72 Things I Want To See In The EFL In 2025/26

Things to look out for ahead of the 2025/26 EFL season, from breakout stars to Basque away kits.

From sock sponsors to Steel City drama, centre-backs winning Player of the Month to 50-goal-contribution seasons, Huw Davies lays out 72 gloriously specific, occasionally serious, and always heartfelt hopes for the 2025/26 EFL season. This is a love letter to the characters and the chaos of the English Football League.

1) Let’s start by setting the bar incredibly low for the Football League in 2025/26: I want there to still be 72 teams at the end of it. The off-field situations at Sheffield Wednesday, Hull and a few other clubs are providing plenty to worry about. So: nobody go bust. And, if possible…

2) Pay your staff on time. If that isn’t possible, sell the club to someone who can.

3) OK, into the football. Nice and simple: more goals, please. The EFL had 395 fewer goals last season than it did in 2023/24. 

4) How Luke Molyneux takes to League One after dominating League Two.

5) Vimal Yoganathan and Fabio Jalo at Barnsley.

6) The Championship’s automatic promotion race to feature at least one club without parachute payments. 

7) The unexpected lower-league appointment of a big managerial name who played under Alex Ferguson in the 1980s and ’90s, to complete the Hughes-Bruce-TBC trilogy. What’s Bryan Robson up to these days?

8) A Steel City Derby spectacle. Since the start of 2018, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday have met five times and scored two goals between them. Fix this now, or relinquish your right to Sean Bean and Jarvis Cocker.

9) A Nathan Lowe-esque season from a hotshot young loanee…

10) …and for his parent club to recognise that he’s better off finishing the job than playing in their reserves. It’d be great to have fewer loan recalls without a clear plan for the player.

11) A wake-up call for Wrexham. That isn’t to say I want them to fail – I like Wrexham, and I think the ownership is a genuine good-news story – but they have had it all their way for a few years now, and a brief bit of ‘Wrexham in crisis’ would be fun (well, not for them). As good as it is, the documentary lacks jeopardy.

12) Crawley’s latest leftfield signing, Kyle Scott, to be more Jeremy Kelly and less Benjamin Tanimu. 

13) Newport County’s Basque away kit.

14) Millwall to reach the Championship play-offs for the first time since 2001/02, when it wasn’t the Championship. In the 23 years since, they’ve spent 17 in the second tier and finished in the top 10 of it on nine occasions – but never higher than 8th. No bias here; it’d just be nice to see a reward for owners trying to evolve a club’s business methods without losing its culture. 

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15) The race to 700. Following Dean Lewington’s retirement on 820 Football League appearances (the fifth-most in history), the most experienced active player is Billy Sharp with 684, but on his shoulder is Albert Adomah on 682 and Jonny Howson on 681. Having contracts for 2025/26 gives Doncaster’s Sharp and Walsall’s Adomah the advantage over the currently clubless Howson, yet that could all change. Reaching 700 will take one of them into English football’s all-time top 50, so – on your marks – get set – don’t pull a ligament.

16) More EFL transfers to unlikely places. The Vietnamese champions, Thep Xanh Nam Dinh, have just signed human antenna Kyle Hudlin. I have nothing more to add.

17) Luka Modric playing for Swansea City.

18) Gareth Bale’s consortium buying Cardiff City.

19) Will Still to emerge from being a meme. The fines and Football Manager will be mentioned every time Southampton play (and you can’t really criticise the commentators because you always have to cater to new viewers), but few EFL fans know much about him beyond that. Blow our minds, Willy.

20) A goalkeeper scoring from his own area. It’s windy enough, come on.

21) Andre Garcia’s next step. The Reading full-back doesn’t turn 18 until the end of November and he has already played the equivalent of 27 EFL 90s – what a springboard for a top career that could be. There may be a slight change in role ahead, too, putting greater attacking onus on the youngster, which would be even more exciting.

22) A perfectly average season. I’m a simple man, with simple tastes. All I ask is that a team ends up with a record of W15 D16 L15. Fleetwood came admirably close last season (W15 D15 L16 and with a goal difference of 0, the little beauties) but nobody’s gone 15-16-15 since Oxford in 2014/15’s League Two, although their goal difference was, disappointingly, +1. The last 15-16-15 season with 0 GD was Bristol City in the 2008/09 Championship. What? This stuff matters!

23) More patience shown towards players from the stands.

24) More patience shown towards managers from the boardroom. Only 20 EFL managers started their current role before 2024. It’s 2025.

