Hull drop more home points and Lennon leaves Bolton
James Wilson, on loan from Manchester United, scored for Brighton last night to give them a 1-0 home win against Reading and reduce our lead at the top of the Championship by one point.
As much as a Reading win would have been helpful, there is absolutely no doubt that the three teams closest to us will win a number of games before the end of the season. That’s how they’ve got where they are so far and they are not going to collapse.
Brighton are unbeaten now in five games, winning three and drawing two of them and, significantly, they haven’t conceded a single goal in those five games. It’s taken their number of clean sheets to 15, the same as us, and that’s currently bettered only by Derby with 16 and both Hull and Middlesbrough who have 18 each.
The better news for us came from the KC Stadium where Hull were held to a 1-1 draw by Nottingham Forest with Forest leading for some considerable time in the game. Hull’s home form was exceptional until recently. In their first 14 games at the KC this season they’d won 11, drawn 2 and lost just once against Derby.
They’ve followed that up with four successive draws. Both Brighton and Sheffield Wednesday went home with points from 0-0 draws and in the last few days they’ve dropped points in 1-1 draws against MK and now Forest.
On Saturday morning, ahead of our game at Huddersfield, Hull were seven points behind us with two home games in hand; they are now a further point behind with just an away game in hand on us.
Brighton are now second, six points behind us whilst Middlesbrough are one point behind Brighton with Hull another point behind. The latter two both have a game in hand with Middlesbrough the ones to watch; they’ve played just 17 of their 36 games at the Riverside with their next of them this Friday against Hull.
Switching from one end of the table to the other, Bolton yesterday parted company with Neil Lennon after 17 months in charge. It was predictable just as were Dean Holdsworth’s hollow words that it was a difficult decision. I think everyone knew that Lennon would go just as soon as the new consortium had their collective feet under the table, that is provided the table wasn’t sold as a job lot with the hotel, training ground and car park.
Managers losing their jobs in the Championship is nothing new and only 11 of the 24 clubs still have the manager with which they ended last season. Four of them have made more than once change.
Phil Brown is the favourite for the job at Bolton. He’s currently with Southend and admitted to being flattered with the link, but he said yesterday: “I am happy as manager of Southend United but I am ambitious and I want to get back to the highest possible level.”
Brown’s team are currently 10th in League One, the very same league Bolton will be playing in next season.
Meanwhile, Nigel Pearson remains favourite for the Nottingham Forest job with Birmingham’s Gary Rowett now leading the way to be the next head coach at Derby who have are expected to confirm the arrival of Harry Redknapp today.
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