The Championship
• If the pressure of this dramatic Championship season is increasing on those sides chasing Premier League status, it did not show on Good Friday on an afternoon when all four top-eight sides in action collected valuable wins. Middlesbrough moved top courtesy of Patrick Bamford’s 17th goal of the season to defeat Wigan on another bleak day for Malky Mackay, and Norwich beat Brighton 1-0 on the south coast to climb to third.
Wolves also collected an away scalp with a win at Nottingham Forest to move into the top-six, and Brentford took three points back along the Thames from Craven Cottage with Stuart Dallas’s double doing the damage. Two injury time goals added gloss to the 4-1 scoreline.
Come the evening the top-six will be shaken up again following Ipswich v Bournemouth and Derby v Watford in what is becoming an evermore enthralling finale from which any of the eight teams involved could realistically triumph.
• There was another derby in the capital where Millwall eventually sprung to life in the final 10 minutes, overturning Charlton’s lead at the New Den to pick up three points in their fight for survival. Neil Harris’s side were boosted further with the news that Birmingham had extended Rotherham’s losing streak to four, winning 2-1, though it was not without a scrap at St Andrew’s.
League One
• Preston overcame Rochdale 1-0 at Deepdale to leave both sides a little less likely to finish in the play-offs. North End are now seven points clear of third-placed Swindon, albeit having played two games more – the Robins host MK Dons on Saturday.
Oldham delayed Bristol City’s inevitable crowning a little longer with a point at Boundary Park but in the congested pack outside the play-offs it was Fleetwood who made the most ground, a 1-0 win at Gillingham propelling Graham Alexander’s side to 10th. They are one of four clubs on 56 points just outside the top six with Rochdale, Barnsley and Peterborough; the winner of Doncaster and Bradford on Friday night will put themselves into the midst of that group.
• There were two crucial clashes at the bottom of League One as Walsall hosted Notts County and Crewe met Crawley, and perhaps it was understandable that neither match yielded a goal, but both home sides might regret spurned chances – Walsall’s Jordan Cook twice hit the woodwork. Scunthorpe took full advantage with a convincing 2-0 victory over Peterborough, their first win in 10, and Colchester continued a recent revival by beating Port Vale 2-1.
But it was a disastrous day for Yeovil who appear destined for the drop after conceding three second-half goals to Chesterfield to give up a 2-0 lead. Yeovil are now 12 points from safety.
League Two
• Hartlepool’s recovery continued with a 2-2 draw at Newport, although the visitors left Wales frustrated having given up a two-goal lead. York and Cheltenham are both entering the final furlong at the wrong end of the table but it was the Minstermen who kicked on with a 1-0 win to push Cheltenham a little closer to non-league football.
• At the table’s sharp end Connor Goldson struck twice to seal Shrewsbury’s 2-0 win against Dagenham & Redbridge, and in doing so moved the Shrews to within a point of league-leaders Burton, who conceded a late equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Plymouth. Wycombe lost ground on those above them after going down 3-2 to Oxford United.
The most dramatic match of the day came when Luton’s catastrophic run of form went on in devastating fashion against Exeter. A run of six consecutive losses appeared to be over at half-time for John Still’s plummeting side when they came in 2-0 up, but a stunned Kenilworth Road watched as the Exeter substitute David Wheeler tapped home in the fifth minute of injury time to seal a 3-2 comeback for the visitors. The win leaves Exeter on 58 points – the same total Luton have held since 28 February.
