Championship Catch-up: Swans soaring, Burnley win and Eckert saga ends

Welcome to The Championship Catch-up, a new Sky Sports column in which Andy Hinchcliffe rounds up some of the key stories from the second tier. This week:

• Soaring Swansea City lead the way
• Burnley finally get their first win
• Saints draw line under Eckert saga

Swansea City are deserved Championship leaders

Swansea have been stronger than we thought they'd be this season. It seems that less is more with them because last season Zan Vipotnik scored 23 goals and really carried the team.

This season, he's only scored a couple of goals and hasn't played that many games. They've shown now, again, that without a star striker they over-rely on for goals, they're more of a team, both defensively and importantly going forward as well.

You look at them from back to front, they've got one of the best goalkeepers in the division and one of the most stubborn, strongest defences in the division. If you're going to be successful, certainly in the Championship, that really does help.

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They're not a defensive team, they're a team that defend well. They dominate the ball, they control games and they've got a variety of goalscorers now as well. They're not reliant on just that one centre-forward. Adam Idah's got four goals, so he's kind of the main threat, but it's still not just him and nobody else.

The way they play enables four, five or six players to get into goalscoring positions and score goals over the course of the season. You're better being that type of team than having that reliance on one central striker. If he gets injured or he's out of form, things can get really tricky.

They deserve to be where they are right now, and we're going to learn a lot more this week about whether they can stay the course. They head to Millwall on Tuesday night, then host West Ham on Saturday.

Coaches and clubs are looking at squad depth now. You can't just be reliant on a few players, even on six or seven players, and keep hoping game in and game out that those six or seven players produce and get the job done for you.

For Swansea, there are maybe five or six attacking players who can change the course of a game.

Every defence they play against isn't really sure how Swansea are going to line up. You probably know how they're going to play in terms of their set-up, energy, urgency, pressing game and passing game. But who's going to be in the team and who's going to impact the game? I'd much rather have one problem than four or five coming at me.

Vitor Matos has done a brilliant job. You listen to players playing under these coaches talk about them, and Ben Cabango was saying this team will run through brick walls for the gaffer.

I think that drives players on even more.

Burnley get off the mark with a thumping win at Watford

Looking at Burnley's overall performances, they weren't performing like a bottom-three team. They were probably around mid-table, but for the club Burnley are, what they're looking to achieve and the players they've got, mid-table performances in this league aren't really acceptable. They're much better than that.

They've had the big change since relegation. We thought Craig Bellamy was coming in, but that didn't happen, and Nicky Hayen came in. He and the players have got to get to an understanding, and that can take a little bit of time.

Playing Watford, you're never really sure what you're going to get. They're a struggling team at the moment, but they can suddenly produce. I never expected Burnley to win that game, so to win it so comfortably was impressive.

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Looking at all the stats from the game, the expected goals, they thoroughly deserved to win. Their xG was three times higher than Watford's. It wasn't a case of scoring four goals from four shots and being lucky to win. It was a game they dominated.

You look at the personnel and the teamsheet and think that's a team that should win a lot of Championship games. Not necessarily 4-0, but they should be winning Championship games.

Now they've won a game, I guarantee the training ground will be a totally different place. Looking at the experience and quality they've got, I wouldn't be surprised if they started to put a bit of a run together.

Let's see how they back that up during midweek and in that big game against Wolves on Friday night.

Saints win derby against toothless Pompey - and draw line under Eckert saga

The situation rumbled on far too long with Tonda Eckert. I still have to say that I, and most people looking at the situation, were surprised there wasn't some kind of enforced lay-off when you consider the bans that are given out for other things.

I think the FA commission probably looked at it and thought they'd thrown Southampton out of the play-offs and imposed a points deduction. That is unprecedented and a massive punishment for the club and the coach. Maybe they thought piling more agony on Eckert's shoulders wasn't what was needed.

The decision drew a line under it, and then Southampton's performance against Portsmouth drew a second line under it completely.

Eckert showed in that game what a talented coach he is. How he managed it and how he coached his team through it.

We got back to talking about football and him as a coach, rather than someone who did something he has admitted was wrong and that shouldn't happen in the English game.

He showed why Southampton were so desperate to keep him. They know they've got a good guy and a good coach there. Why would you want to get rid of someone you know can do the job? His record and numbers are outstanding, as is the quality of football they play.

From a Portsmouth perspective, the goal they gave away was an absolute shocker. It was a dreadful goal to concede. Collectively and individually, it was so avoidable, yet they didn't defend properly.

They haven't conceded an awful lot of goals, with only 11 so far, but it's the kind of goals they're giving away. They're soft goals, and you can't afford to do that if you want to get anywhere in the Championship.

John Mousinho did his best, looking at how many attacking players he sent on to try to influence things and change the game for Portsmouth after the Southampton red card. Time and again, they got into promising positions, but absolutely nothing came from it.

The main criticism will be that they were toothless. How can they not have a shot on target when they have the extra man and all those attacking players on? It just didn't happen.

They also lost the game because of the goal they gave away, which should never have happened. Losing a big derby is horrendous anyway, but how they lost it will be so disappointing for Portsmouth when they sit down, watch the game and have a debrief.