EIGHT more games are getting under way right, NOW.

Lunchtime set the bar pretty high, how will the traditional Saturday 3pm tranche respond?

Only one way to find out...

Adam Whitty
BBC Final Score

Normally when I say I am going to a game at the weekend, my friends will (just to amuse me, presumably), look relatively excited. For this game, I got grimaces.

These are two teams who have lost their last three, in desperate needs of points for very different reasons.

Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder says January "can’t come soon enough" to bring in new recruits. They have lost 11 of 14 all season and sit second bottom, and a positive start after his return has been put to bed.

QPR were sixth a month ago, but four defeats in five have meant they’ve dropped to 16th.

I fear both teams might look out of form, but you never know.

Image source, Getty Images

Southampton picked up their first win since September against QPR at Loftus Road in midweek, in what was the club's first win since sacking Will Still.

Interim boss Tonda Eckert will want to continue that momentum against the Championship's bottom club, Sheffield Wednesday.

The struggling Owls have been cut well adrift at the bottom with their 12-point deduction for entering administration.

Wednesday have not won at St Mary's since 1997.

A second successive win for Eckert could lift the south coast club as much as nine points clear of the drop zone.

West Bromwich Albion will seek to get back on track as they welcome struggling Oxford United to The Hawthorns.

The Baggies have slipped to 15th in the Championship off the back of one point from their past four games, though all three defeats came on the road.

Ryan Mason's men are unbeaten in their past three at home, but haven't scored in 326 minutes - their worst run since February 2022 - and were stung by a stoppage-time 1-0 defeat at Charlton on Tuesday.

After picking up four points from their previous two games the U's were beaten 3-0 at home by Stoke the same night and lie six places and five points below Albion, four points above the drop zone.

Oxford have only won at The Hawthorns once in the league, more than 28 years ago, while no Gary Rowett side has ever scored against Albion in three previous attempts with the U's and Millwall.

Quirky stat to make you aware of... Oxford have scored 12 first-half goals this season, third most in the Championship, but only three after the interval, worst in the division.

Image source, Rex Features

It is anniversary month.

Two dates. Two bosses. Two stories, inextricably linked, that have had everything over the past year and look like delivering a blockbuster finish.

The revivals of Stoke City under Mark Robins and Coventry City, under his successor Frank Lampard, have been been the talk of the Championship thus far and this afternoon the top two teams in the division meet.

BBC Sport delves deeper into what Robins and Lampard have done, and how they have done it.

Yesterday was one year to the day since Mark Robins was sacked by Coventry to end a seven-and-a-half year stay at the Sky Blues, having steered them within a penalty shootout of promotion to the Premier League the previous year.

Frank Lampard was named City boss three weeks later while Robins joined the Potters in January, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today the two clubs meet with Coventry four points clear at the top after a blistering start to the season, though their unbeaten run was ended at Wrexham last week before they bounced back to come from behind and beat Sheffield United on Tuesday.

Three straight wins for Stoke, with nine goals scored and just one conceded, took them into second ahead of this clash of the meanest defence in the division, with just nine goals conceded by Stoke in 14 games, against the leading scorers, with Coventry netting an astonishing 39 goals.

There was a sting in the tail for Robins on his first return to the CBS Arena last March when Sam Gallagher's double looked to have ensured the Potters a late 2-2 draw, only for Bobby Thomas to win it for Coventry in the 97th minute.

What we'd give for more drama like that this afternoon...

Image source, PA Media

All the real focus before this game has been about a man who isn't there.

Middlesbrough boss Rob Edwards has been given permission to talk to Premier League strugglers Wolves and is not in the home dugout today.

Adi Viveash leads the Teessiders, who could move back into the top two with a win.

Birmingham City are unlikely to be sympathetic to the home side's fairly chaotic plight.

They've won their past two matches 4-0 and are, very unsurprisingly, unchanged.

It's been a dire start to the season for Sheffield United.

Tuesday's defeat at Championship leaders Coventry was an 11th in 14 league games this season, the first time any team has lost so many at this stage of a second tier season since Wimbledon in 2003-04.

The Blades, beaten in last season's Championship play-off final, will spend the international break in the relegation zone even with a win.

Today's visitors QPR have lost their past three games and boss Julien Stephan said his side need to be more clinical after losing to Southampton on Wednesday in a game where they had twice as many shots as the Saints.

Marc Webber
BBC Final Score commentator

Welcome to the meeting of the miserable.

Both sides struggling to win games and win over fans.

Norwich have lost all their home matches so far this season; Leicester only one win in 10.

