By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
The football
season continued to warm up nicely in midweek with qualification games in
Europe and the first round of the Capital One Cup taking place. Here is a round-up of some of the main
action. Above this post are the
classified results for the midweek games by yours truly.
The League
Cup produced its usual surge of shocks, with several Championship sides being
eliminated and paying the price for fielding weakened sides. First side to fall were Blackpool on Monday
night as they were beaten 1-0 in a Lancashire derby by Preston North End. It was a tight game, settled by Tom Clarke’s
header with four minutes to go.
Unfortunately, the match was overshadowed by hundreds of Preston
supporters invading the pitch on the full-time whistle. In trying to keep order, police horses were
dispatched and one hit a matchday steward, who was taken to hospital with a
suspected dislocated shoulder. It left
Tangerines boss Paul Ince furious that lessons haven’t been learnt from attacks
on goalkeepers Chris Kirkland and Jordan Archer during the previous campaign in
the Football League.
Newport
County’s fairytale start to life as a Football League club again continued with a stunning extra-time victory at
Brighton. They were 1-0 down when a
50:50 challenge between Brighton’s Inigo Calderon and Byron Anthony left
Anthony with a serious double fracture of his left leg and Calderon was sent
off rather harshly as it was a challenge that was committed but not lethally dangerous. Newport (team pictured celebrating) did brilliantly to battle on in Anthony's absence. Substitute Danny Crow scored
twice and Conor Washington added a brilliant third to wrap up a 3-1 victory. All this has happened in only their third
year as a full-time outfit after reforming as a club back in 1989.
Another upset
was taking place at the Globe Arena where the rise of Ryan Williams
continues. The young midfielder produced
a magnificent dipping free-kick to see Morecambe claim the scalp of Wolves
1-0. To round off a great night for
League Two clubs, James Beattie’s Accrington Stanley came from a goal down to
overcome Middlesbrough 2-1 at a depleted Riverside Stadium, putting real early season pressure on Tony Mowbray at Boro.
Mick McCarthy
made six changes to his Ipswich side from the opening weekend of the
Championship season, clearly stating where his priorities lie for the campaign
ahead. Therefore he probably won’t be
too upset by the Tractor Boys’ 2-0 loss at Stevenage, though it did mean local
pride was lost. Blackburn Rovers were
another surprising casualty, as they were ousted on penalties by a battling
Carlisle United at Brunton Park. The
match finished 3-3 after extra-time, with the visitors having Tom Cairney sent
off for two yellow cards. It was Greg
Abbott’s side who kept their cool in the penalty shootout to win 4-3 in the
lottery and progress to round two.
Sheffield
Wednesday also came up short in a local derby away at Rotherham, and Burton
Albion won once again at Sheffield United in this competition, like they did at
the same stage last season. Coventry’s
terrible season took another turn for the worse as they conceded an 89th
minute goal to Kevin Lisbie of Leyton Orient to lose 3-2. Carl Baker was dismissed for the Sky Blues,
and by kicking a bottle of water away on the touchline, it is fair to say he
disagreed with the referee’s decision.
2011 winners
Birmingham City needed extra-time to see off lowly Plymouth Argyle 3-2, whilst
Cheltenham Town created one of the comebacks of the night to storm to a 4-3 win
against Crawley Town, despite trailing 3-1 with an hour gone in the match. There were comfortable wins for Burnley, QPR,
Bolton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest from the Championship.
In the
Champions League, a hard fought goalless draw against Elfsborg saw a slightly
below-par Celtic advance into the play-off round 1-0 on aggregate.
The Scottish
joy on Wednesday led to despair on Thursday evening as their participation in
the Europa League for this season came to an early end. Motherwell lost 1-0 in Russia to Kuban
Krasnodar to go down 3-0 on aggregate.
It was even more painful for St. Johnstone, who were beaten at home to
FC Minsk and then lost on penalties 3-2, wasting the good work of seeing off
Rosenborg in the previous round.
Michael Laudrup’s
Swansea City looked comfortable in Sweden against Malmo, and played out a tame
goalless draw to ensure their progression into the play-off round of this
competition, 4-0 on aggregate.
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