USA defender Matt Miazga, currently on loan at Reading, received supportive words from his manager there Mark Bowen after the Royals won 3-1 win at Birmingham this weekend.

That was because Miazga was involved when the opposition side were took the lead but he later equalised when he volleyed in a cross.

‘He [Miazga] showed great character,’ said Bowen. ‘I wouldn’t blame him for the first goal – he tried to head it back. It was more the case of [Birmingham player Scott] Hogan being a goal poacher and he read the situation well.

‘Miazga has now got two goals for me since I took over and he is a quality player. There’s an extra special mention for him because he was out for six weeks with an ankle injury and has now played three games in eight days and his standard in all three has been top class.’

In this weekend’s game Jake Clarke-Salter was an unused sub for Birmingham who are six games without a win. One of those was Wednesday’s FA Cup tie at Leicester which was decided by a single late goal in the Premier League side’s favour. Clarke-Salter played the whole of that match.

The day before, Miazga and Reading had been knocked out of the FA Cup when they hosted Sheffield United (pictured top and lost 2-1 after extra-time.

Trevoh Chalobah played in a Yorkshire derby on Saturday but he and Huddersfield were on the losing side when they visited Leeds, whose 2-0 win sent them top of the Championship. Former Chelsea player Patrick Bamford was among the Leeds scorers. Huddersfield, for whom Chalobah came as close to scoring as anyone, are down to 18th.

Second-place West Brom visited Swansea who had Conor Gallagher in their midfield. That game ended 0-0. There was another scoreless match at Wigan where the visitors were Luton Town who had Izzy Brown in their side.

A division below in League One, Jamal Blackman was on the losing side when Bristol Rovers visited struggling Southend and went down 3-1.

In France’s Ligue 1 this weekend, Tiemoue Bakayoko set-up Wissam Ben Yedder to put Monaco 1-0 up at local rivals Nice but two second-half goals, the second in the 94th minute after Monaco had been reduced to 10 men, meant defeat and a slip to ninth place, with Patrick Vieira’s Nice side moving above them.

Kenedy was introduced with 20 minutes to go by Getafe in their home game against Celta Vigo in Spain’s La Liga on Saturday, but he could not help the fourth-place side make the breakthrough as the game ended 0-0.There was no Chelsea involvement in Italy disrupted Serie A programme at the weekend but in an upper table clash in Portugal, Lucas Piazon and fifth-place Rio Ave took a point away from leaders Porto, Saturday’s game ending 1-1.In Brazil, Nathan played in midfield for Atletico Mineiro in a 2-1 home win over Cruzeiro in a regional game.In the Dutch second tier, Ike Ugbo was upfront as Roda slipped to a 4-1 defeat at Breda at the weekend. Juan Castillo was in the Ajax Under-21 side that lost 4-0 at Volendam in the same division.In England’s PL2, Jacob Maddox played for Southampton U23s in a 3-1 home defeat by Leicester last Monday.