Category: Championship League

• Fans turn on Sellés as Blades slump to fourth defeat

• Ipswich rescue point in 16th minute of stoppage time

Rubén Sellés admitted his future as Sheffield United manager is out of his hands as Blades fans called for the Spaniard to be sacked after just four league games in charge.

Sellés’ nightmare start to life in charge of United continued as they went down 1-0 at table-topping Middlesbrough, leaving the Blades bottom and without a point going into the first international break. The away fans at the Riverside turned on Sellés and chanted the name of former manager Chris Wilder after Tommy Conway sealed a fourth straight win for Boro with a fine second-half strike.

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Abdul Fatawu’s opener and a Ricardo goal created by 16-year-old Jeremy Monga took the midlands spoils

1 min: Off we go. Some empty seats? And a stray cone left on the field delayed the kick-off. A guilty coach had to run on and remove it. It’s high press and high energy already.

Some loud Kasbabian – thankfully not their awful Sky Premier League anthem – is ringing out. Here we go in the greatest league in the whole bloody world. The teams come out to applause for the last game of August.

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Abdul Fatawu’s stunning early goal and Ricardo Pereira’s late effort gave Leicester record a hard-fought but deserved victory over Birmingham in the Championship. Fatawu’s brilliant finish lit up a game of precious few chances, as these two Midlands rivals slugged it out under the lights at the KP Stadium.

Chris Davies’s side, who came into the contest unbeaten in the second tier, improved as the contest between two of the league’s most fancied clubs wore on. But with Jay Stansfield ruled out they struggled to create enough to trouble Martí Cifuentes’s side, before the Leicester substitute pounced following 16-year-old Jeremy Monga’s memorable assist.

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• Teenager curls home goal in another strong performance for new side

• He says his ambition is to ‘make the crowd go wild’ at Vicarage Road

The young Socceroos star Nestory Irankunda has scored his first goal for the Championship side Watford with a stunning free kick.

The 19-year-old winger, who starred at Adelaide United but struggled to get game time at Bayern Munich, curled home a glorious 25-yard free kick to give the Hornets the lead at Swansea in the 35th minute of their 1-1 draw on Saturday.

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• Sky Blues rampant on momentous day

• Stoke defeat Southampton with 10 men

Haji Wright, Jack Rudoni and Victor Torp all scored twice as Coventry marked a momentous day in their history with a 7-1 demolition of an abject QPR. Earlier on Saturday, the club, owned by Doug King, announced they had bought the Coventry Building Society Arena for the first time since it opened 20 years ago.

The Sky Blues then completed a day few of their fans will forget as they ruthlessly exploited QPR’s generosity in defence to make it back-to-back wins in the Championship in stunning fashion.

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Ipswich and Southampton earned a point apiece as two of the relegated clubs from the Premier League last season drew 1-1 at Portman Road.

Taylor Harwood-Bellis’s own goal after four minutes gave Ipswich an early advantage but Jay Robinson equalised for the visitors just before the half-hour mark. In a frantic second half, Sam Szmodics hit a post while Robinson had a shot deflected by the Ipswich goalkeeper Alex Palmer as neither side were able to grab victory.

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• Coventry 5-3 Derby, Blackburn 1-2 Birmingham

• Swansea 1-0 Sheffield Utd, Sheffield Wed 0-3 Stoke

Coventry staged a stunning comeback to beat Derby 5-3 at Pride Park. The visitors, coached by the former Derby manager Frank Lampard, scored three times in the space of eight minutes for a remarkable victory.

The teams traded goals in the first half with Derby twice coming from behind to go in level at the break before their captain, Ebou Adams, put them in front. But after Brandon Thomas-Asante equalised, Ephron Mason-Clark and Victor Torp settled a pulsating match.

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• NFL legend queried Rooney’s work ethic at Birmingham

• Comments were ‘very unfair’, former striker says

Wayne Rooney has bitten back at Tom Brady over comments aired in a recent documentary depicting their short spell working together at Birmingham.

Brady, the legendary NFL quarterback and winner of seven Super Bowls, is heard during Built In Birmingham: Brady & The Blues, to question Rooney, when he was manager. “I’m a little worried about our head coach’s work ethic,” Brady tells his business manager Ben Rawitz. “I mean, I don’t have great instincts on that.”

