Let us start from the unsuccessful QPR, who once again let January transfer window go by without signing a single player (they only brought loans), but they let excellent winger, Wayne Routlidge and defender Fitz Hall go to Newcastle United, while striker Patrick Agyemang went to Bristol City. How long will the agony with Flavio Briatore last?

Gordon Strachan, manager of unsuccessful Middlesbrough has completely turned to “his” Scotts from Celtic. He has brought even four of them to Riverside, midfielders Barry Robson and Willo Flood, striker Chris Killen and defender and team captain Stephen McManus. Newcastle let experienced Geremy go to Turkey, but besides Routlidge they also bought Mike Williamson from Portsmouth.

Experienced defender Martin Taylor (best known for breaking Eduardo Da Silva’s leg) reinforced Watford, while “bad boy” Shefki Kuqi returned to the island, after coming from German Koblenz to boost Swansea City.

Bristol City boosted their squad by signing striker Patrick Agyemand from QPR and excellent winger Jamal Campbell-Ryce from Barnsley. A Premiership left back, Matt Hill came on loan to QPR from Wolves, while defender Zurab Khizanishvilli arrived from Blackburn to boost Reading. Perhaps the biggest bomb of the transfer window in the Championship is Danny Welbeck, excellent young Manchester United striker whom Sir Alex loaned to his son Darren, Preston North End boss. QPR was reinforced by Nigel Quashie too, former West Ham midfielder who didn’t have the right chance to prove his potential lately. Another experienced returnee will come back to the island, Peruvian Nolberto Solano came back to Leicester City.

The biggest soccer  transfer in the Championship (aside from Moses) should be defender Matthew Kilgalon who replaced one black-white jersey for another. Actually he came from Sheffield United to boost Sunderland. Danny Simpson from Manchester United is still in Newcastle jersey, but the Magpies bought his contract and now he is their official member. Mark Yeates from Middlesbrough went to Sheffield United and his team mate Didier Digard returned to Nice on loan. Andy Griffin from Stoke City was sent on loan to Reading, while excellent Crystal Palace defender Jose Fonte escaped from administration in the club by signing for a third-league team, Southampton.

Bolton right back Nicky Hunt continues as a loan in Derby County, while Carl Ikeme, Wolves third-choice keeper is on loan in QPR where he plays as the first-choice keeper. Neil Collins from Wolves went to Preston and Plymouth regular defender, Hungarian Krisztian Timar went on loan to Oldham Athletic.

Perhaps the most striking example of the crisis in Championship is Crystal Palace. This fine club from London with a solid fan base and recent Premiership experience are now in the situation where they have gone three months without paying the players and the staff. Even though Plymouth are facing similar problems, rest assured that Pompey players, with their wages are in much better situation. Experienced Palace manager, Neil Warnock was never afraid to openly criticize his employer, eccentric owner, Simon Jordan, who has been looking for a buyer for his club for a while now, but without success. Now, Warnock clearly pointed out that ALL of his players are for sale at the right price, of course. Palace are hoping for a bright future, as they have excellent young players (Victor Moses, Nathaniel Clyne, Sean Scannell) that already drew attention of rich Premiership clubs, while on the other hand they are safe on the standings. These days, regular defender, Portuguese Jose Fonte moved to Southampton, down to a lower league, claiming that it is his “shortcut for the Premier League”. This, perhaps speaks best of the situation at Selhurst Park.

Their old rivals, Watford are also struggling in big problems. They have recently barely escaped from administration and a ten-point deficit, while the financial twists and turns in the club clearly point out that Hornets will fight to survive this season. Roughly calculated, Hornets have monthly losses around million pounds. They are the team that play much better than expected so far, as such a modest squad (that sold every quality player this summer) are somehow still holding on in the top half of the standings.

Third dramatic example are Plymouth Argyle. Pilgrims have by far, the lowest budget in the league, but somehow they are holding on in Coca Cola Championship since 2004. Once again they sold everything worth paying for and feared winter transfer embargo because they were late on payments for previous transfers. Still, they managed to deal with the financial problems and the transfer embargo was lifted. Even though the American-Japanese consortium took over the club in January last year, the financial situation is not much better, so they too are facing uncertain future, without investments.

