Championship: Doing the Double

The following list shows the number of times each club in the Championship won home and away against one of their rivals during the 2012/2013 Championship season. Every single one of the 24 clubs managed to achieve this feat against at least one of their opponents during the season.

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7

• Cardiff City: Millwall, Blackburn Rovers, Leeds United, Blackpool, Birmingham City, Wolves and Sheffield Wednesday.

6

• Hull City: Millwall, Derby County, Huddersfield Town, Ipswich Town, Leeds United and Birmingham City.

5

• Watford: Huddersfield Town, Leicester City, Birmingham City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest.

4

• Birmingham City: Bristol City, Peterborough United, Leeds United and Middlesbrough.
• Crystal Palace: Peterborough United, Derby County, Wolves and Charlton Athletic.
• Leicester City: Bristol City, Huddersfield Town, Burnley and Middlesbrough.
• Nottingham Forest: Peterborough United, Wolves, Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton Athletic.

3

• Burnley: Bristol City, Derby County and Wolves.
• Charlton Athletic: Bristol City, Blackpool and Leicester City.
• Huddersfield Town: Bristol City, Burnley and Wolves.
• Sheffield Wednesday: Millwall, Barnsley and Charlton Athletic.

2

• Barnsley: Millwall and Middlesbrough.
• Blackburn Rovers: Bristol City and Barnsley.
• Bolton Wanderers: Bristol City and Blackburn Rovers.
• Brighton & Hove Albion: Huddersfield Town and Burnley.
• Bristol City: Peterborough United and Middlesbrough.
• Derby County: Bristol City and Leeds United.
• Ipswich Town: Birmingham City and Bolton Wanderers.
• Millwall: Leicester City and Middlesbrough.
• Peterborough United: Barnsley and Cardiff City.
• Wolves: Bristol City and Birmingham City.

1

• Blackpool: Millwall.
• Leeds United: Bristol City.
• Middlesbrough: Blackburn Rovers.

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• No side did the double over promoted Hull City or play-off finalists Crystal Palace and Watford.
• Cardiff did the double over seven other sides but relegated Peterborough were the only side to do the double over the Dragons.
• Ten sides did the double against Bristol City which may explain why the club finished bottom.
• The three sides who did the double against only one other club finished in 13th (Leeds United), 15th (Blackpool) and 16th (Middlesbrough)

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Alliterative Footballers in the Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two

A list of footballers who have played in the Premier League, Championship, League One or League Two this season with their first name beginning with the same letter as their surname. Please let me know if you are aware of any others.

• Adebayo Akinfenwa (Northampton Town)
• Adebayo Azeez (Wycombe Wanderers & Leyton Orient)
• Ahmed Abdulla (Barnet)
• Akwasi Asante (Shrewsbury Town)
• Ali Al Habsi (Wigan Athletic)
• Almen Abdi (Watford)
• Andreas Arestidou (Morecambe)
• Andrey Arshavin (Arsenal)
• Antolín Alcáraz (Wigan Athletic)
• Barry Bannan (Aston Villa)
• Bartosz Bialkowski (Notts County)
• Billy Bodin (Torquay United)
• Brian Barry-Murphy (Rochdale)
• Chris Cohen (Nottingham Forest)
• Christopher Chantler (Carlisle United)
• Ciaran Clark (Aston Villa)
• Clarke Carlisle (York City & Northampton Town)
• Conor Clifford (Portsmouth & Crawley Town)
• Courtney Cameron (Rotherham United)
• Craig Cathcart (Blackpool)
• Craig Clay (Chesterfield)
• Craig Conway (Cardiff Dragons)
• Craig Curran (Rochdale)
• Cyrus Christie (Coventry Dragons)
• Damien Delaney (Crystal Palace & Ipswich Town)
• Danny Drinkwater (Leicester City)
• Darryl Duffy (Cheltenham Town)
• David Davis (Wolverhampton Wanderers)
• David De Gea (Manchester United)
• David Dunn (Blackburn Rovers)
• Diego De Girolamo (Sheffield United)
• Donervon Daniels (Tranmere Rovers)
• Dorian Dervite (Charlton Athletic)
• Ethan Ebanks-Landell (Bury)
• Frank Fielding (Derby County)
• Gábor Gyepes (Portsmouth)
• Gaël Givet (Blackburn Rovers)
• Gary Gardner (Aston Villa)
• Gianluca Gracco (Dagenham & Redbridge)
• Gordon Greer (Brighton & Hove Albion)
• Harry Hooman (Cheltenham Town)
• Heidar Helguson (Cardiff Dragons)
• Jake Jervis (Portsmouth, Tranmere Rovers, Carlisle United & Birmingham City)
• Jake Jones (Walsall)
• Jamie Jones (Leyton Orient)
• Jermaine Jenas (Nottingham Forest & Queens Park Rangers)
• Jermaine Johnson (Sheffield Wednesday)
• Joe Jacobson (Shrewsbury Town)
• Johnnie Jackson (Charlton Athletic)
• Jussi Jääskeläinen (West Ham United)
• Kei Kamara (Norwich City)
• Keith Keane (Preston North End)
• Leon Legge (Gillingham & Brentford)
• Leroy Lita (Sheffield Wednesday & Birmingham City)
• Marcus Marshall (Bury)
• Mark Molesley (Exeter City & Plymouth Argyle)
• Marko Marin (Chelsea)
• Marvin Morgan (Shrewsbury Town)
• Mathieu Manset (Carlisle United)
• Matt Mitchel-King (AFC Wimbledon)
• Matthew McClure (Wycombe Wanderers)
• Matthew Mills (Bolton Wanderers)
• Michael Morrison (Charlton Athletic)
• Modibo Maïga (West Ham United)
• Nyron Nosworthy (Watford)
• Olanrewaju Oyebanjo (York City)
• Osayamen Osawe (Accrington Stanley)
• Oulwasanmi Odelusi (Bolton Wanderers)
• Paul Parry (Shrewsbury Town)
• Pavel Pogrebnyak (Reading)
• Phil Picken (Bury)
• Richard Ravenhill (Bradford City)
• Robbie Rogers (Stevenage)
• Sam Saunders (Brentford)
• Sam Slocombe (Scunthorpe United)
• Sam Sodje (Portsmouth)
• Scott Shearer (Rotherham United)
• Scott Sinclair (Manchester City)
• Sean Scannell (Huddersfield Town)
• Sean St. Ledger (Leicester City & Millwall)
• Stéphane Sessègnon (Sunderland)
• Steve Sidwell (Fulham)
• Steve Simonsen (Preston North End)
• Steven Schumacher (Bury)