25) More frontiers unlocked. Barrow were sponsored last year by Newfoundland and Labrador, and this summer the Canadian province welcomed Andy Whing, one of his coaches and two of his players for a visit. Yes, yes, more of this. Picking a club at random and then spinning my toy globe, I would like… Gillingham to form a partnership with… Yakutsk? Isn’t that from Risk?

26) Cameron Archer to have a nice time. Since his impressive loan spell at Middlesbrough in 2022/23, the 23-year-old forward has spent consecutive seasons as part of a record-chasingly bad Premier League team being smashed every week – 64 appearances, 4 wins, 11 draws, 49 defeats. The poor sod deserves to just have some fun in the Championship this year.

27) Lee Grant’s Huddersfield.

28) Scott Lindsey’s League Two Crawley #2. Remakes are always good, right?

29) Daniel Storey to make an effort this time. We all enjoyed the dry run, as he visited and wrote about all 92 league clubs within a single season, but excuse me if I hold my applause until he sees all 92 home and away and writes a short novel on each club in the style of David Peace (so quite a long novel, in fact).

30) Giorgi Chakvetadze to show definitively that he’s too good for the Championship.

31) A centre-back to win Player of the Month. Although the last non-attacker to be named League One Player of the Month was Barnsley’s Adam Phillips back in February 2024, we’re used to forwards dominating these awards, and the Championship and League Two have at least mixed it up with a couple of keepers. But we’ve still not seen a central defender win Player of the Month in any division since February 2021 in League Two (Bolton’s Ricardo Santos), June 2020 in the Championship (Charlton’s Jason Pearce) and – incredibly – March 2018 in League One, when Wigan’s Chey Dunkley was given the honour three months after his team-mate, Dan Burn, had won it. I’m not saying that was a long time ago, but Gareth Southgate was yet to manage England at a major tournament.

32) Other Sky Sports presenters to step into David Prutton’s massive, pointy shoes and show us their acting chops. Clinton Morrison has it in him, I reckon.

33) Gillingham to score more than a goal per game for the first time in five seasons.

34) Oldham’s return.

35) Another young Championship star to receive an invite to the (Crystal) Palace, following Ebere Eze, Michael Olise, Adam Wharton, Romain Esse…

36) The redemption of Mat Sadler.

37) Happy travellers. This is always an enjoyable quirk. Take Grimsby last season: they finished just two points off the play-offs even though only one team (bottom-of-the-league Morecambe) lost more home games, because only one team (top-of-the-league Donny) won more away games. Blackpool won 10 on the road and only 7 at their gaff, and Fleetwood and Hull won more away than at home as well. What is it about northern coastal towns and an apparent need to get away from them?

38) Tyrese Campbell to stay injury-free. He scored a Championship-high 0.57 goals per 90 last season after joining Sheffield United; now if he can just play more than 1,600 minutes…

39) Sock sponsors. Fire up an EFL division’s Wikipedia page and you’ll see a list of each club’s kit sponsors on the front of their shirt, the back, the sleeve, and their shorts. Four sponsors? Rookie numbers. Inspired by The Other Bundesliga and TSV Hartberg in Austria, I demand sock sponsors immediately.

40) Notts County’s ‘technical board’ and head coach Martin Paterson to defy the doubters and manage a full season without the whole system imploding.

41) No more Monday transfer deadline days. Well, this isn’t actually possible – they’re both on Mondays this season, when we’ll all still be talking about the previous weekend’s action. Won’t somebody think of the podcasters?

42) A 40-goal contribution season – Difficulty Level: Adel Taarabt, 2010/11. 

43) Sod that, a 50-goal contribution season – Difficulty Level: Aleksandar Mitrovic, 2021/22.

44) This is a selfish one, as a Wales supporter, but Rubin Colwill to have a proper breakout season. He’s looked good in pre-season; however, he often looks good, usually on the ball but even when given a more defensive role against Aston Villa in the FA Cup, yet for various reasons he hasn’t done it across a full campaign. He’s out of Craig Bellamy’s Cymru plans and won’t find it easy to get back in, given the competition, but dominating League One with Cardiff in 2025/26 is almost a non-negotiable now for a player with his abilities. Plus, 20-year-old team-mate Joel Colwill has the potential to upstage his big brother, which would be awks.

45) Serious, official consideration being given to League Two having a third relegation place.

46) A manager to be poached by a Premier League club. I know that sounds traitorous, but we need to believe there’s a pathway from the Football League to the Premier League, and not just for young players who come with the insurance policy of future profit or PSR benefits. More EFL managers were recruited by top-flight clubs in the summer of 2019 than in the six years since. In 2019, it was Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and Steve Bruce – the latter two not just for footballing reasons, either – and the only ones to follow were Nathan Jones and Enzo Maresca (who’d just won promotion with Leicester). That’s it. Promotion is the sole reward for Championship success, and even that brings the sword of Damocles with it.

