Wolverhampton Wanderers overcame a comical own goal to win their relegation battle with Bristol City while Cardiff City stretched their lead.
Wolves stun Bristol City, Cardiff stretch lead, Forest march on
Wolverhampton Wanderers overcame a comical own goal to win their relegation battle with Bristol City while Cardiff City stretched their lead at the top of the Championship table.
Elsewhere, Nottingham Forest marched on with a win at Hull City and Barnsley and Ipswich Town boosted their survival hopes as Peterborough could not escape the drop zone despite defeating Blackpool.
Middlesbrough's play-off hopes again suffered, while Huddersfield, Derby County and Millwall took their respective derby bragging rights.
In the basement battle between Dean Saunders'
Wolves and
Bristol City, a horrendous mix-up between David Davis and goalkeeper Carl Ikeme looked set to send the home side to the bottom of the table but they hit back to win 2-1 through Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Kevin Doyle.
Sheffield Wednesday remain in serious relegation danger after dropping to just one place and one point outside the drop zone following a 2-0 defeat by table-topping
Cardiff , who moved seven points clear at the top with a first win in four matches.
Cardiff were able to stretch their lead at the top as second-placed
Hull City lost 2-1 to in-form play-off hopefuls
Nottingham Forest, who now have six successive wins, despite taking the lead through former Forest reject George Boyd.
Watford's hopes of catching the top two were dealt a major setback as Gianfranco Zola's side lost 1-0 at
Barnsley, who climbed one additional place clear of the relegation zone thanks to Bobby Hassell's first league goal since January 2011.
Barnsley's victory meant
Peterborough remained in the bottom three despite stretching their unbeaten run to five matches in a 1-0 win over
Blackpool at Bloomfield Road.
Like Barnsley,
Ipswich's hopes of avoiding relegation were given a massive lift after Mick McCarthy's side grabbed a late 1-0 win against
Bolton Wanderers at Portman Road.
At the other end of the table,
Middlesbrough's dwindling play-off hopes faded further as they were beaten 1-0 by
Birmingham at The Riverside in their 10th defeat in 13 league games.
In the late kick-off, first-half headers from captain Richard Keogh and on-loan striker Chris Martin saw
Derby end their
Leicester City hoodoo with a victory at Pride Park.
Huddersfield Town took the Yorkshire spoils over
Leeds United in one of Saturday's lunchtime kick-offs, as James Vaughan's 86th minute goal secured a 2-1 win at Elland Road and dealt a major blow to the home side's bid for the play-offs.
In another early derby kick-off, FA Cup semi-finalists
Millwall stopped the rot of losing seven of their last eight league games by picking up a 2-0 win at London rivals
Charlton Athletic at The Valley, where substitute Jermaine Easter opened the scoring with his first touch.
