Blades looking in good shape as the Championship resumes

The first winter World Cup is coming to an end but its fallout will have an impact on various domestic leagues, including the Championship, which returned to a full schedule towards the end of last week.

It might appear that little has changed in English football's second tier, which is at a similar stage in terms of completed fixtures as this time last year.

However, there will be clubs who appreciated the enforced break far more than others and I would expect the likely winners and losers to become more apparent over the next few weeks.

In terms of the promotion race, second-placed Sheffield United and fourth-placed Norwich look to be two of the main beneficiaries.

Sheffield United went into the break with a 1-0 victory at Cardiff and came out of it with another 1-0 triumph at home to Huddersfield.

But there were big differences on the Blades' team sheet for those games with a threadbare squad having to be utilised for the trip to Wales and a much stronger group taking on the Terriers.

Eight senior players were missing for the Cardiff match but five of them – Sander Berge, Anel Ahmedhodzic, Oli McBurnie, Jayden Bogle and Max Lowe – were back involved at the weekend and there is further good news on the horizon with Jack Robinson and Tommy Doyle back in training.

It leaves the Blades in a much stronger position than they were four and a half weeks ago but that may not have been the case had they been required to play through their injury crisis.

United manager Paul Heckingbottom is still without long-term absentees Rhys Norrington-Davies and Rhian Brewster, who are working their way back from serious hamstring issues, but his squad looks as healthy as it has all season and I would fully expect them to build on their strong start to the season.

The Blades are three points behind leaders Burnley and should be looking up rather than worrying about the five-point gap between themselves and third-placed Blackburn.

Norwich are just six points outside the top two and are another side who can be said to have emerged stronger after the hiatus.

The Canaries had a poor run before the World Cup, winning two of ten matches, and there were a few murmurs of discontent about the performance of manager Dean Smith.

A reset was needed and Norwich delivered with a hard-fought 1-0 success at Swansea last Saturday which has rekindled their automatic promotion hopes.

Norwich were far from their fluent best against Swansea but they were harder to play against and got their reward with a first away clean sheet in six attempts.

Experienced holding midfielder Isaac Hayden was a key player, completing only his fourth full 90 minutes of the season, and he certainly seemed better for the break after an injury-hit opening three months of the campaign.

The Canaries also looked better stocked in attack with Adam Idah making his first appearance since August and it would be no surprise to see them go on a run over the Christmas and new year period.

Other clubs would have rather done without the interrupted season, including fifth-placed Watford, who I watched perform poorly in a dull 0-0 draw at home to Hull on Sunday.

The Hornets had improved under Slaven Bilic and went into the World Cup interval with their tails up after taking 13 points from six games.

However, they looked a completely different team at the weekend with key midfielder Edo Kayembe absent through injury and star attacker Ismaila Sarr failing to even make the bench on his return from Senegal World Cup duty.

Bilic admitted he had expected Sarr to feature but the situation was taken out of his hands when the player failed to report for training.

Sarr is a huge player for Watford and he may yet have a big role to play, but his performances for Senegal are likely to have caught the eye of bigger clubs and speculation over his future is likely to have a negative impact on the Hornets' promotion push.

Apart from the issue over Sarr, Watford have a developing crisis in midfield with Leicester loanee Hamza Choudhury joining Tom Cleverley, Imran Louza, Dan Gosling and Kayembe on the sidelines.

Joao Pedro had to drop into midfield for the majority of the contest against Hull, but the Hornets sorely missed his quality in attack as they frittered away two precious points.

While Watford's problems threaten to deny them a promotion berth, Coventry's combination of on and off-field issues could see them slide towards trouble.

The Sky Blues were the division's form team before the World Cup, winning four games on the bounce to leave them eyeing up a playoff push.

However, with the January transfer window approaching the club's finances remain uncertain with prospective buyer Doug King still waiting for his takeover bid to receive EFL approval.

Coventry have agreed a temporary fix to their stadium problems by agreeing a rental deal until the end of the season with the CBS Arena's new owners, Frasers Group.

However, their on-field problems resurfaced this week with a disappointing 1-0 loss at Reading.

It was a tough end to a bad week, which started with news of a calf tear for key defender Kyle McFadzean. But there will be no respite for the Sky Blues, who face tough home matches against promotion-chasing Swansea and in-form West Brom before Christmas.

They have a five-point cushion to the bottom three but it is really competitive division and I would not be greatly surprised to see them dragged into a relegation scrap.

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