as promotion contenders faltered and all three teams in the relegation zone avoided defeat. Without further ado, let’s run through the main talking points.

Barnsley vs Sheffield Wednesday

Perhaps the most surprising result of the weekend was at Oakwell, where the form guide suggested a comfortable home win as Barnsley took on Sheffield Wednesday in a South Yorkshire Derby. This is, of course, the Championship, and anyone who has followed it for a long time will appreciate the sense of inevitability that came with Wednesday, who had gone 8 without a win, picking up a huge away win against the high-flying Reds. 

Since Darren Moore’s arrival, performances have improved for the Owls, and this result represented a reward for their performances against Norwich and Huddersfield which only yielded one point. For long-time fans of the Championship, there’s something so comfortingly familiar about seeing Jordan Rhodes on the scoresheet that it can be easy to forget what a tough time he’s had since leaving Blackburn in 2016. His brace here followed a wonderful volleyed assist and a trademark poacher’s goal in the two games prior, and gives his side real hope in the fight for survival. 

As for Barnsley, they have been excellent since the arrival of Valérien Ismaël in October, and were by no means outclassed here. Automatic promotion might be too far out of reach now, but, with Coventry, Huddersfield and Rotherham still to play, they should be able to secure a playoff berth. 

Cardiff vs Swansea

From one local derby to another, as the late kick-off saw Cardiff and Swansea do battle in the South Wales Derby. Swansea’s games this season have seen an average of just 2 goals per game, the fourth lowest in the division and the lowest among sides in the top half, so this was never likely to be a classic. It was, however, a hard fought affair, typical of these two sides. Cardiff won the physical battle in the first half as Aiden Flint found space to head in a rebound from a stunning Freddie Woodman save. 

The forced withdrawal of Conor Hourihane made things much more difficult for Swansea. The Aston Villa loanee is one of the most gifted midfielders in the Championship, and while Korey Smith is a solid replacement, he didn’t provide the same guile that Hourihane does, and the Swans could have used a moment of magic to get them back into this one. They had 76% of the possession and 23 shots, but 13 of those were from outside the 18-yard box, and only 1 found the target. 

Their performances have been sub-par for a while and over the last two games, the results have begun to reflect that, leaving them 6 points behind 2nd placed Watford, albeit with a game in hand.

Bristol City vs Rotherham 

Nigel Pearson’s Bristol City hosted Rotherham in another key game in the relegation battle. The visitors came into the game third from bottom, 6 points behind Birmingham but with 4 games in hand, accumulated due to the disruption caused to their squad by COVID-19. They did their survival chances a huge favour here with a massive 2-0 win here, as Birmingham, Coventry, Derby and Nottingham Forest all failed to win.

Paul Warne will be delighted with a clean sheet, their first in 9 games. The game was fairly even, but the Millers profited from some poor defending with headed goals either side of half-time. They certainly have enough about them to stay up, but their games in hand could make for too congested a fixture list, and fatigue could ultimately catch up with them. 

As far as Bristol City are concerned, they will finish this season comfortably. With Nigel Pearson in charge, they might have upgraded on Lee Johnson and Dean Holden enough to finally make the elusive step towards the top six next season.

Watford vs Birmingham 

Watford’s routine 3-0 win over Birmingham may have only been what was expected on the surface, but in the context of Brentford’s draw at lunchtime, and Swansea’s defeat in the evening, turned out to be an absolutely crucial 3 points in the promotion race. In 2021, Watford and Norwich have established themselves as the division’s two stand-out sides and the Hornets showed why here.

Birmingham were coming off the back of a huge win against Reading in midweek after the appointment of Lee Bowyer but were outmatched here by a Premier League side in all but name. Scott Hogan had their best chance but miscued his first-half header, and Watford sailed away from there. In contrast to their promotion rivals Swansea, only took 12 shots, but 4 of those came from inside 6 yards totalling 2.7 Expected Goals (per InfoGol).

xG is not everyone’s cup of tea, and especially not in individual games, but in this case it sums up Watford’s ability to create high-quality chances at will, especially from set pieces. Over the course of the season, their xG difference of 22.3 is second only to Brentford, while their expected points tally is only bettered by Norwich. Of course, the game is played on the field and its only the real goals that count, but all signs point to the Hornets being an excellent side, and this run of form is no fluke. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

ReLated Articles
magnifiercross
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap