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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Paul Abbandonato

The craziness of this year's stupidly tight Championship and what it means for Cardiff City and Swansea City

There's always something special about the Championship, games coming thick and fast with the Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday grind, the fact that a team near the bottom often beats a team at the top.

It's relentless, wildly unpredictable, topsy-turvy - that's why we love it so much.

Rarely though, can we have seen too many leagues quite like the one Circa 2022-23.

Almost halfway through the campaign it's absurdly congested, even by the standards of the Championship, and Cardiff City's position in 14th place demonstrates that perfectly.

READ MORE: Gareth Bale tells Wales fans exactly what shape he's in for World Cup as embarrassing tweet deleted

From Sunderland in 13th down to Wigan one place off the bottom, there are just four points separating 11 teams.

It's crazily tight.

Had Cardiff lost at Sunderland, they would be one point off the relegation spots and looking alarmingly over their shoulders.

Have a good week, with wins in back-to-back home games against Hull and Sheffield United, and suddenly they'd be closing in on and eyeing the play-off spots as we enter the World Cup break.

This a team who have barely been able to create chances, let alone score goals this season, have sacked their manager and have only had have a caretaker in charge for the last nine matches.

Its crazy. Such is the beauty of the Championship, and particularly so this time around.

There are anomalies wherever you look.

Blackburn are in second spot in the race for the Premier League. Yet they have already lost close on half of their matches!

Burnley are viewed as the best side in the division. They were smacked for five at the weekend.

Before a ball was kicked West Brom and Middlesbrough were ranked third and fourth respectively to win the league. They've spent the campaign thus far in the relegation spots.

Rotherham were red-hot favourites to finish bottom. They've been in the top half for the most part.

Huddersfield came within a whisker of promotion last season, third in the end only to Fulham and Bournemouth. They're rock bottom this time around.

See what I mean about it being crazy?

The Terriers are as cut adrift as you will get on 15 points, but nowhere near as doomed as Barnsley, Derby and to a lesser degree Peterborough were last year. It's much tighter than that this time around at the bottom.

Cardiff and Swansea were tipped for mid-table finishes and that's the way it may well pan out in the end. Yet Swansea have flirted with the top six and they themselves will fancy climbing back up there if they can achieve good results on the road this week at Birmingham and Huddersfield.

They say, come the end, the cream rises to the top. As such we can probably expect Burnley, Sheffield United, Norwich and Watford to be the main challengers for promotion. Each of those sides have firepower.

Yet things are so tight at present, so up in the air, a whole host of others will be eyeing a place in the top six - and a further host of others will be keeping an ominous eye over their shoulders as those teams like West Brom and Middlesbrough, who shouldn't be anywhere near the bottom, start climbing the table.

That's the other beauty of the Championship, a couple of quickfire wins and suddenly the whole outlook alters.

That's what happened with Swansea who, after a stuttering start, won seven games out of nine, culminating with the South Wales derby victory over Cardiff. They haven't won in three games since beating the Bluebirds mind, and will want to address that in the coming days.

Get your brilliant 48-page Wales at the World Cup preview special - it's a must-have historical souvenir

Cardiff have responded well to their derby defeat, winning two out of three including a great result up at Sunderland. If they can follow that up by beating Hull on Tuesday night, it changes the mindset for Saturday's tough home clash with Sheffield United - particularly as Callum Robinson is back this week and Mark Hudson appears to indicate Rubin Colwill will be, too.

The return of their hugely gifted home grown youngster will be an enormous boost to the Bluebirds, and their fans. For the clash with the Blades there could be a good sized crowd inside Cardiff City Stadium to watch their team for the last time until the action resumes again on December 10.

After what they've gone through this season, those Cardiff supporters deserve a boost. For a club supposedly in crisis, unable to score and without a permanent manager, they have it well within their own hands to actually be in a very decent position in the table come the World Cup break.

Such is the crazy nature of the wide-open Championship 2022-23.

READ MORE:

The surprising amount Gareth Bale is actually earning playing football in America

Cardiff City news as Hudson reveals talks with Wales boss Rob Page to allay Colwill World Cup fears

Michu's Swansea City pain, the chronic issue he has deal with and his sporting director ambitions

Get your brilliant 48-page Wales at the World Cup preview special - it's a must-have historical souvenir

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