"It’s back. It’s unpredictable. It’s the EFL."
Middlesbrough and Leicester face awkward openers, Barnet host Salford and the PFA take on the EFL – plus, should Sheffield United buy Harry Souttar for £10m?
Weekend Preview is our new regular feature. Huw Davies guides you through the EFL weekend ahead, with the games, players, stories and statistical oddities worth knowing about before kick-off.
As the first episode of Blackadder II draws to an end, the whole cast is waiting for a much-discussed lothario, Lord Flashheart, to turn up. Finally, he does. Accompanied by a trumpet flourish, a cheap BBC-sitcom-budget explosion and the sound of a whinnying horse, the dashing Flashheart drops through the roof and – because, by all accounts, Rik Mayall saw scripts as merely advisory – he unexpectedly looks straight to camera and says, “It’s me.”
Mayall’s wall-breaking improvisation catches us all off-guard, and it’s just the start. Other actors are backed into corners, bumping into broken scenery, to avoid being caught in the way as he ricochets around the room, pausing only to deliver more unscripted lines down the barrel of the lens. By the end of his breathless three-minute cameo, Mayall’s prop moustache is falling off, the seashells in his wig are draping over his face and Flashheart has left us, as the character would say, exhausted but happy.
I get the same sense of excitement tinged with trepidation as this league season begins – the dangerous thrill of the unknown. There are so many uncertainties. Several clubs are playing at levels they have never, or rarely, entered before. Transfer business has been slow, in the Championship especially, not helped by the World Cup and new rules around GBE and ESC signings. Also, it’s stupidly hot. The leagues are simmering, ready to boil over, and now at last we’re here: opening day.
It’s back. It’s unpredictable. It’s the EFL.
The Championship kicks off tonight with Wolves v Blackburn, before bringing a Lancashire hotpot for Saturday lunch, in Bolton v Preston. The two -ton clubs are united not just in location and colours but by each of their managers, Steven Schumacher and Paul Heckingbottom respectively, being unhappy with a lack of transfer activity (though that goes for half of the division right now). It could be tetchy.
Middlesbrough v Lincoln is the pick of Saturday’s matches. “What? Easy home win”, you may say, but hold on now. Lincoln haven’t lost in nine months and Boro, for all of their new players, face some tricky optics here. It’s a home opener, against the team expected to finish 24th. The hosts will be expected to dominate possession. How did those match-ups go for Kim Hellberg’s side in the second half of last season? Not great.
Boro are rightful favourites. They’ve seemingly solved their problems in both boxes by signing Radek Vitek and Will Lankshear.
But don’t write off Lincoln. Even without their manager (Michael Skubala) and best attacker (Jack Moylan), the muscle memory from their 103-point League One campaign remains. Early signs are that Chris Cohen and Tom Shaw, coaches-turned-joint-managers, are leaning into that direct style. Lincoln had 29% possession in winning their Carabao Cup tie away at a full-strength Derby, and this is Derby we’re talking about – only two Championship teams had less of the ball last year. The Imps impressed.
On Sunday, Watford v Southampton tees up Burnley v West Ham, which feels like Sky’s Super Sunday having an off-week in the 2021/22 season. The claret pair both look a bit hungover, waking up bleary-eyed with last season’s incomings still sloshing around inside them, not yet ready to purge and refuel. Finally, Monday night brings us a first league clash between Cardiff and Wrexham since 2002, back when the third tier was called Division Two rather than League One. Thank God we cleared that up.
All eyes on the 12:30s. In the home counties, Reading take on Luton while a Jilly Cooper novel plays out nearby, as the descending, transfer-embargoed Oxford host an ascending and extremely unembargoed MK Dons, who’ve just moved into the area with their new-money ways. The season premiere looks positively scandalous. What’s more, there’ll be a similar dynamic unfolding at the same time in the East Midlands.
Leicester City v Notts County is an electric fixture for opening day: one team sinking to the third tier for only the second season in their history, and the other rising back to it after more than a decade away. But it’s also fascinating tactically. After several seasons playing a front-footed passing game, Notts County hired Martin Paterson and adopted a slightly more pragmatic style in 2025/26, winning promotion as a result. Meanwhile, Leicester… for Fox ache, where to start?
Since the end of Brendan Rodgers’ reign, Leicester have gone through near-constant regeneration – eight managers in three and a half years, and a steady stream of changing instructions. Go get the ball! [Ruud van Nistelrooy, Steve Cooper] Keep the ball! [Rodgers, Enzo Maresca, Martí Cifuentes at first] Don’t keep the ball! [Dean Smith, Cifuentes by the end] Fear the ball, it might hurt you! [Gary Rowett] Now they’re embracing possession play again, in the most extreme form of possession play there is: Russell Martin’s.
