Source: FOOTYMAD
Big wins for Forest and Palace
As the Championship continued without us yesterday the key wins were surely those of Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace who beat Cardiff City and Sheffield United respectively. Both were faced with massive six pointers at home and both came out on top to strengthen their relative positions at the top and bottom of the league.For Forest, it was a home game against second place Cardiff. Forest had just seen a ten game unbeaten run come to an end in midweek at, of all places, Scunthorpe, but normal business was resumed as they beat Cardiff 2-1 and replaced them in second place.Palace's win was as crucial, if not more so, but this time at the bottom of the league. On the last day of last season they escaped relegation with a draw against Sheffield Wednesday who instead went down, and now they were up against the other Sheffield club in a bottom of the table game.Palace have sneaked out of the bottom three in recent weeks and kicked off two points ahead of the Blades. They won it 1-0 with Darren Ambrose scoring probably the goal of the day in the Championship and in doing so stretched that lead to five points. The bottom two, Scunthorpe and Preston, both drew but because of this result fell further behind.The win might not have put Palace in a secure position but the five point lead over the bottom three is a vital one at this stage of the season.With the FA Cup cock up preventing us from playing either yesterday or this coming Tuesday it was good to see we got off quite lightly. We could have potentially fallen three places with Millwall, Hull and Watford all able to go above us with wins, even a draw in Millwall's case.Above us, however, we are now four points behind Leicester and six points from the play off positions where at least we also saw Leeds and Norwich draw to join Cardiff in losing points. The results, stats, leading scorers, each club's disciplinary record and the midweek fixtures are all shown below as we can only sit and hope the results don't go too badly for us.The Weekend ResultsFriday 18th FebruaryLeicester 2 Bristol City 1.Saturday 19th FebruaryCrystal Palace 1 Sheffield United 0Portsmouth 1 Barnsley 0Ipswich 1 Hull 1Preston 1 QPR 1Leeds 2 Norwich 2Reading 1 Watford 1Millwall 2 Middlesbrough 3Scunthorpe 0 Derby 0Nottingham Forest 2 Cardiff 1Swansea 3 Doncaster 0The Weekend StatsBiggest winSwansea 3-0 v Doncaster (home)Total goals scored26 (16 home - 10 away)Player scoring most goalsno player scored more than one goalHighest Attendance31,601 - Leeds v NorwichLowest Attendance5,696 - Scunthorpe v DerbyTotal Yellow Cards34Total Red Cards0Most cards in a gameCrystal Palace v Sheffield United (6Y) - Keith HillPortsmouth v Barnsley (6Y) - Roger EastPreston v QPR (6Y) - Andy HainesThe leading scorers (league only)16Danny Graham (Watford) - includes 1 penalty15Jay Bothroyd (Cardiff)14Luciano Becchio (Leeds)Adel Taarabt (QPR) - includes 5 penalties13Kriss Commons (Derby) - includes 2 penaltiesAndy King (Leicester)Shane Long (Reading) - includes 4 penaltiesScott Sinclair (Swansea) - includes 4 penalties12Grant Holt (Norwich)Billy Sharp (Doncaster) - includes 4 penalties11Chris Iwelumo (Burnley)Lewis McGugan (Nottingham Forest) - includes 2 penaltiesSteve Morison (Millwall) - includes 1 penaltyDavide Somma (Leeds)10Max Gradel (Leeds) - including 1 penaltyMarvin Sordell (Watford)9Wes Hoolahan (Norwich) - includes 4 penaltiesJamie Mackie (QPR)Brett Pitman (Bristol City) - includes 3 penaltiesJason Scotland (Ipswich)Hat Tricks (league only)11th Sep3 - Chris Iwelumo - BURNLEY v Preston14th Sep3 - James Coppinger - DONCASTER v Norwich14th Sep3 - James Vaughan - CRYSTAL PALACE v Portsmouth28th Sep3 - Jon Parkin - Leeds v PRESTON30th Oct3 - Jonny Howson - Scunthorpe v LEEDS13th Nov3 - Luciano Becchio - LEEDS v Bristol City27th Nov3 - Grant Holt - NORWICH v Leeds28th Dec3 - Wes Hoolahan - NORWICH v Sheffield United1st Jan3 - Jason Puncheon - MILLWALL v Crystal Palace5th Feb3 - Matt Fryatt - Scunthorpe v HULL15th Feb3 - Connor Wickham - Doncaster v IPSWICHDisciplinary Record (all domestic games)ClubYRClubYRBarnsley472Middlesbrough451Bristol City442Millwall484Burnley594Norwich543Cardiff431Nottingham Forest431Coventry483Portsmouth586Crystal Palace575Preston705Derby552QPR545Doncaster383Reading514Hull582Scunthorpe332Ipswich504Sheffield United547Leeds642Swansea522Leicester372Watford330The Next FixturesTuesday 22nd FebruaryCardiff v LeicesterPortsmouth v Crystal PalaceCoventry v SwanseaQPR v Ipswich (20:00)Derby v HullReading v Millwall (20:00)Leeds v BarnsleyScunthorpe v Sheffield UnitedNorwich v DoncasterWatford v Bristol CityNottingham Forest v Preston.