In spite of the fact that Sheffield Wednesday changed the owners last winter they are still in a crisis and the position on the standings is a reason for concern. One of the promotion contenders, Cardiff City are also in big problems, wallowing in debts, caused by investments in the new Cardiff City stadium. Now they must pay off their loans, so they won’t have money for the winter signings. Coventry City, owned by American Ray Ranson have also been struggling for years now and they keep on selling their best players. With exception of “millionaires”, QPR and Sheffield United, as well as WBA, Leicester and Middlesborough , we can say that the rest of the league are in big financial problems.

We are all familiar with the situation in the club from this summer and it didn’t improve much. Owner Mike Ashley was trying to sell the club for over a year, practically from the start of last season but without success. Caretaker manager and club legend Alan Shearer, who inherited Joe Kinnear lead the team in spring this year but didn’t earn the trust of the management, as Magpies ended up relegated. The club practically had no policy, neither did the summer transfer window. All the influential players left and to add insult to injury the court ruled in favour of Kevin Keegan so the club had to pay off a hefty compensation.

The manpower tide didn’t stop so this autumn several other players left St. James Park and we will mention only few: Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, Mark Viduka, Sebastian Bassing, Habib Beye… Fortunately, in spite of the negative predictions, the good results in the Championship kicked off so certain key players gave up their plans of going on loan to the Premier League (Kevin Nolan, Jonas Gutierrez, Nicky Butt, Fabricio Collocini,…)

The Magpies are winning in continuity, Ashley gave up selling the club as no one wanted to buy not even for 80 million pounds and Chris Hughton is now a full-time coach. Since the dramatic situation in August when he admitted that he doesn’t know how many players will appear on practice (and that Obafemi Martins was sold to Wolfsburg without him knowing), there has been made an obvious improvement. The good atmosphere in the locker-room overshadowed the suspicious deeds and the crisis and excellent former English international and ex Bolton member, Kevin Nolan is the true leader of the team, a fighter and great scorer who contributes a lot to motivation of his team mates. He completely deserved the title of being the Championships best player in November.

Perhaps president Steve Gibson sacked Southgate at wrong time, because it all happened right after the win over 2:0 Derby County. Still, what’s done is done, Strachan is on the bench now and two excellent strikers came on loan: Marcus Bent (Birmingham) and Dave Kittson (Stoke). In four matches lead by experienced Scott, the team picked up only two points. When he took over they were one point behind the top. Now they are 13 points behind on a dangerous 10th place and in big problems. Their biggest rivals, Newcastle are on the top, which makes the situation even harder to bear.

Nervous president Gibson won’t wait long to secure Boro’s express return to the elite. It seems that Strachan is starting to slip in Coca Cola Championship odds, because the league is uncertain and all the teams are of similar quality.

Kittson (scorer of two goals in Peterborough) will definitely boost the scoring department but the mistakes in defense and inexplicable lack of concentration are still big problems. Boro didn’t have luck in the game, as the referee failed to adjudge them a clear penalty, while they gambled the two-goal lead away.

All in all, the rest of the season will be tough for the Riverside team. The only way to save the season is materialization of Strachan’s work. Still, Boro have good financial support, big stadium, strong squad and very good football academy (the talented youngsters can replace some of the starters at any time). If they manage to triumph these days, they can easily start a winning run, which would see them back in contention.

Even though they are sinking deep, as we have mentioned Coca Cola Championship is an uncertain league and you shouldn’t rule them out just yet, as Boro might easily resurrect. The only question is: when.

Former Portuguese midfielder, trophy-winning Paulo Sousa took over, who has won European trophies with Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, though he hasn’t got significant coaching experience. Last season on QPR bench he had some partial success, always in the shadow of ever unsatisfied owner Flavio Briatore who chased him away from the club by the end of last season.

Upon his arrival at Liberty stadium Sousa found a weakened team, unsatisfied and injured team’s best player, Ferrie Bode who wanted to change the midfield and faithful fans that expected the team to repeat the last season at least. Last season Swansea were active play-offs contenders till the very end.

