Sky Sports EFL pundit Don Goodman has suggested that he feels all four of West Brom, QPR, Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City lack enough consistency to overtake the top two teams in the Championship this term.

It has been a case of all eyes being on Fulham and AFC Bournemouth for the last few months now with the pair delivering consistent results week in and week out to move clear at the top of the division. 

However, both sides have suffered dips in form of late with Fulham drawing their last three and the Cherries winning just once in their last six games.

West Brom moved back into third place in the table on Saturday after beating Coventry City away from home and they are back to within six points of the automatic promotion places now. 

QPR missed the chance to move to within five points of Bournemouth on Sunday when they were beaten 2-0 at home by Stoke City. That means that the Rs have now dropped back to 5th place in the table and they are eight and nine points shy of the top two. 

Blackburn Rovers have been on the team on the rise in the Championship and they have managed to now claim four wins from their last five league matches to climb into 4th place in the table. While Stoke moved back into the top-six with their win at QPR on Sunday.

Speaking on Sky Sports’ latest EFL podcast, Goodman suggested that all four of West Brom, Blackburn, Stoke and QPR have shown glimpses of their quality this season in some of their performances. However, he doubted whether any could get the sort of consistency that would be needed to match with the top two.

He said: "If I'm honest with you based on what I've seen I'm genuinely not sure anyone else can (get near to and catch Fulham and Bournemouth) although lets play Devil's advocate a little bit because what we must do is give the rest of the division hope, and we can do that by saying Fulham haven't won any of their last three games, so they've had three draws, and Bournemouth have only won one of their last six games.

"So that in itself highlights that you can take points from these two, but you need to find consistency and the chasing pack at the moment, that's the one thing, they're all good teams, we've seen the likes of Queens Park Rangers, West Bromwich Albion, Stoke, Blackburn, we've seen them play super well, play really really well.

"Stoke for example gave one of the best performances I've seen this season, if not the best when they dismantled West Bromwich Albion who were in full flow at the time, and then proceeded to lose the next three games and I think that's what you're dealing with, with the rest of them."

The verdict 

It is difficult to disagree with any of what Goodman has said here. There is no doubt that QPR, West Brom, Stoke and Blackburn all have periods of excellent form in them and they have all been on runs where it has looked like they could be a major force in the Championship this term. 

However, all four of those sides have also experienced lapses in form at the wrong time and they are a distance back to Fulham and Bournemouth at this point. It will therefore take a lengthy unbeaten or winning run for any of them to catch up to the top two and put them under serious pressure.

It has happened before where sides have come from a way back and challenged for automatic promotion in the Championship so it is not impossible at all for all four of them. 

However, you sense that Goodman could be correct here when believing that none of those clubs will be able to find that consistency you need to match and catch the top two.