Category: Championship League

• 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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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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