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EFL Championship midweek round-up: Brentford and Leeds share spoils in promotion clash

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb

West Brom players celebrate Kyle Bartley's goal which gave them a 2-1 win over Reading and helped them open a six-point gap at the top.

Results: Tuesday Barnsley 0 Birmingham City 1 Blackburn Rovers 3 Hull City 0 Brentford 1 Leeds United 1 Nottingham Forest 0 Charlton Athletic 1 Swansea City 0 Queens Park Rangers 0 Wigan Athletic 2 Middlesbrough 2

Wednesday Bristol City 3 Derby County 2 Huddersfield Town 0 Cardiff City 3 Luton Town 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 Millwall 1 Fulham 1 Reading 1 West Bromwich Albion 2 Stoke City 0 Preston North End 2

Round-up: The midweek action in the EFL Championship saw some significant results in terms of the race for promotion to the Premier League. The key clash of them all came in South West London, as Brentford hosted a Leeds United side who had lost four out of their last five league games. That said, it was Leeds who were the superior team throughout the match, although it was actually Brentford who took the lead against the run of play in the 25th minute after a horrible goalkeeping error from Kiko Casilla enabled Saïd Benrahma to tap into an empty net. In keeping with the theme of goalkeeping errors, then Brentford's David Raya failed to deal with a corner and this allowed Liam Cooper to equalise just 13 minutes later, and in the end neither side could find a winning goal which meant the points were shared. After an impressive victory in the weekend at home to Leeds, it was a case of back down to earth with a bump for fellow promotion-chasers Nottingham Forest, as they suffered a 1-0 defeat at home to struggling Charlton Athletic thanks to a Lyle Taylor goal which gave the away side a valuable 3 points in their battle against relegation. Charlton actually opened up a six-point cushion to the relegation zone thanks to their victory, as Wigan Athletic were held to a 2-2 draw by fellow strugglers Middlesbrough. Sam Morsy's 29th minute gave Wigan the lead, before they were then reduced to 10 men as Chey Dunkley was shown a second yellow card in the 62nd minute, and only 2 minutes later Middlesbrough equalised thanks to Lewis Wing. Wing then bagged his second goal of the game only four minutes later to put Middlesbrough in the lead, before that was cancelled out in the 76th minute thanks to an own goal from Harold Moukoudi. Birmingham City continued their fine recent form, thanks to a 76th minute winner from loan signing Scott Hogan which inflicted defeat on a Barnsley side whose survival prospects seem to be getting slimmer by each passing week. Blackburn Rovers bounced back from defeat at the weekend by scoring 3 goals in seven second-half minutes through Darragh Lenihan, Adam Armstrong and Dominic Samuel to record an impressive 3-0 triumph at home to Hull City, who have not won in the league since New Year's Day. Meanwhile, Swansea City and Queens Park Rangers cancelled each other out as the two sides took a share of the spoils in a goalless draw. Down at the bottom, Luton Town gave themselves a massive shot in the arm as they recorded a 1-0 triumph at home to Sheffield Wednesday thanks to a goal from James Collins, despite Collins himself missing a penalty inside the opening few minutes of the game, whilst Dan Potts had a goal disallowed for the hosts who move off the foot of the table. On the other hand, struggling Huddersfield Town suffered a hammering at home to Cardiff City, as the away side recorded a 3-0 win thanks to goals from Josh Murphy, Will Vaulks and Callum Paterson - their third win in their last four league games. Meanwhile, in the battle for the final promotion play-off place, both Bristol City and Preston North End recorded victories and closed the gap to fourth and fifth-placed sides Brentford and Nottingham Forest respectively to just a single point. Despite a spirited fightback from Derby County, Bristol held on to record all 3 points in a 3-2 triumph thanks to goals from Nahki Wells, Filip Benkovic and Famara Diédhiou, with Martyn Waghorn and Chris Martin scoring the goals for Derby. On the other hand, Preston North End recorded a fairly comfortable 2-0 victory away to Stoke City thanks to goals from Alan Browne and Tom Barkhuizen. In the race for promotion, following Tuesday evening's results, Fulham failed to take advantage of slip-ups from other sides in and around the promotion race, as a controversial Jon Dadi Bodvarsson goal for Millwall cancelled out Aleksandar Mitrovic's 3rd minute strike which put the Cottagers in front, whilst Jed Wallace also missed a penalty Millwall, in a result which means Fulham failed to move into an automatic promotion place. However, league leaders West Bromwich Albion took full advantage of results by fellow promotion contenders, as they came from behind to record a 2-1 victory away to Reading thanks to goals from Matheus Pereira and Kyle Bartley, with the latter's earlier handball resulting in a penalty for Reading which George Puscas converted. As a result of their victory, West Brom have now opened up a six-point lead at the top of the table.

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