Sunderland handed fitness boost for Millwall clash as pundit issues Marti Cifuentes defence

The Championship season is on hold for another week and a half as the last international break of 2024 plays out. Millwall have gone into the break in fine form, sitting two points outside the top six and having picked up some huge wins over the last couple of weeks.

It has been a very different story for QPR, who sit bottom of the standings, stuck on one win and with manager Marti Cifuentes coming under serious pressure. Here we round up all the latest news and transfer rumours surrounding the Championship clubs.

Sunderland boost

Sunderland have been handed an injury boost ahead of their clash with Millwall on the other side of the break. The Black Cats have welcomed defender Aji Alese back into training after months out with an ankle injury.

Alese got off to an impressive start to the season with Sunderland, but he suffered an ankle injury that has kept him out since the end of August. He has now been pictured back in training, and he will be hoping to return to action against the Lions next week with Sunderland hoping to remain in top spot.

Cifuentes defended

Jobi McAnuff has issued a defence of QPR boss Marti Cifuentes amid growing pressure, claiming the club’s recruitment has left a lot to be desired. "You look at their results and performances, it's only one win this season, it's a really disappointing start for them, more than disappointing," McAnuff said on Sky Sports' Essential EFL podcast. "That is the nail on the head for me, the lack of experience brought in.

"This is not necessarily a Marti Cifuentes problem, this is a hierarchy and a board problem, and we've seen clubs take these models on where they are going to recruit from abroad. The Championship is such a unique league in terms of the demands, and for me, if I'm a manager at that level, I would want a certain amount of players that have got experience. The biggest question that I need to know on a Saturday is what are those 11 players going to give me?

"I think at the moment for QPR, he just doesn't know because they don't know, they're learning about the Championship, they're developing as players. You've got some younger profile players, which is part of the model they want to go down, and that inconsistency and the up and down just stems from exactly that. They've got a manager who can get results, he's proven that, and I just feel at what point are you going to get a board or a club that's going to back him?

"This is just my own opinion externally, I've got no real inside information and I've never really had a proper chat with him, but I would be amazed if all those signings were his. He might have said I need a midfielder, I need a winger or whatever it was, but it just seems to me that something hasn't married up with that recruitment in the summer, and now he's having to try and fight the fire. The fact they've given him time maybe suggests that as well, but he's in big, big trouble, make no bones about it, because unfortunately, as we've always seen, it's managers that end up in a really difficult spot. I've got sympathy with him, whether he gets the time to turn it around, only results will tell, and at the moment, they're just nowhere near good enough."