Back after a brief work-induced hiatus, here are the match timelines for the weekend’s Championship fixtures.

There’s a full explanation of these here and you can access all the previous ones by selecting “VISUALISATIONS > TIMELINES” from the menu.

Summary

First of all, here are all the timelines side-by-side with the same vertical scale for ease of comparison. You can click on this to bring up a larger version:

As is often the case, there’s a Monday match that I’ll have to try and remember to add in retrospectively.

Individual matches

The Friday night match saw an even and somewhat uninspiring first half give way to a much more exciting second, at least for the away side. Sheffield Wednesday’s two goals came from their two best chances – much like Rotherham’s consolation – in a match where there were few other gilt-edged opportunities.

This one looks to have been pretty tough on Blackburn, who ran riot in the second half but conceded from their visitors’ only chance. Burnley managed just five efforts overall to their hosts’ 18, and offered virtually nothing in either the first or last half an hour.

Leeds’ penalty, which also saw Bolton reduced to ten men, looks to have given them a deserved point here. Neither side offered a consistent goal threat, but the visitors had largely controlled the second half beforehand.

This was a close match in which the two teams’ expected goals tallies tracked each other closely until the game’s dying moments. Preston have operated one of the division’s better defences this season, but containing leaders Brighton away from home is still an impressive achievement.

Brentford started the slower here before a succession of chances saw them take the lead. That looks to have knocked the stuffing out of Charlton, who then barely threatened until midway through the second half. The visitors themselves offered little between their second and third goals, with clinical finishing giving them a deserved victory by a seemingly flattering margin.

Fulham’s victory is rendered even more impressive by their virtually anonymous start to this match, although they look to have been gathering momentum from late in the first half before their devastating start to the second. The Cottagers also defied the form book at the back: they have operated one of the division’s most vulnerable defences this season yet restricted Reading to relatively few good chances here.

The big jump leading to Huddersfield’s equaliser here is actually two shots – the first thwarted and the second converted seconds later. Overall the home side can feel hard done by here, having created an equivalent number of chances but lacking Derby’s cutting edge on the day.

Birmingham looked to be keeping Hull in check until the hosts’ double late in the first half, and the second half followed a similar pattern of a largely flat encounter ending in a belated surge in quality. The Blues have consistently and impressively overachieved from some relatively modest underlying numbers at both ends this season, so it will be interesting to see how much longer they can sustain their unexpectedly high placing.

After a forgettable first half an hour for both sides, it was Forest who found second gear the quickest and significantly out-created their visitors for the remainder of this contest. They had fashioned chances of roughly double the goalscoring promise even before their late equaliser, but this was ultimately another game in which they failed to make their opportunities count.

QPR dominated this match from the outset, even if many of their chances were of relatively modest promise. Visitors MK Dons could only manage one effort in the first hour while their hosts threatened consistently and look to have merited at least a two-goal winning margin.

This looks to have been a close-run contest for the first hour, with Wolves then succumbing to a late Middlesbrough rally. Boro’s penalty – which completed the turnaround in the scoreline – came as the home side looked to have run out of steam, and a late barrage of efforts proved insufficient to rescue a point.

Bristol City were by far the busier shooters, particularly after half time when Cardiff found themselves predominantly on the back foot. The late spike in the home side’s line includes Sammy Ameobi’s glaring close-range miss.