Championship
It was a good day for the good teams, with five of the top six winning. Leaders Bournemouth found Wigan, who have won only once since October and are still coming to terms with a significant January squad overhaul, fairly straightforward opponents in a 3-1 win while Derby, with Tom Ince scoring twice on his debut since signing on loan from Hull City and Jeff Hendrick contributing the rest, beat Bolton 4-1.
Like Wigan, Charlton have won only once since October and their game at Middlesbrough – who have lost just once in the same period – ended with a convincing home win, even if Johann Berg Gudmundsson’s equaliser meant that at 1-1 the result was far from secure at half-time. Jelle Vossen tapped in three minutes later, before Lee Tomlin completed the scoring towards the end.
With Brentford winning 1-0 at Leeds and Watford, by all accounts fortunately, securing the same scoreline at home to Blackburn, the only top team to slip up was Ipswich, whose 2-0 defeat at Rotherham was made more galling by the fact the second goal was scored by Conor Sammon, who managed one goal in 20 appearances during an unconvincing loan spell at Portman Road earlier this season but now has two in three for the Millers.
The win saw Rotherham vault Leeds and Charlton into 18th place, with every side beneath them losing. Blackpool lost 4-0 at seventh-placed Norwich, for whom Gary Hooper scored a hat-trick, while Millwall, drawing 1-1 at home to Huddersfield when the visitors’ Nahki Wells was sent off in the 51st minute, somehow contrived to lose 3-1. Brighton lost 3-2 at home to Nottingham Forest, allowing Dougie Freedman to start his spell as manager with a win.
League One
MK Dons and Bristol City, the top two at the start of play, met each other at stadium:mk but failed to rise to the occasion, playing out a goalless draw which allowed Swindon to leapfrog the Dons into second place with a 2-0 win at Barnsley that would have been more emphatic had Andy Williams successfully converted his penalty. The day’s big risers, though, were Oldham, who beat Scunthorpe 1-0 and moved from 10th to sixth as the four teams immediately ahead of them lost (Sheffield United, at Gillingham), drew (Bradford at Port Vale, Peterborough at Fleetwood) or didn’t play at all (Rochdale).
The key match at the bottom of the table, between managerless Yeovil, who sacked Gary Johnson on Tuesday, and Crawley, ended with a 2-1 home win that leaves Leyton Orient at the bottom of the table and Crawley a point ahead.
League Two
Shrewsbury started the day top but could only draw at home, 1-1, against Southend and so ended it third, Burton and Wycombe both winning away from home – against Cheltenham and 10-man Cambridge respectively – to leapfrog them. Newport, whose manager Justin Edinburgh was confirmed as the new man in charge at Gillingham in the morning, lost 2-0 without him at AFC Wimbledon, for whom Adebayo Akinfenwa scored both goals. They were the only side in the play-off positions not to draw 1-1, with Luton (at Oxford) and Bury (at home to Exeter) equalling Southend’s score at the Shrews.
At the bottom of the table, Hartlepool lost 1-0 at Portsmouth and are now nine points and some goal difference from safety. Ahead of them Mansfield beat promotion-chasing Stevenage 1-0 to leap from 23rd to 20th.