They got off to a clumsy start, many things didn’t work in defense, while the team also had scoring problems. Having fallen near the bottom, the Swans struggled, Bode renewed his injury, but Sousa called for patience and by the end of September things started looking up. Manager’s impact and the restructuring of the team started giving results and it all began with the defense. Swansea conceded only two goals in nine matches before the derby against Cardiff. Sousa had to rely on defense, as he couldn’t count on the breakthrough in the attack. After Scotland left, Craig Beattie slowly emerged as a good striker but the question is if the has what it takes to replace Scotland and to what extent the club can rely on his scoring skills.

All in all, the Swans started the derby against Cardiff at the back of nine unbeaten games and a granite defense with dominant captain Gary Monk. Monk’s absence definitely resulted in two goals inside Swans’ net, but their scorers again rose to the occasion and Swansea triumphed 3:2 in one of the most attractive and most exciting Welsh derbies ever.

Can Swansea make it to the play-offs, against all odds? Of course they can; the defense is the key and excellent players from Liberty stadium lead by calm and modest Portuguese manager hold that key. Paulo Sousa is nothing like his more illustrious compatriots, Jose Mourinho and Luis Felipe Scolari. Once a diligent working bee in the midfield, this young manager definitely realizes the importance of a good defense. That, among other things, is the reason why he failed in Flavio Briatore’s club, Queens Park Rangers, but precisely that is why he will succeed in Swansea and hopefully in Premiership one day.

Ever since he sat on the Posh helm, in January, 2007, he led them to nothing else but success in League Two (fourth tier in England). Skillful use of the huge assets owner Darragh MacAnthony made available to him, Fergie used to bring obscure players turning them into respectable force to be reckoned with. Over the past two years he spent in this club, the team gradually climbed one step at the time putting a spotlight on the players such as George Boyd, Aaron Mclean and Craig Mackail-Smith.

Reading were interesting in bringing him this summer, but his former club Peterborough had a pretty good chances at the time: not relegation fight, but the respectable mid-table fight with a possible surprising breach to the play-off zone if they get on the run. It was exactly those runs that brought this team all of the promotions. Every year they needed the time to warm up and then, somewhere around Christmas, they would get back in the business. League Two spell saw them getting in the 17 games run without defeat (13 of which were wins) and that spell started in January which got them to the runners-up place behind MK Dons. Last year, in League One, starting the mid February, they entered the run of 9 wins in ten games, which had eventually pushed them to the position number two, behind Leicester City.

And, as expected, this season started somewhat in a slower pace since this is a lot tougher competition. Posh are with only two wins and even nine defeats in the first 16 rounds. MacAnthony ran out of patience and Ferguson got sacked. Considering all teams playing in Coca Cola Championship are pretty evenly matched, I must say this could turn out to be a rash call. Each year, Coca Cola Championship brings us some minnows and underdogs who get promoted or reach the play-offs after a crazy, unbelievable run of results when no one expects that to happen. Just remember Hull or Bristol City two years ago, or Burnley last one. We shouldn’t forget to mention Sunderland and Roy Keane who led them to the leading position after the opening six defeats in the season… simply, the nature of the competition is such that will reward the patient ones, and team that is desperate in one point turns up great in the next, especially if they catch a good rhythm over winter when a lot of fixtures are jammed up in a tight schedule.

Peterborough United board seem to have made a rash decision. Young and talented players will have plenty of adapting to do now, both to the new system of the competition and to the new manager. Just like the when Gareth Southgate left Boro chairman of the board better have an ace in his sleeve ready to jump in and make an instant hit. Possible candidates are Steve Coppel, until the last year pretty successful Reading manager, and also legendary Peter Taylor, slightly forgotten expert who wandered around Wycomb and similar teams over the past few years.

The betting odds on Peterborough getting relegated this season are soaring down, but young Fergie will have to manage on his own. Still, a bitter taste of his premature release remains. Another panic reaction of the small club’s owner who got scared of the challenge of playing in big competition…