Championship transfer window winners and losers

As many managers will say in the build-up to the January window, the main aim is to emerge at the end of the month stronger than at the start.

Following words with decisive action is often a lot harder, however, in such a short and pressurised period of time, as witnessed by the fact that four clubs either sacked or lost their managers, which does not exactly speak of good planning.

Finding realistic needle-moving signings is especially hard when clubs do not want to sell at this stage of a campaign, while you are eternally at the mercy of those with bigger teeth and sharper claws further up the food chain.

With a flurry of deals conducted on deadline day, BBC Sport casts an eye over the 24 teams in the Championship and picks out the main winners and losers heading into the final four months of the season.

Middlesbrough's best shot at a return to the Premier League in a decade has been enhanced after they came out of the transfer window stronger than when January started.

Jeremy Sarmiento already has two promotions under his belt, helping both Ipswich Town and Burnley into the Premier League during loan spells from Brighton & Hove Albion, and Boro fancy the winger's know-how can help get them over the line this year.

Leo Castledine will also bolster their options up front, while Adilson Malanda and Finley Munroe add strength to their defensive options.

A big signal of Middlesbrough's ambitions came on deadline day when rejecting Nottingham Forest's attempts to lure away Hayden Hackney.

"To lose their driving force in midfield at a time when Boro are second in the table would have been a massive own goal," said BBC Radio Tees' Mark Drury.

Fears Newcastle United could recall defender Matt Targett proved unfounded, while the loan departures of Delano Burgzorg and Abdoulaye Kante do not leave any obvious holes.

Boss Kim Hellberg can have no complaints he was not backed in the transfer window, should the Teessiders not achieve their aim.

Derby County boss John Eustace has referenced more than once this season that he is looking beyond this campaign and the Rams' business feels very much like a refresh aimed at trying to bring long-term success to Pride Park.

Defender Dion Sanderson had been with Eustace at Birmingham City and Blackburn, so turning his loan into something permanent came as no surprise.

Midfielder Oscar Fraulo and left-back Derry Murkin have arrived with no previous experience of English football, although Fraulo has already shown promising glimpses.

The outlier is Ipswich striker Sammie Szmodics, signed on loan until the end of the season, but who Eustace knows very well having brought the best out of him at Blackburn.

At 30, he is the oldest of the additions but will further strengthen the forward options with Patrick Agyemang currently leading the line, while joint top-scorer Carlton Morris continues his comeback from a three-month injury lay-off.

With six players, none of whom were Eustace signings, heading for the exit, Derby look fresher, and with only two points separating them from the play-off places, the boss' plans for the long term could come to fruition a lot earlier.

It will surprise no-one that Wrexham were active, but the fact there were only three new signings in the final 24 hours maybe raised a few eyebrows.

With 10 players departing north Wales it has felt more like a clearing of the decks for Phil Parkinson as he seeks a fourth successive promotion.

Ryan Hardie's Wrexham career never really got going having arrived for £700,000 from Plymouth Argyle in the summer, while James McClean and Elliot Lee leave with gratitude ringing in their ears.

Parkinson has always liked to keep his striking department well stocked, with a penchant for those who have been around the block a bit - Paul Mullin, Steven Fletcher, Sam Smith and Kieffer Moore immediately spring to mind.

So, in Davis Keillor-Dunn and Bailey Cadamarteri they have two players at the opposite ends of the chart.

Keillor-Dunn is still only 28 but prolific spells at the lower levels with Barnsley, Mansfield Town and Oldham Athletic show he has an eye for goal that will need to transfer into the second tier.

Cadamarteri, 20, may only have six league goals for Sheffield Wednesday but 37 starts in the Championship gives him a head start on Keillor-Dunn.

Bristol City's Zak Vyner brings more than 200 Championship games and additional leadership and composure with him to strengthen Wrexham's backline.

Like Derby, Wrexham look leaner and maybe ready to bridge the gap to the final frontier.

As one of the best midfielders on the block, Millwall's move for Barry Bannan makes sense for club and player - the Lions get to utilise all that experience and Bannan can concentrate on his football with a purpose rather than the off-field travails at Sheffield Wednesday.

Tommy Watson will look forward to the possibility of repeating his Sunderland play-off heroics from last season, while skipper Jake Cooper signing a new deal maintains steel in defence.

Having been denied the opportunity to strengthen significantly in the summer because of a transfer embargo, Hull City have taken full advantage to cover all outfield bases, more so with midfielders Matt Crooks and Darko Gyabi out for lengthy periods.