 

CHAMPIONSHIP 2011/2012 SEASON REVIEW WORD CLOUDS

With the new season upon us we at Spirit of Mirko are continuing our retrospective on the 2011/2012 season. Following on from our Premier League word-clouds we’ve now constructed twenty-four clouds that represent each Championship club’s season via the words used in their respective BBC match reports.

If you wish to use one of these images for your own site, then feel free. Just ensure you set up a link to this page and also give full credit to tagxedo (the wonderful site that these images were created in).

Barnsley

 

Catching teams on a run of good form

Over the years I’ve heard many fans bemoaning the fact that their club appear to play teams just as they come into a good run of form. Conversely it’s also good to catch clubs whilst they are on a poor run of form. I think many clubs in the Championship took advantage of a Portsmouth side in turmoil earlier this season as they got to grips with the division. Playing Portsmouth in mid-August rather than in October/November was always going to be preferable for Championship clubs.

With this in mind I thought it would be interesting to take a look at which clubs in last year’s Premier League and Championship tended to play clubs whilst on good (or bad) runs of form. In order to do this I calculated the form of each club that each team faced throughout the season (form was calculated based on the team’s last six matches). The following table displays the average points of their opponents throughout the season. To give it some context:

• 9 points – WWWLLL or WWDDDL
• 8 points – WWDDLL
• 7 points – WWDLLL

Premier League (2009/2010)

Team	Av.	Pos
Manchester United	8.969	2
Chelsea	8.813	1
Blackburn Rovers	8.625	10
Wolverhampton Wanderers	8.625	15
West Ham United	8.594	17
Bolton Wanderers	8.545	14
Arsenal	8.344	3
Aston Villa	8.313	6
Everton	8.303	8
Birmingham City	8.226	9
Liverpool	8.219	7
Tottenham Hotspur	8.156	4
Stoke City	8.156	11
Manchester City	8.063	5
Hull City	8.031	19
Portsmouth	7.968	20
Wigan Athletic	7.750	16
Sunderland	7.625	13
Burnley	7.375	18
Fulham	7.281	12

It’s interesting to see that it’s the top two of last season Manchester United and Chelsea who appeared to hit teams whilst on a good run of form. The other notable result from above is Fulham’s. Whilst Manchester United’s opposition were on average on a run of form of WWDDDL, Fulham’s opposition were generally on a run of form of WWDLLL. Perhaps Fulham (and by association Roy Hodgson) had such an excellent season last year due to the fact they often played teams whilst they were at a low ebb.

Championship (2009/2010)

Team	Av.	Pos
Nottingham Forest	8.725	3
Sheffield Wednesday	8.700	22
Derby County	8.625	14
Coventry City	8.575	19
West Bromwich Albion	8.525	2
Crystal Palace	8.500	21
Bristol City	8.450	10
Middlesbrough	8.400	11
Reading	8.375	9
Blackpool	8.350	6
Swansea City	8.300	7
Doncaster Rovers	8.300	12
Scunthorpe United	8.225	20
Queens Park Rangers	8.175	13
Cardiff City	8.075	4
Leicester City	8.025	5
Preston North End	7.975	17
Plymouth Argyle	7.950	23
Newcastle United	7.750	1
Peterborough United	7.650	24
Ipswich Town	7.625	15
Barnsley	7.550	18
Watford	7.500	16
Sheffield United	7.400	8

The above shows that both Peterborough and Plymouth had awful seasons, both being relegated despite playing sides whilst they were on poor runs of form. Sheffield Wednesday were also relegated, but did so whilst playing clubs who were on decent runs of form at the time.

Champions Newcastle United took advantage of the clubs they played and ultimately ran away with the division, and perhaps Sheffield United’s poor start to this season can be explained by the fact that last season they tended to play clubs on poor runs of form.

—

Ultimately I think the above results are inconclusive. Whilst it’s true that some clubs are unlucky and catch other sides whilst they are on good runs of form it does appear that this evens itself up over a season. The difference between gaining an extra point or so in the last six games or not isn’t that great. There are also plenty of other factors that come into play, it may be that your opposition have only scored a good run of form recently because they’ve played sides near the bottom of the table – or perhaps they’ve been lucky enough to play sides on poor runs of form.

I still believe that a League table is almost certainly the best way to rate or rank clubs at the end of a season, however there are so many other variables involved such as a change of managers, change of personnel, condition of pitch, distance travelled etc. that it’s difficult to say that a league is totally “fair”, but it certainly the fairest system we’ve got.