Category: Championship League

• 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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Driven by the ambitious ownership of Tom Wagner and an NFL icon, the Blues intend to take the second tier by storm

Unsurprisingly, Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion and global sporting icon, is braced for the challenges that await Birmingham City, where he is a minority owner. “Just because you were successful last year doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful this year,” he says, alluding to a season that culminated in promotion and a record-breaking tally of 111 points. “You have to put the same amount of work, commitment and discipline in – sometimes more – because the stakes only get higher. When the competition gets tougher, the margin of error gets smaller.”

It is his final answer in an interview that takes in everything from the “blue-collar nature of Birmingham”, which he compares with Cleveland and Cincinnati, to the Championship landscape and the bubbling rivalry with Aston Villa, which he was educated on during his first visit to England’s second-biggest city after acquiring his 3.3% stake.

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New manager on the need for his team to find an identity, the challenge of the second tier and on managing Dembélé, Doué and Doku at Rennes

Julien Stéphan had been enjoying his break from football for about two months when his wife’s patience finally gave in. “She said to me: ‘I hope you will manage again quickly – and very quickly – because I want to see you on the pitch and to see you back in your own environment,’” says the new Queens Park Rangers manager.

Stéphan left Rennes for the second time last November and estimates that as well as spending precious time with his two children he watched 20 to 25 games a week as he waited for his next opportunity. That finally arrived last month when the Frenchman took over at Loftus Road from Martí Cifuentes, who has since joined Leicester. But the chance to take a breather after six years as a manager during which he guided Rennes to the Champions League for the first time and led Strasbourg to sixth in Ligue 1 – their highest position since 1980 – was most welcome.

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• Winger secures switch from Bayern Munich to Watford

• Move should delight Australia coach Tony Popovic ahead of 2026 World Cup

English soccer fans can brace themselves for plenty of dazzling backflips after the young Socceroos star Nestory Irankunda secured a five-year deal with the Championship outfit Watford.

The Hornets announced the signing on their website late Friday, with the club’s sporting director Gian Luca Nani taking great pride in welcoming Irankunda.

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• Championship club under majority American ownership

• Luka Modric joined as investor and co-owner in April

The American rapper Snoop Dogg has bought a minority stake in the Championship club Swansea. The deal was announced three months after the Croatia international Luka Modric joined as an investor and co-owner.

Snoop Dogg helped to launch Swansea’s new home shirt on Monday. The 53-year-old is a keen sports fan and has described Celtic as his favourite football club in Scotland. He said last month he would love to open a burger van at Celtic Park.

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• Spaniard left QPR last month by mutual consent

• Foxes had also spoken to Gary O’Neil and Chris Wilder

Leicester have confirmed the appointment of Martí Cifuentes to fill the vacancy left by Ruud van Nistelrooy after relegation from the Premier League last season.

The Spaniard left QPR last month having been placed on gardening leave in April at the tail end of a Championship campaign that resulted in a 15th-placed finish in the 24-club division. Rangers finished seven points above the relegation places and the 43-year-old Cifuentes left by mutual consent last month.

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Having helped Tottenham win the Europa League the 34-year-old is stepping out on his own after building a library of coaching experience

For Ryan Mason, this opportunity has been a few years in the making. Since retiring from playing aged 26 after fracturing his skull – a horror injury that required 14 metal plates to be inserted into his skull, held together by 28 screws – he has built a library of coaching experience, working under José Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou. This coming season, after accepting his first full-time managerial role at West Brom, he has an opportunity to show his workings. “My last game was as a 25-year-old and I have had a seven-, eight-year apprenticeship, which in normal circumstances is quite a long time,” he says.

Nothing was normal about the end of Mason’s playing career. For a while there were 45 staples and he had a six-inch scar across his head. For about 10 days he had to be spoon-fed and being able to pick up a glass of orange juice was a major milestone. At the time he felt his career was in its infancy but stepping into coaching, initially in the Spurs academy, he discovered a new passion. “I definitely have a fire inside of me to be successful and fulfil the sort of dreams and ambitions that I had as a player,” he says.

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• Frenchman coached Rennes and Strasbourg in Ligue 1

• QPR say he has a record of creating ‘world-class talent’

Queens Park Rangers have appointed the Frenchman Julien Stéphan as their head coach. The 44-year-old’s arrival comes a day after Martí Cifuentes officially left, having been placed on gardening leave after the penultimate game of the Championship season. Stéphan has worked in Ligue 1 in two spells with his boyhood club, Rennes, with whom he won the Coupe de France in 2019, and one with Strasbourg.

“I feel very proud and excited to join QPR,” Stéphan told the club’s website. “QPR is a historic club with strong values and passionate fans, so I feel honoured. I wanted to come here because I know there’s a lot of passion around the club and around the team, and I feel very lucky to discover that.

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• Boro fill role left by sacking of Carrick earlier in June

• ‘It’s something that’s not lost on me, how big this is’

Rob Edwards has been confirmed as Middlesbrough’s new manager, their eighth since relegation from the Premier League in 2017.

“It’s a real privilege to be given the opportunity to be head coach of this great football club,” said Edwards after long-running negotiations to finalise the 42-year-old’s three-year contract and composition of his coaching staff were finally concluded. “It’s something that’s not lost on me, how big this is, how important this is and what it means to people. There is an amazing fanbase here.”

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• New manager ready to helm ‘ambitious project’

• Wilder expresses ‘great regret’ at his departure

Sheffield United have appointed Rubén Sellés as their new manager after Chris Wilder expressed “great regret” over his departure from Bramall Lane. Sellés was swiftly named as Wilder’s successor on Wednesday evening with the Spaniard signing a three-year deal at the Championship club.

The 42-year-old former Southampton, Reading and Hull manager said: “When we first heard about the possibility of coming here, it was a no-brainer for us to join a club with this kind of history and with a mission to move forward and try to be even more competitive. This is a very powerful and ambitious project. It was very important at the start of the conversations that everyone is on the same page.

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