Lewis Koumas and Yu Hirakawa arrive with plenty of Championship knowledge up front, with midfielders Toby Collyer and Kieran Dowell and defender Paddy McNair completing their business.

Norwich City were already showing signs of recovery under Philippe Clement and, despite missing out on Bodo/Glimt striker Kasper Hogh, now seem to have the tools to pull away from trouble.

With wantaway striker Josh Sargent still persona non grata at Carrow Road, his boots will be filled by Australia international Mohamed Toure, while winger Ali Ahmed has already made a difference with two goals and two assists in his opening four appearances.

Expect the Canaries to fly comfortably to safety.

Gallows humour may lead to some Blackburn fans claiming the sacking of Valerien Ismael on deadline day actually ended a challenging month with a positive, given the perceived detrimental impact the Frenchman was having on the Rovers team.

But in a strategic sense, whoever replaces Ismael inherits the same problems he has been wrestling with and zero flexibility to do anything about it until June which, by then, could be too late.

Eiran Cashin is a high-level Championship defender who would improve most teams in the division, but one extra body does not address the vast injury issues the squad has at the heart of the defence, something Ismael constantly advertised.

Financial backing did come in the form of Mathias Jorgensen's signing from Bodo/Glimt, while Dapo Afolayan arrives with attacking pedigree, albeit largely in League One.

Those signings add greater depth, competition and, hopefully, additional quality in the final third and do directly impact the starting XI rather than being depth pieces, but the group seems short-handed, particularly at the other end of the pitch.

Results do dictate a lot of the narrative, and league position, Ismael's dismissal and continual fan discontent is more than enough evidence that things are not well at Ewood Park, which perhaps bleeds into analysing their work over the past month.

But with a squad that does not seem to have been strengthened adequately, and the need for a new head coach to work within a very specified framework, it is hard to see if significant improvement can be made.

Bristol City just about salvaged a potentially disastrous window with the late arrivals of Noah Eile and Tomi Horvat (his scheduled summer signing brought forward), effectively to replace Zak Vyner and Anis Mehmeti, although George Earthy would also be laying claim to the latter's role.

But "salvaging" and "late" have not been words associated with a club that has often been the model for common sense and stability in the market and squad building.

There is a decent enough argument that Vyner and Mehmeti had to be sold given they only had six months of their contracts remaining and wanted to make their respective moves to Wrexham and Ipswich. But what does that say for the ambition of the institution they were leaving?

Horvat and Eile are interesting players and could well prove to be outstanding signings, but both will likely need time to acclimatise to the Championship, so viewing them as replacements for this season is somewhat of a stretch.

Delano Burgzorg appears a personal pick of Gerhard Struber's to add greater attacking variation and punch attack, but his numbers - 14 goals in 100 Championship games for Huddersfield and Middlesbrough - do not match the head coach's optimism.

So much of football fandom is predicated on hope and the desire for progression. City had to eat their vegetables under Nigel Pearson with a slight financial reset laying the foundations for the upward trajectory they have been on under Liam Manning and Struber.

However, it is hard to view these past four weeks, in the short term at least, as anything more than a sideways step - a puzzling manoeuvre as others around them in the table have strengthened.

Success, of sorts, did come with Taylor Harwood-Bellis remaining at St Mary's amid significant Premier League interest.

Losing the defender and striker Adam Armstrong, who joined Wolverhampton Wanderers, would have been considerably damaging, irrespective of the financial compensation because Southampton still seem to be fixed on a run at the play-offs.

But it is hard to square that particular circle when the simple equation is that they have subtracted their top goalscorer, who went into the window requiring support, to replace him with 30-year-old Cyle Larin, who has never played in England and last scored in double figures in the 2020-21 season for Besiktas.

Daniel Peretz has addressed issues between the posts, while fees for peripheral figures Ronnie Edwards and Armel Bella-Kotchap were good business decisions and trim a bloated squad to an extent, but does any of it speak of obvious improvement with reference to trying to reach the top six?

If Larin is a bona fide hit, these words will prove irrelevant, but for a club that once upon a time wrote the rule book for measured but also progressive recruitment, it is a slightly wild swing of the bat which feels like it could go drastically wrong, more so than it could go right.

Relegation-threatened West Bromwich Albion needed an injection of talent and more Eric Ramsay-friendly players that never arrived as they continue to be constricted by profit and sustainability rules.

Watford find new and novel ways to lose managers, and although Imran Louza and Othmane Maammaa remain, and some intriguing talent has arrived - particularly Pierre Ekwah - the timing of Javi Gracia's departure and uncertainty over exactly what type of coach the new man will be does not exactly set them up for a coherent play-off run.