Championship Weekend Round Up as City drop to 7th

CARDIFF CITY may have been shocked, hurt and angry by yesterday’s defeat at Southampton but just about fans of every rival club will feel the same, some of them suffering even bigger shocks.

Somehow, the Top 4 all conspired to loss – many of them with easy games on paper.

Long time leaders Wolves now have just 1 win in 12 games and had their biggest upset yet, a 1-0 home defeat to free-falling Plymouth, Paul Gallagher netting after just 39 seconds ro give the Pilgrims their first win in 9.

Birmingham yet again missed their chance with a 2-1 defeat at Sheffield United, both blades goals being controversial as their opener had 2 men offside and their clincher was the most dubious of penalties.

Reading in third, like Wolves, had a shock home defeat. They lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest who had had no recent form at all.

City’s loss meant the Top 4 going into the weekend all lost.

However even the chasing pack had a poor weekend with Bristol City having a home draw with Blackpool and Swansea having to settle for a 1-1 Liberty Stadium draw with bottom club Charlton while Burney had a crazy 4-2 home loss against Sheffield Wednesday.

Apart from Sheffield United, the only other winners in the Top 11 were Preston who beat play-off chasers Ipswich while another team aiming to break-in, QPR, fell 2-1 at Barnsley.

Cardiff fell to 7^th when it could have been so much worse and while they will rue a missed opportunity to catch the Top 3, they also strangely did themselves no major damage.

TOP HALF OF TABLE

Championship at 01/03/2009
		P	GD	PTS
1	Wolverhampton	35	20	64
2	Birmingham	35	10	61
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3	Reading	33	29	59
4	Preston	35	4	56
5	Sheff Utd	34	15	55
6	Bristol City	35	7	54
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7	Cardiff	32	14	53
8	Swansea	34	13	52
9	Burnley	35	-1	52
10	Ipswich	35	10	50
11	QPR	34	1	48
12	Sheff Wed	35	-7	48