Another interesting day in the Championship. Birmingham's momentum slightly stalled with a 1-1 draw at home to Millwall. Still unbeaten and sitting in 4th, though, which they undoubtedly would have taken before the season started. Millwall meanwhile sit in 12th, with a mixed bag of results so far. The surprise result of the day came at the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland demolished Southampton with a 5-0 victory. Rovers old boy Dack managed to get on the scoresheet. I've said previously that Southampton's defence needs to improve if they are to get anywhere, and today showed just how weak it is, against a Sunderland team who have been concerned about where their goals are coming from. They also conceded 4 against Norwich a few weeks back, so they've got some big problems to sort out. They've conceded the most goals in the division so far with 12 against. The result pushes Sunderland up to 9th, whilst Southampton drop to 7th with their first defeat of the season - and what a way to register it. Swansea continued their poor start to the season with a 2-1 defeat at home to Bristol City. Swansea are yet to win a game this season and have lost three of their first five matches. Bristol City meanwhile have had an okay start to the season, in 8th with two wins, two draws and one defeat. Coventry and Watford shared the points with an entertaining 3-3 draw. It doesn't do a great deal for either club. Coventry have only won one match so far this season, drawing their last three, whilst Watford have only registered one point from the last nine available. They sit in 14th and 18th respectively. Ipswich bounced back from their 4-2 defeat last week against Leeds with a 3-2 victory over Cardiff at Portman Road. They made hard work of it, being 2-0 down after 52 minutes, but rallied to score three in the space of twenty minutes and claim all three points. Ipswich remain in 2nd place having won four and lost one so far this season. Cardiff meanwhile sit in 19th having had an underwhelming opening five matches. Leeds were unable to capitalise on last week's 4-2 victory, labouring to a 0-0 home draw against Sheffield Wednesday. Despite being dominant Leeds were unable to find a way past the Sheffield Wednesday defence, which means they sit in 15th having only won a single match in their opening five games. It was Sheffield Wednesday's first point of the season, but they've only scored four goals so far this season, which will be a concern for them as they sit in 23rd with a -5 GD. Leicester suffered their first defeat of the season, beaten at home 1-0 by Hull. Despite winning all of their matches prior to today, Leicester haven't looked convincing and have only managed seven goals so far - only one more than Rovers. Hull meanwhile, after losing their opening match, have picked up 10 points from the last 12 available and have climbed to 6th in the table. Boro's nightmare start to the season shows no signs of abating, as they were beaten 2-0 by QPR at home. Boro sit bottom of the Championship, having lost four games and drawn one. They are the lowest scorers in the division so far and joint second-worst in terms of goals conceded. They also have the worst GD in the division with -8. QPR rise to 17th, with two wins and three defeats in their opening five games. Plymouth beat Rovers 3-0. I don't want to talk about it. Rotherham sprung a surprise by beating Norwich 2-1 at home. It was their first win of the season and helped them move up to 20th. Rotherham are scoring goals, but conceding 11 leaves them joint second-worst for goals conceded alongside Boro. If they are able to sort their defence they may be alright. It was Norwich's first defeat of the season, and drops them to 5th. Preston continue to ride their current wave of momentum with a 2-0 away victory at Stoke. Having only conceded 3 goals so far, their defence is the bedrock of their current success. They've only scored one more goal than us, but as I continue to repeat like a locked-up madman, defence is the key to success. Preston in first and Ipswich in second is certainly not something many would have predicted for the first five matches of the season. Stoke seem to have the same issues as previous seasons - a talented but underperforming and inconsistent team. They've won two and lost three, placing them in 16th. Finally, Huddersfield were another team who picked up their first victory of the season, managing to defeat WBA 2-1 at the Hawthorns. Some relief for Warnock after a difficult start to the season. WBA have had a stuttering start, with two wins, a draw and two defeats. They're scoring plenty, joint-third top scorers in the division alongside Southampton, but much like Southampton they have problems defensively and have already let in nine goals. It remains to be seen whether Corberan can tighten up their defence - if not then their current position of 11th will likely be close to where they finish. Meanwhile Huddersfield have clawed themselves out of the relegation zone and into 21st place. Next up for Rovers is Boro at home. What odds on Boro picking up their first win of the season at Ewood? Let's hope we come back from the international break in better shape and continue to extend Boro's miserable start to the season.

