Championship round-up: Stearman drives as Leicester take Holloway road

Four months into the Championship season and almost a third of the 24 clubs have already changed managers, the latest international break seeing new men appointed at Leicester City, Burnley and Preston North End.

Ian Holloway's resignation at Plymouth Argyle to take up the reins at Leicester presented him with the most difficult start, a trip to high-fliers Bristol City, the wrong ground for a former Bristol Rovers manager to find good luck messages.

But goals by Richard Stearman and Matt Fryatt, the latter later seeing red, gave the Foxes a 2-0 away win and Holloway the perfect start. "I can't tell you how proud I am of my players," the new manager said, "their work ethic was terrific and I couldn't have asked for more."

At Turf Moor, Owen Coyle, late of St Johnstone, started his spell as Burnley manager with a point from a goalless draw with Stoke. "From start to finish we were terrific and on any other day we would have had three points," Coyle said.

But Alan Irvine, formerly Everton's assistant manager, saw his Preston side beaten 2-0 at home by Charlton Athletic.

The new managers of Norwich City and Queen's Park Rangers, appointed a few weeks ago, are still bedding in but at Carrow Road Glenn Roeder's bottom club Norwich beat Coventry City 2-0, Luke Chadwick and Jamie Cureton scoring. "A perfect day," Roeder said. Meanwhile, Luigi De Canio's Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday both hit the woodwork twice at Loftus Road but it ended 0-0.

Clinton Morrison scored both goals in Crystal Palace's first win since Neil Warnock's appointment as manager, 2-1 at Colchester United. The hosts had Pat Baldwin sent off two minutes after Morrison's sixth-minute first goal. "Everything you get here, you deserve," Warnock said. The win lifted Palace out of the bottom three.

Holloway's precipitate departure left Plymouth without a manager but it did not seem to affect the side under the caretaker Tim Breacker. Peter Halmosi scored the only goal at Sheffield United, a 1-0 win that took Argyle up to fourth. "I might not see the players on Monday," he said. Or he might be their new manager.

In the Humberside derby Dean Windass scored twice as Hull set up a 2-1 win at Scunthorpe.

Ipswich Town's failure to win any of their nine away matches so far will surely hamper a promotion drive. They lost 1-0 at Cardiff City, Paul Parry's first-half left-foot drive settling the match. Ipswich's leading scorer Alan Lee hit the bar after 15 seconds, they never got as close again. "We are too open away from home," the Ipswich manager Jim Magilton said. "We were bullied out of it by Cardiff. It was very disappointing." Stern John scored the goal as Southampton beat Blackpool 1-0.

In League One the former West Bromwich striker Lee Hughes, now with Oldham Athletic, scored twice in the Latics' 3-0 win at Bournemouth. They were his first goals since his release from jail on August 20 after a conviction for causing death by dangerous driving.