Coventry ‘statement’ and Blades must stay calm – Championship takeaways

The third Championship weekend of the season brought more drama with 29 goals across 11 games.

Coventry City, who reached the play-offs last season, laid down a marker with a 7-1 thrashing of QPR which manager Frank Lampard described as a “a performance of quality, mentality and attitude”.

Parkin: “Coventry are full of goals – that’s 12 in two games. One of my concerns with them last year was there was an over-reliance on Jack Rudoni and he played well and contributed, but to be getting other goals from the likes of Victor Torp and]Brandon] Thomas-Asante, Haji Wright, gives them a really good opportunity to emulate what they did last season.

” My one criticism towards the tail-end of last year was they were a little bit one-dimensional, a lot of balls into the box, but they seem to be scoring different types of goals.

“Normally teams suffer a hangover when you get beaten in the play-offs, but nobody anticipated them getting there last year and such has been the improvement under Frank Lampard they can put that to one side and focus on the positives of the second half of last season and really attack this year.

QPR, on the other hand, conceded five Coventry goals inside the first 45 minutes alone.

And while Richard Kone scored a late consolation, the 7-1 defeat leaves them still searching for a win under new manager Julien Stephan.

Parkin:” There’s players that are getting up to speed. ]Richard] Kone came on and got a goal and I think he’ll be a really good signing, but they’ve taken him and a couple of others from lower levels and they look a little bit patched up, the squad looks a little bit threadbare.

“I didn’t anticipate them losing in that manner, it’s pretty alarming.

” For the QPR fans it will be a bit of a wake-up call about how good Marti Cifuentes did. It encapsulates to me that he was getting the utmost out of a squad that’s not one of the strongest in the Championship.

Sheffield Wednesday looked to be heading for a third defeat after conceding two first-half goals to Wrexham.

But the troubled South Yorkshire side retaliated through Barry Bannan before Bailey Cadamarteri levelled nine minutes from time to earn them a first point of the season.

Parkin: “They’re patched up in terms of their bench, with young players, but the 11’s actually pretty good, experienced, they’ve got some leaders.

” Sheffield Wednesday have been competitive in every game – yes, they lost at home to Stoke, but against Leicester on the opening day they did well and and again against Wrexham, so I’m not surprised.

Sheffield United’s spiral from the play-off final defeat to Sunderland in May continues, as they fell to a 1-0 defeat at home to Millwall and are bottom of the Championship.

Ruben Selles, who replaced manager Chris Wilder in the summer, has now lost his first three matches in charge.

Parkin: “It’s the flip side of Coventry. Sheffield United were]in the promotion race] for so long and so many of those players would have almost been able to touch the Premier League or been pretty certain that they were going to make it. To lose in the manner they did takes some getting over.

” Some of the individuals probably still think they could move on and the squad is thin in areas. They still need one or two new players and he’s]Selles] finding out about what’s the best way to go formation-wise, and personnel-wise.

Stoke and Middlesbrough maintained their 100% starts to the campaign and both have three wins from three games.

Stoke held on with 10 men to beat Southampton 2-1 away, while Middlesbrough won 2-1 at Norwich.

Parkin: “Brilliant stories, both of them.

” Middlesbrough were not really expected to hit the ground running, they had a terrible pre-season – a new manager, a new change in style, new formation with the back three, so I probably didn’t have them to be so defensively good.

“That was the first goal they’ve conceded today in the three games.