The Canaries made a statement this week telling fans not to abuse players or their relatives following an incident after their game with Hull City, and it has annoyed some fans even more.

The fan response to what happens on the pitch maybe as interesting as the game itself.

Image source, Getty Images

Whichever way you look at it this is a huge game for the two men in the dugouts this afternoon, both of whom only took charge in the summer.

Liam Manning's time at his hometown club has been pretty disastrous so far and regardless of their result today they'll spend the next fortnight in the relegation zone.

Norwich have failed to win any of their past 10 league games and, even more damningly, have lost all six of their home matches so far this season.

Marti Cifuentes took over at Leicester in July hoping to lead them to an immediate return to the Premier League.

It's not shaping up like that so far though, with the Foxes now winless in their past nine games after Luke Ayling's late equaliser for Middlesbrough on Tuesday.

A win either way today could spell the end of a short tenure for the manager on the losing side.

Ipswich will seek to keep building momentum as they head to Swansea.

Kieran McKenna's men began today 10th and within three points of the play-off places, with a game in hand, after a 1-1 draw at home to Watford on Tuesday, which will perhaps be best remembered for an argument between Town teammates Jaden Philogene and Azor Matusiwa.

It made it seven points from their past three games, including a 4-1 win at QPR in their most recent away game last Saturday, though it extended their streak without a clean sheet on the road to 22 games.

The Swans are three points back in 17th and have been consistently inconsistent, failing to record consecutive results of any kind in their 14 games so far this season.

They fell to a battling 2-1 defeat at Preston on Wednesday having grabbed a point at Charlton last Saturday but won their most recent home game against Norwich 2-1.

Charlotte Richardson
Final Score reporter

Image source, PA Media

Back in April, Wrexham beat Charlton Athletic here on their home patch to secure automatic promotion. The Addicks were soon to join them courtesy of a play-off win at Wembley.

Fast forward a few months, the Championship newbies meet again and it is fair to say both are impressing as they find their feet in the second tier.

Wrexham have suffered just one loss in their last 8 league games whilst the visitors currently sit in the play-off positions courtesy of a steady five-match unbeaten streak.

Recent form suggests we are in for a real Championship battle. Recent rivals backed by brilliant fan bases keen to end this busy block of fixtures with victory before the international break. Plus, the sun is out…the perfect day for it!

Image source, Getty Images

Charlton's last league win against Wrexham came in the form of a narrow 1-0 victory in February 1982.

Since then, the north Wales side have won four of their eight meetings, with the other four ending all square.

Former Cardiff City youth player Nathan Jones takes his Addicks side to the SToK Cae Ras Stadium on a run of five games unbeaten, sitting sixth in the Championship table.

The Red Dragons' form has picked up recently, with eight of their 18 points won in their past four matches.

Jones irked Wrexham's fans when both sides were in League One last season by referring to the club as a "circus", something he later rowed back on but nonetheless gives an extra bit of needle to this meeting between the two promoted sides.

• Middlesbrough v Birmingham City
• Norwich City v Leicester City
• Sheffield United v Queens Park Rangers
• Southampton v Sheffield Wednesday
• Stoke City v Coventry City
• Swansea City v Ipswich Town
• West Bromwich Albion v Oxford United
• Wrexham v Charlton Athletic

Preston and Millwall shared the points which took North End into the top-three, but Hull City's incredible comeback to beat Pompey 3-2 has them above the Lions and into fifth.

Derby are up to ninth, two points off the play-off places, after a fifth straight victory at Blackburn, who stay 18th, two places and two points ahead of Portsmouth, with the bottom four all in action shortly.

Derby County

Player of the match Carlton Morris told Sky Sports:

"It's all going rather well at the moment. (After a slow start) we never lost focus and faith in what this squad is capable of. Bring on the next game after the break."

After a third header from a corner in as many games: "I'm just grateful to the boys for how much quality they are delivering at the moment."

On Derby's climb up the table: "We never panicked. We started the season and the performances were there, but the results weren't, we never panicked, you're seeing it come to fruition, we're on a roll at the minute, long may it continue."

Andrew Moon
BBC Radio Solent commentator

Portsmouth leave the game with no points and a lot of soul searching to do.

John Mousinho has a lot of thinking to do.

The Tigers claw their way back into the play-off spots.

A tale of two halves this.

The first one was action-packed and the second one... was not.

No matter for the home fans though as Joe Gelhardt's clipped finish with 11 minutes to go sees them take the points.

They go back up to fifth.

Pompey are now winless in six and stay 20th.

Pompey GOALKEEPER Joe Bursik heads over what must be their final chance of the match!