Leeds & WBA Marching On Together In Championship Race

By Anthony Crewdson

 

We are 21 games into the 46 game season as the Championship enters the busy Christmas period. 

 

The nights are drawing in and the weather is beginning to bear its teeth. The wind and rain playing havoc, heavy pitches testing the durability of the players and impacting the spectacle on offer.  

 

The relentless fixture schedule is stretching Championship squads to the limit as managers decide how best to use the players available to them, striving to avoid injuries that can serve to derail a campaign.  In addition, suspensions are starting to kick in as players with five bookings face a one-game lay off.

 

But despite a traditionally brutal period the Championship table has begun to take shape. Talk is of whether Leeds and West Brom, after having opened a sizeable gap at the top of the table, can extend their lead over the chasing pack. 

 

The top two sitting level on 46 points points ahead of Fulham in third with 35 points. In the past ten Championship campaigns only Wolves, with 48 points in 2017/18, have registered more points after 21 games than both Leeds and West Brom. In every instance over the past ten seasons the side leading the division after 21 games has gone on to achieve promotion. Can Leeds, celebrating their centenary season, hold their nerve after a period of 16 seasons out of the top flight? 

 

Bielsa’s Leeds side currently have the best defensive record in the top four tiers of the English league and Europe’s top five leagues; the whites have kept twelve clean sheets whilst only conceding ten goals in 21 matches. Spanish keeper, Kiko Casilla, signed in the 2019 January transfer window, has been a player transformed. His future had appeared in doubt following a string of errors during the latter part of the 2018/19 campaign as Leeds’ promotion hopes nosedived, none worse than his calamitous error during the Play-Off Semi-Final against Derby at Elland Road. The error precipitated a second half collapse and only the most optimistic of Leeds fans could foresee a future at the club for the ex Real Madrid keeper. But he has been a surprisingly reassuring figure between the sticks and Bielsa’s team have registered a run of seven wins on the bounce at the time of writing. They lead West Brom on goal difference and the two clubs face each other at The Hawthorns in a crucial fixture on New Year’s Day. Can the Championship’s leading scorers, with 42 goals, penetrate the league’s meanest defence? 

 

But only 4 points separate Fulham in third from QPR in twelfth place. And while it appears increasingly likely that the top two seem destined for promotion it is anyone’s guess who might make the play-off positions come the end of the season. 

 

Whilst Leeds and West Brom are each enjoying a long unbeaten run and racking up a string of wins, only Blackburn, in the top half of the table, can be considered to be a team on a consistent run of form. Tony Mowbray’s team have turned their season around with a run of four wins in five after previously recording only one victory in eight, with five losses. But they currently sit in tenth place with the play-off positions occupied by Bristol City, Nottingham Forest and Preston in addition to the Cottagers. 

 

Fulham have lost their last two after having won four on the trot and are among a group of teams striving for greater consistency. They have, in Mitrovic, however, the league’s leading scorer and their game against Leeds, at Craven Cottage, on the last Saturday before Christmas is a classic six-pointer. But the league table will undoubtedly take on a different appearance in the New Year with the Championship clubs facing a run of five fixtures over the next three weeks. 

 

At the opposite end of the table the teams currently occupying the three relegation places are Stoke, Wigan and Barnsley. The Tykes recently appointed Wolfsberger AC boss Gerhard Struber as their new head coach on a two-and-a-half-year contract. The ex-Red Bull Salzburg boss led his former club to a third place finish in last season’s Austrian top flight and a place in this season’s Europa League. But Struber’s South Yorkshire side have only managed to record one win, a 3-1 defeat of Hull City at Oakwell, in his first five games and he has much to do if the newcomers to the Championship can retain their status. 

 

Stoke City similarly made a managerial change, at the beginning of November, in an effort to avoid the drop. Northern Ireland’s Michael O’Neil was appointed and will continue to manage the national side for their Euro 2020 two-legged play-off Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

 

O’Neil made an immediate impression and guided the Potteries side to a 4-2 win at Barnsley in his first match in charge and a 2-1 home victory against Wigan in his second match. This promising start was halted abruptly, however, with a sequence of three defeats before a resounding 3-0 win at home to Luton. The Hatters continuing their abysmal form on the road with a sixth straight away loss. Graeme Jones’ Bedfordshire outfit have conceded 20 goals during this period and the newly promoted club seem likely to flirt with relegation during the remainder of the season. 

 

The Championship is anything but predictable and the festive period will no doubt continue to throw up a few surprises. The complexion of the table is likely to remain the same at the very top but elsewhere it is impossible to predict which teams will occupy the play-off positions come the New Year. Barnsley are currently favourites for the drop but a whole host of teams, including Middlesbrough, Luton, Huddersfield and Reading, appear likely to fight it out with Wigan and Stoke in an effort to avoid the trap door come May. Only time will tell but it is going to make for fascinating viewing.