Football League Review: Kevin Nolan Hit a Hat-trick As Ipswich Were Hammered 4-0 While West Bromwich and Sheffield United Both Suffered Surprise Defeats

Jason Tomas

Ipswich's frailty at the back was exposed again when they crashed 4-0 at home to Newcastle. It was probably too much to expect of Ipswich to get their first Championship win of the season, but this result will have hardly made it easier for the manager Roy Keane to maintain the composed, philosophical public stance he has adopted over their recent disappointments.

The player who did most of the damage to his suspect defence this time was Kevin Nolan, who scored the first hat-trick of his career. Newcastle's other scorer was Ryan Taylor. This result enabled Newcastle to take over the leadership from West Bromwich Albion, whose hopes of equaling a club record by increasing their unbeaten league start to the season to nine matches were shattered in a shock 1-0 home defeat to Crystal Palace.

Albion, the Football League's highest-scoring team, were not allowed many chances this time. The closest they came to scoring was when Luke Moore got behind the opposing defence only to be thwarted brilliantly by the goalkeeper Julian Speroni. Soon afterwards Palace's Alan Lee flicked on a Danny Butterfield free-kick and their 19-year-old French midfielder Alassane N'Diaye coolly did the rest at the near post to claim his first goal in senior football.

In addition to West Brom, Sheffield United also suffered a surprise defeat, at Swansea. Few can have anticipated it when, 13 minutes from the end, with United having come from behind to make it 1-1, Swansea's Jordi Gomez was sent off. But the Swansea substitute Thomas Butler put them back in front with a superb shot from 25 yards, and although Swansea had another man sent off – Nathan Dyer – it came too late for United to be able to capitalize on it.

Doncaster were another team with two men shown the red card, John Oster and Quinton Fortune, at Scunthorpe. Unlike Swansea, though, they were unable to get away with it, as Scunthorpe fought back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2.

Among the best individual performances, apart from Nolan's, was that of Sheffield Wednesday's Dutch winger Etienne Esajas, who scored their first goal and set up the two others in the 3-1 home win over Cardiff. Coventry's Leon Best created one of their goals and scored the other as his side drew 2-2 against Middlesbrough after being 2-0 behind, and there was also much to admire in Akos Buzsaky's two-goal first-half display in QPR's 5-2 win over Barnsley.

In the League One match of the day, Leeds maintained their unbeaten start to the season with a 1-0 win at MK Dons. Though the Dons had Jason Puncheon sent off for a two-footed tackle on Michael Doyle just before half-time, it was not until stoppage-time at the end that Leeds got their noses in front. They did so with a Robert Snodgrass header from a Bradley Johnson free-kick. Charlton also kept up their unbeaten run, with a 2-1 win over Exeter.

Darlington, languishing at the bottom of League Two and sharing with Ipswich and Plymouth the unhappy distinction of not having gained any league wins so far this season, parted company with their manager, Colin Todd, after the 1-1 draw against Grimsby. Todd has hardly had the easiest of jobs since his appointment four months ago, having had to assemble a playing squad virtually from scratch after the mass exodus of staff provoked by the club going into administration. However, although Darlington's chairman, Raj Singh, said last night that he had been "delighted" with Todd's work, he added: "We have to do something to turn things around and Colin is experienced enough to appreciate this." Todd said: "It was agreed before today's game that if we didn't win then I'd be leaving. At certain levels you're dictated by results, and although the time factor sometimes isn't long enough, you have to take the rough with the smooth."

The excitement at Rotherham over Ronnie Moore's return as manager was highlighted by the panache with which they overcame Barnet. They were Rotherham's opponents in his first match as the Yorkshire club's manager in 1997. Barnet won 3-2 then; this time they lost 3-0.