Burnley and Bradford go top while Birmingham and Wrexham go clear – plus Sam Parry on the Juke's Polaroid picture
07 April 2025 | Weekend Notes brings you the biggest stories, stats and insights from the EFL weekend.
● BIG STORIES ● CHEAT SHEET ● 5IVELIGHTS ● THE VIEW FROM ● FORM BOOK ● FANTASY FOOTBALL ●
The best thing on the menu?
Have you ever asked a waiter to recommend something from the menu and they tell you “everything is good” — and you don’t believe them?
Me too. But this time, trust me: there’s no waiting. To start? New leaders and old horses* (see The View From). How about in-season play-offs for the play-off places? Or massive thrashings served up by teams fearing the drop? Then a trio of League Two leapfroggings for afters. You can skip the two goalless games, because what’s left is a spread of big permutations on delicious EFL small plates.
Welcome to Weekend Notes.
🚨 Big Stories
Huw Davies and Matt Watts write-up the decisive moments from the EFL weekend
🌹 Burnley party like it’s 1485 — Coventry 1-2 Burnley, Luton 1-1 Leeds, Oxford 1-0 Sheffield United — In scenes straight from the Battle of Bosworth Field, a grizzled Lancastrian army took the crown thanks to some Yorkshire bed-wetting. Yes, with Sheffield United failing to take advantage of Leeds dropping points at Luton, Burnley are top of the Championship for the first time since August. Coventry led controversially through Haji Wright, though his clearly-offside goal did follow a handball in the box, so perhaps two wrongs make a Wright. It didn’t matter anyway: Jaidon Anthony scored twice for Burnley, helped by Bradley Collins’ hesitancy in taking the ball from his centre-back when he should’ve thrown the Kitching sink at it. Elsewhere, the Blades were blunted by Oxford’s Jamie Cumming; Leeds just look tired.
🔝 Top Bantams — Walsall 2-3 Port Vale, Bradford 2-0 Crewe — It’s official: the Saddlers have finally been unseated at the top of League Two. Port Vale came from behind to beat Walsall at lunchtime, picking up their fifth win in six games, but they led the pack for less than two hours due to Bradford’s sensational start and subsequent victory over Crewe, at a packed-out Valley Parade. It’s the first time all season that the Bantams have topped the table, and what a time to do it – with just five games to go. They were 12th on Christmas Day.
🔵 Blues soon rising... — Birmingham 6-2 Barnsley, Reading 1-0 Wycombe — Birmingham will be promoted from League One on Tuesday night with a win at Peterborough, which should please Barry Fry, after the leaders gained another three points on 3rd place. With Wycombe having already lost to a Harvey Knibbs penalty, Chris Davies’ Blues put on a show with six goals and five goalscorers, saving the most popular one for last (more on that in The View From, below). Critics had griped that Birmingham could be more entertaining, but here they learned the secret to winning in style: having an opponent sent off within three minutes.
🔴 …with Reds set to join them? — Wrexham 3-0 Burton Albion — Critics had griped that Wrexham could be more entertaining, but here they learned the secret to winning in style: having an opponent sent off within 10 minutes. Yet it took them another hour to break down 10-man Burton, Phil Parkinson’s direct style being unsuited to pulling a depleted opposition around the pitch, and it was the visitors who spurned the biggest chance at 0-0. Nevertheless, goals in the final 20 minutes from Steven Fletcher, Sam Smith and Jack Marriott mean Wycombe have six points to make up on 2nd-placed Wrexham with only one game in hand, while Parkinson’s charges face a collection of mostly poor or beachy teams. A remarkable third consecutive promotion edges closer.
🏆 The league becomes a cup — Blackburn 0-2 Middlesbrough, Bristol City 2-1 Watford — In April, meetings between top-10 sides can turn into play-offs to reach the play-offs, as the winner knocks their opponent out of contention, cup-style. Not only did Bristol City and Boro ascend into the Championship’s top six, thanks to defeats for Coventry and West Bromwich Albion (to Sunderland), but they effectively eliminated their opponents from the play-off race. Both went 2-0 up early – Boro, through a sublime 2nd-minute strike by Tommy Conway – and both were pretty comfortable in the face of second-half pressure, despite the Robins conceding to a well-taken goal by Watford’s Mamadou Doumbia. See you again next season, Rovers and Hornets.
