Sky Bet Championship: West Brom clear at the top, Fulham miss chance to leapfrog Leeds in second
West Brom opened up a six-point lead at the top of the Sky Bet Championship with a 2-1 win at Reading, while Fulham drew at Millwall.
Results
- Bristol City 3-2 Derby County
- Huddersfield Town 0-3 Cardiff City
- Luton Town 1-0 Sheffield Wednesday
- Millwall 1-1 Fulham
- Reading 1-2 West Bromwich Albion
- Stoke City 0-2 Preston North End
Reading 1-2 West Bromwich Albion
West Brom stretched their lead at the top of the Sky Bet Championship to six points with a hard-earned 2-1 win at mid-table Reading.
Albion dominated most of the first half but needed a 26th-minute equaliser from Matheus Pereira to cancel out George Puscas' early opener for Reading from a penalty.
Kyle Bartley, who had conceded the earlier spot-kick, gave Albion the lead four minutes after the break and the visitors were fairly comfortable for the rest of the game.
West Brom had not won on eight previous visits to the Madejski.
Fulham missed the chance to climb into the automatic promotion places as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Millwall at the Den.
Aleksandar Mitrovic put the visitors ahead from close range after just three minutes but they were pegged back almost immediately by a controversial Jon Dadi Bodvarsson strike.
Jed Wallace had the chance put Millwall ahead from the penalty spot midway through the first half but fired over the bar, while Fulham nearly snatched a winner in the final seconds when Neeskens Kebano headed a corner onto the crossbar.
Nahki Wells scored his first goal for Bristol City as they held off a spirited comeback from Derby to claim a thrilling 3-2 Sky Bet Championship victory at Ashton Gate.
The hosts took a 38th-minute lead when Niclas Eliasson's deep cross from the right was volleyed back across goal by Jay Dasilva for Wells to mark his first start for the Robins with a powerful header.
It was 2-0 just before the break as Derby were again found wanting in the air. Famara Diedhiou's header from a right-wing corner was blocked, but centre-back Filip Benkovic pounced to nod home.
The Rams did not learn their lesson and Ashley Williams headed down another Eliasson cross for Diedhiou to volley home a third after 58 minutes.
It looked to be all over, but three minutes later Martyn Waghorn dived to head home a Max Lowe cross and spark a spell of intense Derby pressure.
Chris Martin tapped home a low cross from Tom Lawrence in the 82nd minute to set up a frantic finish in which Lawrence had a deflected shot saved by City goalkeeper Dan Bentley.
Diedhiou and substitute Andreas Weimann missed great stoppage-time chances to make it 4-2 at the death, but the final whistle was greeted with cheers of relief from home supporters.
Huddersfield Town 0-3 Cardiff City
Cardiff gave their play-off hopes a welcome push in the right direction with a superb 3-0 away win at relegation-threatened Huddersfield.
First-half goals from Josh Murphy and Will Vaulks did the bulk of the damage as the Bluebirds sparkled at the John Smith's Stadium and climbed two places in the standings to maintain the pace on the leading pack.
And Callum Paterson bagged a 69th-minute third to put the contest out of reach as Neil Harris' confident side extended their impressive league run to just one defeat from their last 11 matches.
Luton Town 1-0 Sheffield Wednesday
James Collins struck as Luton climbed off the bottom of the Championship with a priceless 1-0 win over struggling Sheffield Wednesday.
The Hatters' top-scorer netted in the 23rd minute to take his side to within seven points of safety and condemn the Owls to their sixth defeat in nine league games.
Collins had wasted a glorious chance inside the opening 30 seconds when Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu was tugged back in the area from Izzy Brown's pass, with referee Gavin Ward awarding a penalty.
Collins stepped up from 12 yards, only to blast his spot-kick against the crossbar and over.
Preston sit in the final play-off berth after triumphing 2-0 at relegation-threatened Stoke.
Goalless at the break, the impressive Alan Browne put Alex Neil's side ahead before Tom Barkhuizen wrapped things up to close to within three points of the automatic promotion places and stay above Bristol City on goal difference.
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