Cardiff City keep pressure on Championship leaders Wolves

LONDON: Cardiff kept the pressure on Championship leaders Wolves with a 2-1 victory over Barnsley, while Aston Villa remain in the promotion hunt after a comfortable win at Sunderland on Tuesday.

With Wolves not in action until Wednesday's game against Leeds, the rest of the second-tier promotion chasers had a chance to close the gap.

In south Wales, Callum Paterson put Cardiff ahead before Marko Grujic fired in from long range to all but guarantee the Bluebirds' fifth successive victory.

Oli McBurnie, on loan from Cardiff's rivals Swansea, scored his fourth goal in three matches for Barnsley.

But Neil Warnock's men held on to earn a vital win to move within three points of Wolves, who had led the league by 13 points in February.

Third-placed Villa are four points behind Cardiff in the battle for automatic promotion to the Premier League as they pushed Sunderland closer to relegation with a 3-0 victory.

Villa boss Steve Bruce enjoyed a successful return to the Stadium of Light as strikes from Lewis Grabban and James Chester and a Bryan Oviedo own goal kept his current side flying high.

Sunderland's defeat keeps them rooted to the foot of the table, four points adrift of safety, and means they now have just 10 matches to save their Championship status.

Fourth-placed Fulham maintained their promotion bid as Aleksandar Mitrovic's double inspired a 3-0 win over Sheffield United.

Mitrovic crashed in his fourth and fifth goals since joining on loan from Newcastle and Tom Cairney added a third after the break as the Cottagers posted an 11th win out of 14 games and ninth in a row at home.

That run has catapulted Slavisa Jokanovic's men into the hunt for the top two and they trail Cardiff by only five points, with nobody in English football taking more points than Fulham in the last 10 games.

Birmingham's new manager Garry Monk was shown the size of the task facing him as his former club Middlesbrough inflicted Blues' sixth successive Championship defeat.

The rejuvenated Patrick Bamford, who struggled to make any sort of impact while Monk was at Middlesbrough, continued his scorching run of form with his seventh goal in four games to seal a 1-0 win for the Teessiders.

It was not a happy 39th birthday for Monk, who replaced the sacked Steve Cotterill, as his side remain in the relegation zone.

Play-off hopefuls Derby were held to a 1-1 draw at QPR, who equalised in the final minutes through Massimo Luongo.

Burton are still in relegation trouble after a 2-0 home defeat by Brentford.

Millwall won 2-1 at Hull, while Preston beat Bristol City by the same scoreline.

Ipswich notched a 2-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday, Reading drew with Bolton, while Norwich shared a goalless stalemate with Nottingham Forest.