🦈 Move or die — Much like sharks, each club in the Championship relegation battle has realised that if they stop moving, they’ll die.* To stay still is to sink: Derby were the only team in the bottom seven to lose, a turgid 1-0 defeat to Swansea ruining their WWWWonderful form line, while wins for Oxford (against Sheffield Red) and Hull (against Sheffield Blue) have fans of Portsmouth and QPR worried again, just when they thought it was safe to go back in the water. There are even some oxygen bubbles surfacing from the presumed-lost shipwreck of HMS Plymouth, whose Hardie crew beat Norwich 2-1 with a brace from their Scottish striker. See you again next season, Canaries.
*Yes, fine, not all sharks must swim to stay alive – just mako sharks, whale sharks, great whites and a bunch of other species besides. Stand down, Captain Barnacles.
🥊 It’s a knockout — Peterborough 0-4 Northampton — If Carlsberg did Saturdays… they wouldn’t be half as good as Northampton’s. Bristol Rovers, Burton and Crawley all lost while the Shoe Army thrashed Peterborough, taking them seven points clear of the dropzone and completing a first double over their local rivals since 1986/87. Sam Hoskins landed the first metaphorical blow, before Tayo Edun landed an actual blow on Cameron McGeehan and received his marching orders. Kevin Nolan’s side duly ran away with it, going 3-0 up before half-time and 4-0 up before full-time. In a straight fight between the bottom two, Cambridge won 1-0 at Shrewsbury to give themselves a puncher’s chance of survival.
💪 Four-midable fourth tier — There were three 4-0 scorelines in League Two, and two of them were quite significant (with all due respect to Fleetwood 0-4 Swindon). Tranmere’s triumph over Chesterfield moved them seven points clear of the relegation places, while Accrington’s heavy defeat at Bromley put them six points and one place above Morecambe, who lost 3-1 to Grimsby. As for Carlisle, they came from 2-0 down to beat Newport 3-2. Are they back from the dead or is this just a cadaveric spasm?
📊 Monday Morning Cheat Sheet
From the WhatsApp group to the watercooler: stats to keep you ahead of the game.
👑 Laurel for Hardie — Bewreathed in a crown of green, Ryan Hardie doth bestride the world like a colossus, and he ain’t resting on them laurels. Argyle’s forward has scored six goals in his last five home matches, all of them in braces. “Veni, vidi, vici”, meet “Duo, duo, duo”.
🚬 Röhl up — Sheffield Wednesday have smoked their season down to the letters, with a poor run of four consecutive home league defeats and zero wins in seven consigning them to the beach already. Duty-free this way comes.
🔥 Hull on wheels — Owls’ loss was Hull’s gain, with Ruben Selles’ side winning their 7th league away match of the season, a record bettered only by the Championship’s top four and Wednesday themselves. Hull are 19th in the league table.
🦁 Mane Character Energy — Millwall find themselves 9th having scored the second-fewest goals in the division, averaging less than a goal a game, which only goes to show the effectiveness of Lions – who, after all, sleep for more than 16 hours a day.
🍔 Whopper — No ‘Big MK’ comeback this season, as League Two’s motorists keep driving through a Milton Keynes side who have now lost 7 of their last 11 home games and taken 16 points from the last 72 available.
⏲️ Fast and Furious — Bradford scored the fastest goal in four years of EFL football when Bobby Pointon was on-point to net after 11 seconds against Crewe (who were presumably furious).
❌ More pain to cambe? — Morecambe’s loss on Saturday was their ninth successive away defeat, leaving them 6 points off safety with 6 to play… it’s looking likely now that the Shrimps are cooked.
🥉 Top-pling — Wycombe’s defeat to Reading means that Wanderers have only one of their last six away games (D3 L2) – even winning their game in hand wouldn’t carry them back into the automatic spots now.