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Ailing Wednesday took a first-half lead, but goals from Jannik Vestergaard and Wout Faes, whose winner came on 87 minutes, gave Leicester the points

Some thoughts on the regulator from someone who should know:

It’s worth remembering that the threat of a points deduction still hangs over Leicester.

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• Late Langstaff strike gives Millwall victory at Norwich

• Charlton, West Brom and Portsmouth secure wins

Rubén Sellés’s tenure as Sheffield United manager got off to a nightmare start after a 4-1 home defeat by Bristol City. The Spaniard was thrust into the Bramall Lane hotseat following the surprise sacking of Chris Wilder after the Blades’ playoff final defeat, but his stint could hardly have begun any worse.

Scott Twine’s double and goals from Ross McCrorie and Anis Mehmeti ensured Gerhard Struber’s first game in charge of the Robins was much more enjoyable. Tyrese Campbell had levelled for Sheffield United but this performance will raise big questions about their promotion credentials.

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A winner from Jack Stephens in the depths of time added on denied Wrexham, who had scored first

1 min: Phil Parkinson takes a seat on top of the drinks bin as he awaits kickoff. The weather – pretty decent. Lots of noise from those who travelled all the way from North Wales. Ryan Fraser, a fine player at this level, sets off on a mazy run.

Fernandes being in the Saints squad reminds there’s much of the transfer window to come; what will these teams’ lineups look like in Southampton.

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Blues were the better team, but Ipswich kept fighting and snatched a point with an injury-time penalty

3 min: A bit of time and space for Anderson out on the left. He’s got four team-mates to find in the Ipswich box, but seriously overhits his cross, which sails harmlessly into the stand behind the goal.

2 min: A rare old atmosphere at St Andrew’s this evening. Expectation ahoy. A quiet start on the pitch, however.

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Protests and a flyover will mark first game of season for 158-year-old club struggling to pay or recruit players

There is little like the anticipation of a new season, not knowing what will come, optimistic this could be your club’s year. Sheffield Wednesday fans have sold out the away end at Leicester on Sunday to watch their team take on a club recently mixing it with Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City in the Premier League. The excitement should be building at Hillsborough but instead there is only worry and anger.

It has been a summer of discontent at Wednesday, although the problems began years ago, and the only thing for supporters to cling to is that it may end Dejphon Chansiri’s reign. Those at the King Power Stadium are due to show their disdain for the ownership by leaving their seats empty for the first five minutes and covering the area with a large anti-Chansiri banner. A plane is scheduled to fly overhead with a further message aimed at the owner.

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Belgium-born coach on being tagged a ‘laptop manager’, the pressure to get Saints promoted and why village cricket is his secret to relaxing

“You don’t call it Opel, you call it Vauxhall,” says Will Still. “A Corsa, little black thing that eventually died. Actually, no, Nico, my younger brother crashed it … it was crap, though, it didn’t even have a radio.” Still, who grew up in Grez-Doiceau, near Brussels, laughs as he recounts his days driving to work as an unpaid video analyst at Sint-Truiden while living at home with his mother, Jane. “Best time of my life, to be honest. It was like the dream was coming true.”

Twelve years on, the 32-year-old, one of the most intriguing managers in the game, has been tasked with returning Southampton to the Premier League after impressing with Lens. The only other time he lived in England was as a teenager when he spent two years studying at Myerscough College in Lancashire, where his degree included coaching Preston’s under-14s. At the time Still felt like “the little posh Belgian kid” but that period provided a handy lesson in English football-speak.

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Birmingham and Ipswich will be aiming high, while Millwall and Derby are expected to battle for a place in the playoffs

This week the tussle between Birmingham City and Ipswich Town, who meet in the curtain-raiser on Friday, to sign Chuba Akpom – the runaway top scorer in the division with Middlesbrough three years ago (Viktor Gyökeres was runner-up) – was tantamount to both sides taking it in turns to flex their muscles. Despite a sole Premier League win this calendar year, Ipswich were relegated with more decorum than Leicester City and Southampton and Kieran McKenna’s side are armed to attack the second tier, even if Omari Hutchinson joins Liam Delap in departing.

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