And we're off...! The Championship kicked back into action with an upset for fancied Middlesbrough, a star performance from a Plymouth returnee and plenty of confusion and frustration over the latest law changes...
TEAM OF THE ROUND
It's a tale as old as time; stubborn and stoic away team frustrates home crowd to leave with all three points. On Saturday that home crowd were clad in the red of Middlesbrough, expectantly awaiting the beginning of what should be an exciting season.
Boro were excellent under Michael Carrick last campaign and the fact he didn't join until late October and still took them to the play-off semi finals would lead you to wonder what he's capable of given a whole season in charge. Middlesbrough are even more perfect fodder for our narrative given how exciting and free scoring they were last season too, shutting Boro down at home would surely be quite the accomplishment!
The stubborn and stoic away team to slay this particular Teesside dragon were Millwall, bringing with them debutants Sarkic, Bryan, De Norre and Nisbet all in their starting XI. It was classic Gary Rowett stuff as the Lions needed only 32% possession to take the three points, with the damage ultimately done from the subs bench by two youngsters.
Romain Esse and Aidomo Emakhu arrived into the game in minute 73 and combined for the winner six minutes later with the highly rated Esse sweeping into the top corner. It was Millwall's first EFL game since the passing of their beloved owner John Berylson, he would've been very proud of this opening day triumph.
PLAYER OF THE ROUND
There was plenty of debate around the sale of Bali Mumba from Norwich to Plymouth a few weeks back. Mumba had been signed by Norwich in 2020 as a long term project which saw him loaned to Plymouth last season. Argyle were Champions of League 1 and Mumba was one of the stars of the entire division, if he was ready to make the step up to the Championship then perhaps it was time for Norwich to reap the rewards for developing the player and bring him into their first team picture. But, rather than bring Mumba back to Carrow Road, Norwich cashed in on their investment and allowed him to return to Plymouth on a permanent deal.
Mumba made his debut as a full time Plymouth player on Saturday against Huddersfield, but really he was already part of the furniture and understandably very popular with the Home Park fans. His popularity with those fans elevated to new heights though as he produced a sublime bit of quality with the game level at 1-1 and heading towards the final quarter of an hour.
For those of a certain vintage I'll only need to say 'John Barnes at the Maracana' and you'll be able to picture this goal. For the benefit of everyone else, this was a wide player coming inside and dribbling beautifully through a befuddled Huddersfield backline before emphatically beating the keeper in a self generated one on one. Ryan Hardie added what was ultimately the decisive goal to make it 3-1 three minutes later, but the decisive moment and all the plaudits are for the magical Mumba solo goal.
TALKING POINT OF THE ROUND
Laying Down The Law
Each and every summer we're told of new refereeing guidelines that will be enforced in the coming season. There's always a slight gap between what's written down in law and what the referee's are actually briefed to do, although as you can imagine there really shouldn't be. We hear stories of referee bosses heading off to clubs during pre-season to let everyone know what their new areas of focus are and it would appear that dissent and timekeeping were top of the agenda.
In the space of two first half minutes in the EFL curtain raiser between Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton on Friday night we saw two players booked for kicking the ball away. In the second half yellow cards were dished out for backchat and to a member of the Wednesday staff for waving an imaginary yellow card. That game also ended at gone 10pm with pretty much 20 minutes of stoppage time played in total.
Despite the inevitable outrage, I'm all for these changes. Time wasting has become a heavily practised and accepted evil that's had a blind eye turned to it for too long, those things considered 'game management' are in truth not bending but breaking the laws of the game. Sadly I think we're too far down the rabbit hole for fans to start respecting referees, but this is about the players respecting the game and should be a net gain.
LOANEE OF THE ROUND
It's been a bit of an odd journey for Josh Bowler this past year or so. In Blackpool's first season back in the Championship I made him one of the best wide players in the division and the subsequent battle to sign him that summer was no surprise to anyone. It was a Premier League move in the end for Bowler as he joined up with freshly promoted Nottingham Forest, however he was Forest's twentieth signing in that window and frankly got lost in the shuffle. Bowler was immediately loaned out to Olympiakos and then Blackpool for the second half of the campaign, with the player and team looking a shadow of what they had the previous season.
Bowler, clearly surplus to requirements at Forest, made his debut for new loan club Cardiff at the weekend. Given his need for first team football and Cardiff's need to bring aboard players under their EFL restrictions it seems somewhat of a good match. The feeling from Cardiff fans is probably fairly straightforward, if they get the player they saw at Blackpool two seasons ago this could turn out to be a really good match.
So far so good for Bowler then, in a difficult opening day game he calmly stroked home the opening goal as his side picked up a useful point. It could've been more with Leeds denying Cardiff via a 95th minute equaliser, although as the new Elland Ross boss Daniel Farke rightly pointed out, the data probably illustrates that was the least they deserved.