All goals are avoidable, letting in three against Plymouth and Walsall, two against Rotherham, two against Hull... It can't keep on like this. Watford could have scored a hatful too if they had anyone decent in attack. GD is already -2 and we haven't really played any top teams yet. I'm worried personally.

The amount of goals we're conceding should be concerning everybody, even more so with Hyam likely out for a spell. If we can't keep clean sheets we are in massive trouble, as we have very few goals in the team

Technically he got two, one is just seemingly only able to be match fit once per month.

He's just a rubbish footballer, motivated or not. Criminal that we're being forced to rely on him, a 19 year old or a German 4th division striker because of muh government taxes or whatever.

Another top class performance from our £5m centre forward.

Boro losing again, this time at home to QPR. Only been a few matches but it'll looking really bad for Carrick there if they take nothing from today's match.

Perhaps, but unfortunately he isn't on impact sub wages.

Same song and dance every time. He has a spell in the team playing terribly, slated by all, then gets injured for a while and there seems to be some kind of mass amnesia where everyone forgets how poor he is, leading to optimistic takes of Gally leading the line and proving the doubters wrong (also he's 27, not some youth prospect). He then returns, reminds everyone he's not a good footballer or striker, gets injured again and the cycle repeats.

Quite a lot of surprising scorelines so far. Hull beating Leicester, Sunderland's earlier demolition of Soton, Rotherham beating Norwich, Hudds ahead against WBA. Not sure our score would be classed as surprising mind. Not with that forward line.

Have to admit if before the summer I'd been told Gally and Hedges would be first choice next season I'd have considered it another collosal failure of recruitment. Desperately hoping Gallagher will prove me wrong. Double figures doesn't seem like too much of an ask.

Maybe Phil was apologising for not being clearer in his original post and just worded it badly? 😆

JDT, the king.

Not enough players there who suit his style. He had a long time at Burnley to build a squad that could play exactly as he wanted - doesn't have that at Everton and doesn't have much cash to change anything. Not sure many people are going to want to take that one on though - looks like a team full of rubber dinghy men (irrespective if they end up scraping through tonight). No mercy from Rovers... brutal stuff.

Not what you'd call a typical second/ressie team tbf. I think the only player out there who isn't in or challenging for the first eleven (at present anyway) is Gamble. The most pleasing thing is how seriously the players are taking the match - everyone clearly wants to impress JDT and get their chance in the first team. No complacency. Lovely to see, having endured some shocking cup performances in the pre-JDT years.

Funny how for all of our goals Harrogate seem to be packing the middle, but we're just passing through them with ease 😆 you love to see it.

Unfortunately for Harrogate we put a pretty strong team out tonight, and there's a few who are clearly out to impress. Seems like it's just a question of whether we take it easy on them in the second half or not.

