Six EFL Championship fixtures took place on Wednesday night, the pick of the bunch being the clash between Coventry and Preston at The Coventry Building Society Arena. Frank Lampard’s men already five points clear before kickoff, five would become eight by the end of the evening.
A combination of factors required for the points gap to increase, a combination that landed perfectly in Coventry’s favour and with the Sky Blues cruising to a 3-0 home win over their Deepdale counterparts, all eyes would then be fixed on the final score at the Riverside Stadium.
Goals from Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Brandon Thomas-Asante and a Matt Grimes penalty making it a rather comfortable evening for the league leaders. The same comfort not applicable to the team currently sitting second in the table.
Middlesbrough's hopes of winning the Championship may have taken a fatal blow after their performance on Wednesday night. A home clash with Charlton saw many expecting ‘Boro to pick up all three points, that same majority did not expect Conor Coady to pick up an unlikely winner for the visitors.
The former Leicester defender has not scored in nearly a year and although the travelling Charlton support would have been celebrating that goal at the final whistle, the same can also be said for their South London rivals Millwall.
The gap between Middlesbrough and Alex Neil’s men staying at a point, Kim Hellberg and his players now more occupied in staying in the top two than opposed to being the top one. Can Millwall earn its first-ever promotion to the Premier League?
AT THE BOTTOM
A competition that Blackburn won back in 1995 but right now the Ewood Park outfit are more preoccupied with the thought of avoiding demotion to League One. A relegation six-pointer with Oxford and themselves on Wednesday night, Rovers picked up none.
Jamie Donley has been on loan from Tottenham since January and the Northern Ireland international picked the perfect time in which to score his first goal for Oxford. Opponents Blackburn being overseen by his international boss Michael O’Neil – a certain irony not lost on the Rovers boss.
Blackburn could not find a similar late answer to their weekend draw with Portsmouth and had to settle for defeat. They do, however, have Pompey’s South Coast rivals, Southampton, to thank for halting West Brom at The Hawthorns.
James Morrison’s men looked as if they were going to earn three hugely important points at the bottom of the Championship table – a trio that would also lift the West Midlands side out of the relegation zone. However, Southampton’s Cyle Larin had other ideas.
His dramatic injury-time equaliser would have felt like a sucker punch in the stomach of the Baggies, their supporters having to stomach dropping two points. What would have been 21st in the table is now down to 23rd after Oxford’s subsequent win.
Elsewhere, Philippe Clement’s Norwich put further distance between themselves and the bottom three with an impressive 2-1 win over Sheffield United - Amankwah Forson with a winner six minutes from time. While Patrick Roberts scored in the sixth minute at home to QPR to give Birmingham a 1-0 home win over the R’s.
