Sky Bet Championship: 5 talking points from Matchday 8
This weekend’s round of Sky Bet Championship fixtures turned out some strange results and some curious stats. In this round-up we focus on former EPL side Newcastle who lost for the first time in a month. We also take a view on what was billed as a ‘six pointer’, the match between Cardiff and Leeds United.
This week’s stat-attack looks at the Rams of Derby County – can they break their 400-minute goal drought? All that, plus league leaders Huddersfield Town and relegation-threatened Blackburn Rovers – did they manage a win?
Newcastle stumble
It was all going so well for Newcastle United and their manager Rafa Benitez. Winning 5 matches in-a-row, scoring 17 and conceding just 1 in the process. But then along came Wolverhampton Wanderers to St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon and the winning streak was over.
The Geordies suffered a 0-2 loss to Walter Zenga’s side, who came into the match on the back of a heavy 4-0 defeat at home to Barnsley and no win in 3 games. Chancel Mbemba and Helder Costa were on the score sheet in each half and in truth, Wolves were rarely in trouble.
Wolves boss, Zenga, was extremely pleased with the result: “I am delighted because I got an answer from the team. We prepared for this game to show to ourselves first of all that the last 15 minutes of the last game was an accident, was something that can happen in football.”
Newcastle manager Benitez reflected on a poor performance: “It's a bad day, but we have to analyse what was wrong and try to change it. It's not that you have to forget - you have to forget, but try to understand why and try to correct things as soon as possible.”