My overall thoughts on All In... The set looked really cool. Had a big show feel for sure. It was surreal to see such a massive crowd for a non-WWE event, and the production team did a good job of making it seem huge with all the panned crowd shots. MJF/Cole Vs Aussie Open was fine, but didn't have any of the expected dissention between MJF and Cole, which I felt was a missed opportunity to build some more intrigue for the main event. Perry and Hook had a great little match, very entertaining. As expected, Joe was very popular in the UK. Joe is basically the guy that really got me back into wrestling and TNA in 2005. I watched a match between him and AJ Styles and was blown away by how brutal Joe's style was. As it turned out he essentially really was just beating the shit out of AJ, lmao, but it was awesome. Been a big fan ever since. Dude has such a great presence and is a fantastic promo too. A shame that TNA totally dropped the ball with him after 2007, and he never really did much on the WWE main roster either. Although in that instance I will grant them some leeway as he was injured fairly frequently. Good to see him still going strong regardless. Punk got a favourable reaction coming out, but was booed during the match itself. The match was fairly slow but had good ring psychology. I cracked up when Punk was tossed head first through the bottom of the announce desk and then got given the middle finger by Joe, lmao. Joe also gave the 'wanker' sign towards Punk which made me laugh. The Pepsi Plunge didn't look great, but the truth is Punk has never been a great technical wrestler and is pretty poor at that side of things now. He's relying solely on his aura and reputation to get him through most matches. There are a few exceptions - the dog collar match with MJF (and that feud in general) was very good. Post-injury he seems to have lost another step though. The Hangman/Omega/Ibushi vs Bullet Club Gold match was okay but I don't really follow NJPW, so it was tough to get invested. Bucks Vs FTR was good, although below my expectations. The multiple false finishes in Bucks matches always annoys me, but that aside it was solid enough. If AEW felt Cash was going to have serious problems after his arrest I assume they wouldn't have had FTR go over. Stadium Stampede was pretty wild on TV, but I can understand it being difficult to follow and really get into live. I enjoyed it from my living room though. Moxley's hardcore stuff is a bit too excessive for me. He needs to give it a rest, as it feels like he just wants to purposefully mutilate himself at this point, and it's uncomfortable to watch. There's too much of this stuff in general in AEW. It just loses its appeal when it's done so often. It was a pleasant surprise to see Best Friends pull off the win - good for them. AEW OG's who have earned a big win like that. However, for a supposedly elite group the BCC lose way too much. Yuta is essentially a glorified jobber at this point. Women's fatal four way was fine. Mixed feelings about Saraya's family being a part of it, as they are by all accounts not great people, but yeah. I couldn't hear anyone in the crowd singing along to God Save the Queen/King during Storm's entrance though. Might have just been the sound mix, which sometimes struggled to pick up a lot of crowd noise. Obviously a big pop for Saraya winning. Sad for Shida to have such a short reign, but I can understand putting Saraya over in the UK. Hopefully this spells the end of the shitty Outcasts faction. Seek and Destroy for Sting's entrance was awesome, good nostalgia for the old school WCW fans amongst us. Money well spent by TK there. I appreciate that AEW are willing to splurge on licensing songs for big events. Queen and Metallica being the big ones on this show. It just helps the product present as big time. TNA/Impact or various other smaller promotions would have just had rip off versions rather than the real thing. I like that Khan just says fuck it and gets the real songs. Overall it was a really fun match, very enjoyable. It's incredible that Sting still moves around the way he does at his age. What an absolute legend. He's pretty much been my favourite wrestler since I first started watching, and it's awesome to see him still going strong in 2023. Jericho/Ospreay - Pretty good match in the end. Not a MOTY candidate or anything, but they told a good story and worked well together. Big pop for Ospreay as the hometown lad. House of Black paying tribute to Bray Wyatt by bringing out a lantern and placing it on the stage, with the commentators also speaking about Bray's legacy was a classy touch. House of Black were the right choice to pay tribute. The Acclaimed saying the HOB are "a bigger disgrace than Prince Andrew", lmao. Beautiful. Much like Sting, Billy Gunn is in incredible shape for his age. Dude barely looks any different from when he was in WWE. Match itself was okay, nothing special. Big reaction for the title change. House of Black's look is awesome, for the record. Their entrance masks are sick. I would have had HoB retain, especially after the Bray tribute. The story was set up for The Acclaimed to win, though, and there probably wasn't any point stretching it out. They wanted the big pop with the homegrown lads getting the win, and I guess that's fair enough. Awesome entrance for MJF. Ridiculously over the top, but I love it. After all the talk of who was going to turn on who, both men ended up respecting the other. Unexpected. but I actually like what they did here. They