🏹 My Bowstring — It’s an anagram of Grimsby Town, who have, as of yesterday, added a new string to their bow by securing 20 wins in a football league season for only the fourth time in their history (per Mike McMahon).
🛣️ The Holloway Road — After an uninspiring start, Ian Holloway’s Swindon have headed in the right direction, losing fewer games than any other side in League Two since Christmas Day (W8 D8 L3).
🤯 The Eek in Cheek — A brace at the weekend put Michael Cheek – in his first ever Football League season – four goals clear in League Two’s top scorer charts. The odds of the 33-year-old taking home the Golden Boot are now as short as 1/8.
🦢 Three Swans a-winning — Swansea’s first shot in their 1-0 win over Derby came in the 69th minute; their third, and last, was Eom Ji-sung’s goal in the 79th. Efficient.
🔮 Fateful Imps — Lincoln’s 2-2 draw at Charlton marked one of five brushes with League One’s promotion hopefuls between now and the end of the season. With Reading, Bolton, Stockport and Wrexham all to face, there is an Impish hand to play in this race yet.
⚽ Jay ain’t pensive — No player has scored more penalties this season than Birmingham’s Jay Stansfield, with League One’s joint-top scorer putting away 9 from 10 attempts – exactly half of his overall tally.
🎦 5ivelights
In no particular order, a collection of our favourite goals or clips from across the 72.
Lights. Kamwa. Action. Newport’s Bobby on the beat with a ridiculous effort.
Another beat dropping, this time from Barrington (Luca, not Levy) with a left-footed thundercrack.
All white on the night: Harvey White curls in a 25-yard free-kick for Stevenage.
To win, To score, To scissor-kick, Tolaj for Port Vale.
Bringing the ball down with snow on it – a hard skill, and a Hardie goal.
The View From…
For Birmingham fans, there will be many memories of this brilliant season. But over time, the Polaroids of the mind will fade around the edges and some will be lost entirely. No Bluenose will descend into some future daydream about Jay Stansfield’s penalties. What will remain is yesterday’s sixth goal. I say this because I know what that kind of moment feels like – and what it’s like not to have one for years.
Birmingham were 5-2 up against Barnsley when Lukas Jutkiewicz entered the field. Three-thousand, one-hundred and thirty-nine days prior, the Juke signed on loan in a season that would see Gianfranco Zola, Gary Rowett and Harry Redknapp at the helm. Over a period of regression, he saw a helluva lot. The personal success of a double-double of goals and assists in 2018/19, scoring 4 in 11 to secure safety at the last. Points deductions. The retiring of the No.22 shirt. Changing times. Changing owners. And then, last season: relegation.
It’s lovely when those who stick around during the tough times are present when the good times come again. On his 3,139th day at the club, Lukas Jutkiewicz couldn’t convert a one-on-one in the final moments of a game that was already won, but the goalkeeper’s save fell back at his feet, and the Juke’s second attempt had a heroic destiny.
Ryan Allsop ran from his goal to join in the celebrations, as teammates mobbed Jutkiewicz in the corner. St Andrew’s spangled in the sunshine. Fans did what fans do. There’s your Polaroid of something bigger than promotion, something captured forever: a full-stop for Jutkiewicz, and an ellipsis for the club…
🏆 Fantasy Football
Go head-to-head against team NTT20 in our EFL Fantasy Football league
A Thursday afternoon in a beer garden in South East London led to the picking of the side you find below. Once again, Sam went with a keeper as our 0.1% selection, following the logic that they always get a solid 2-6 points. Nine?! We’ll take it.
But, oh boy, did that goalscoring-defender ploy misfire. The reason for that back three was our final Max Captain chip that will, upon the closing of this gameweek, double our highest-scoring player’s tally, no matter who they are. Tough ask for it to be a defender now. Well done to I bet Yu look good on the dancefloor for topping the charts this week, and haway Mr Browne and his boys, who are second in the overall standings (and first in ours).
Dovin wasn't playing for Coventry...