47) Clearer, easy-to-read starting XI graphics from clubs…

48) …and a return to matchday squads being written in the body of the tweet as well. We can’t always load pictures, y’know.

49) Tranmere Rovers and Barnet to face each other for the first time in history (yes, really).

50) More people in the NTT20 squad on Telegram. If it intrigues you any, there’s been an extensive season preview and group discussion on every club, one per day, and it’s all there waiting for you.

51) Another double promotion.

52) Another double relegation? There were two last year. Shrewsbury aside, perhaps, there are no obvious candidates – but then that’s the point…

53) New abstruse rivalries. We’ve lost Sunderland v Coventry this season but still have Gillingham v Swindon, separated by 125 miles but drawn into mutual hatred by a punch-up in 1979, like two warring families at your local. New additions to the non-geographical derby canon are always welcome.

54) Ian Holloway following through on a great start at Swindon. He hasn’t always ‘got it’ since his arrival, dismissing the club’s fun rivalry with Gillingham (see above) and claiming that the 500 fans in orange hats protesting against Clem Morfuni’s ownership were just wearing them because it was cold, but you can’t argue with the results: from the start of December onwards, they were a top-three side for points per game.

From the Gazette & Herald, 23/12/2024

55) Cheaper tickets for away fans. £45 in the Championship, Cov? Behave.

56) Jorge Grant, back in the EFL at Salford after three years with Hearts.

57) A Football League side in the FA Cup Final. Heartwarming as it was to see Crystal Palace, Spurs and (maybe not so heartwarmingly) Newcastle lift silverware last season, they’re still Premier League sides. We’ve not had an FA Cup finalist from outside the top flight since Cardiff in 2008, and only two since the Premier League breakaway in 1992.

58) A defender top-scoring for his club. Bonus points if it’s a club doing well. Max Cleworth, with 7, was one goal shy of being Wrexham’s joint-top scorer as they won promotion last season.

59) Ethan Galbraith in the Championship at long last. 

60) Rumarn Burrell.

61) Sky to continue giving decent notice for changes in kick-off times. Last season was a huge improvement on this front. Although… 

62) Do we need so many lunchtime kick-offs? A choice of two or three rather than one is reasonable, but six? Is there enough demand for a March fixture between Swindon (15th) and Cheltenham (13th) to be televised that it justifies the disruption to match-going fans?

63) David McGoldrick to continue averaging four or five shots per game, even in League One. This is totally unsustainable and I, for one, am here for it.

64) Some sensible decision-making around postponements in international week.

65) Michael Cheek vs the Sophomore Slump.

66) Bromley vs the Sophomore Slump, with or without their goalscoring talisman.

67) Port Vale’s 150th anniversary kit. I just can’t wait to see it in the flesh/fabric, because you see such shirts advertised as celebration specials but often they aren’t worn, and certainly not for a full season. Can Vale kick off each match with a leather sewn-up ball as well? Then change it for a real one as soon as it goes out of play, as they did at the 1962 World Cup (source below). 

From Michael Coleman’s Wicked World Cup (published by Scholastic Children’s Books, 1998)

68) A better Championship Golden Boot race. The 2024/25 affair was nothing short of a disgrace: with three matchdays remaining, Borja Sainz still had a two-goal lead despite having scored only twice after November. Then Joel Piroe overtook him so quickly, scoring four goals in 40 minutes (following 15 in 2,850), that he was unlikely to lose his hold on the Boot, either. Let’s have an actual contest, ending with somebody hitting 20+ goals – Piroe was the first top scorer in the second tier not to reach 20 since 1900/01, and that was in a 34-game season. 

69) A better League One Golden Boot race. This was a bit more exciting, thanks to Charlie Kelman coming out of nowhere to sprint past Richard Kone and Jay Stansfield, but the overall standard was still pretty low – Kelman’s 21 goals represented the lowest winning tally since 1995/96.

70) A better League Two Golden Boot race. Yeah, 72 is a lot of entries, as it turns out. But while it was nice to see Michael Cheek win it in his first EFL season, aged 33, it’d be nicer still if the winning margin in 2025/26 was fewer than half a dozen goals. 

71) Each division to kick off at different times on the final weekend. To be honest, I took this as a given, but last season suggested it isn’t.

72) A Football League season for the ages. Is that so much to ask, in NTT20’s testimonial year? Here’s to the next decade.