subverted expectations and let the show end with a feel good moment. The match itself was pretty good as well. I've seen a lot of disappointment over the main event finish, but I really liked the ending. There's definitely still mileage in the Cole/MJF story, and the fans don't seem to want them to break up. I think it was the right call and executed in a fantastic way. MJF was also hilarious in the post-event media scrum, the guy doesn't give a single fuck and it's superb. Khan looking over every so often like 'wut' when MJF talks about banging rats or something, lmao. MJF as a babyface is totally over with the crowd, no question, but it's such a drastic pivot to his previous character. He's retaining some of his heel characteristics, but some of the babyface stuff flies in the face of everything he built his character up to be before now. He does it incredibly well, but yeah, for me it's a bit jarring and difficult to forget the stuff he's done in-character previously. Evidently the fans are all for it though, so AEW might as well lean into that. Have to mention the CM Punk/Jack perry drama too. Absolute pisstake for this kind of shit to overshadow a show like this. Seriously, why can Punk just not be a dick for one day? Apparently the altercation came about because after a spot where Perry was suplexed on the windscreen of a limo, Perry said "that's real glass, cry me a river" - which was a shot at Punk, who had previously vetoed Perry doing a similar spot on Collision. Just childish bullshit from all involved. At this point Punk is just a toxic headcase. I think he's actually worse since he came back. It's the old saying of if you come across assholes all day, you're probably the asshole. Punk is now suspended again and will miss All Out (as will Perry). It's an absolute joke. The blame ultimately lies with Tony Khan as an owner who is unable to control Punk and is just sitting back and watching Punk poison the locker room for the second time. What's worse is that Punk isn't even that good in the ring nowadays, and he's clearly not a big draw for Collision, which averages about 500k a week. I'm not convinced they'd do significantly less without him. I guess now he's suspended we'll find out. He so desperately wants to be a leader, but he comes across more like a tyrant. Banning people he doesn't like from "his" show, getting in the faces of people with lesser reputations, cutting unscripted promos where he knows the other person won't respond. It's obvious he's carrying an even bigger chip on his shoulder since he returned, and he just wants to surround himself with people who will kiss his ass. He's become everything he claimed to hate back in the day. Truth is though he was probably always like this, he just didn't have the power to show it before, and projected his insecurities onto others by pretending to hate the very thing he really wanted to be. Perry should also have known better than to stir drama on the biggest show of the year - do that shit somewhere else if you have to. It's not professional and is a childish way to deal with things. He's only 26 though, basically still a kid and he's going to make mistakes and bad decisions occasionally. Punk is 44, at this point in his life he has no excuses for behaving in such a juvenile manner. Fact is he's a narcissistic guy with so much money he can do whatever he wants with little fear of reprisal, knowing he has the owner in his back pocket. His punishment for eviscerating the EVPs and embarrassing his boss in a press conference, then getting into a backstage fight with said EVPs, was to get his own show where he can ban whoever he wants from showing up, and have his boss chant "CM Punk" as he returned for his debut. No wonder he feels bulletproof. Khan needs to grow a pair, stop being a mark and negotiate a release for Punk from his contract. It isn't working, and it's never going to work. Punk needs to leave pro wrestling behind. His legacy is already irrevocably stained - just go before it gets any worse.

Jones was top class for us in a higher division, injuries mainly did him in, as well as not having a settled position at Man Utd when he arrived. Wharton certainly the best academy product since then, though. He's basically what we all hoped Buckley would be.

Thanks, I wasn't planning to make these Championship recaps a regular thing, but I quite enjoy writing them and it keeps me up to date with what's going on at various clubs, so I might keep doing them.

I believe the BBC said that was our first win away at Watford since 2001?

God knows how we've done that, JDT works another miracle.

Watford's manager has seemingly told them to really get at us, as it's obvious we have nothing going forward.

He hasn't really been effective since our first game. No slight on him, he's learning to play senior football as the main man every week because the only other striker we've bought has major fitness issues, and Gallagher has similar problems. We've known about this issue for over a year and yet here we are, fourth match of the 22/23 season and being forced to rely on an untested 19 year old to lead the line. We'll do well to get a draw out of this one. We have so little in attack.

Dolan's confidence seems to be shot. He's still showing for the ball but nothing is coming off. Can't fault his effort but the quality isn't there and is hindering our attacking play. If only we had some genuine squad depth, instead of having to hope that one of the youngsters or Gallagher out-of-position might improve things.