Well, the club are embracing it. Leicester’s supporters will need some convincing. The occasional booing of their successful 2023/24 Championship team, even when top of the league, suggested that many fans found fault with Maresca’s patient approach. Under Martin, successful or otherwise, there’ll be more where that came from – plus a fair bit of this at first:
League Two kicks off with that most unsettling of phenomena: a title battle on opening day. Too soon? Probably – but in Barnet v Salford City we have the bookies’ favourites travelling to the third-favourites.
Barnet are an unusual case. National League success meant many saw them last term as the latest big spenders seeking back-to-back promotions, but while they certainly ain’t broke, Barnet’s financial situation doesn’t compare with Stockport, Wrexham and Chesterfield (nor York, in fact, who’ve just come up and taken Mark Shelton from them). At the same time, manager Dean Brennan is ambitious and impatient; last year Barnet announced eight signings before the end of June and when one of them, goalkeeper Owen Evans, made a mistake on debut, Brennan immediately brought in a loanee to replace him. It’s hard to square that with his wearing of the underdog collar:
“What Bromley did last season and what Andy [Woodman] has done at that club is miracle stuff. It’s very similar to what I’ve done here, bringing in a lot of success in a short space of time, without spending lots of money. We’re one of the favourites, but I think that comes down to data and stats. Financially, we’re nowhere near it; we’re in the bottom four.”
Vitally, though, who cares? Barnet were excellent for most of 2025/26. With Brennan in charge, they can continue to punch above, at, or somewhere in the general vicinity of their weight.
Salford are not ‘financially in the bottom four’. Salford are in the top four. Salford are in the top one. So, it’s interesting that while other rich clubs in the National League or League Two have consistently put their ambition in the hands of established EFL managers – Phil Parkinson at Wrexham, Paul Cook at Chesterfield, even Scott Lindsey at York now – Salford, now richer than ever, have instead turned to Peter Cklamovski.
The Australian’s best work has come as Ange Postecoglou’s No.2, and his last job was managing Malaysia’s national team. His biggest asset, however, seems to be that he isn’t Karl Robinson. Cklamovski’s open, attacking, energetic approach is appealing to Salford’s fans as well as their owners after Robinson’s direct tactics last season. It makes their opening match against an attacking Barnet outfit more appealing, too.
Elsewhere in League Two, Oldham v Port Vale pits another two well-fancied clubs against each other, as does York City v Bristol Rovers. The atmosphere for the latter should be telling: while Steve Evans is popular enough at Rovers to be gassing with fans in the stands during a match in April, Scott Lindsey had to hear his own club’s supporters sing, “You’re getting sacked in the morning” as York lost his first game in charge not long ago. And in Cheltenham v Rotherham, Steve Cotterill (1,101 competitive matches as a manager) plays host to Alex Bruce (1).
CHAMPIONSHIP
Fri 14/08
20:00 — Wolves v Blackburn
Sat 15/08
12:30 — Bolton v Preston
15:00 — Bristol City v Millwall
15:00 — Charlton v Derby
15:00 — Middlesbrough v Lincoln
15:00 — Norwich v West Brom
15:00 — Portsmouth v QPR
15:00 — Stoke v Swansea
17:30 — Sheffield Utd v Birmingham
Sun 16/08
13:30 — Watford v Southampton
16:00 — Burnley v West Ham
Mon 17/08
20:00 — Cardiff v Wrexham
LEAGUE ONE
Sat 15/08
12:30 — Notts County v Leicester
12:30 — Oxford v MK Dons
12:30 — Reading v Luton
15:00 — Barnsley v Bromley
15:00 — Blackpool v Wycombe
15:00 — Bradford v Peterborough
15:00 — Burton Albion v Stevenage
15:00 — Cambridge v Wigan
15:00 — Huddersfield v AFC Wimbledon
15:00 — Leyton Orient v Sheffield Wed
15:00 — Mansfield v Doncaster
15:00 — Plymouth v Stockport
LEAGUE TWO
Sat 15/08
12:30 — Newport v Rochdale
12:30 — Oldham v Port Vale
15:00 — Accrington v Colchester
15:00 — Barnet v Salford
15:00 — Cheltenham v Rotherham
15:00 — Chesterfield v Fleetwood
15:00 — Crawley v Crewe
15:00 — Gillingham v Walsall
15:00 — Grimsby v Exeter
15:00 — Northampton v Swindon
15:00 — Tranmere v Shrewsbury
15:00 — York v Bristol Rovers
It’s EFL News Tapas this week.
In a move that would bring a proud and happy tear to the ghost of Jimmy Hill, the Professional Footballers’ Association are suing the Football League over its introduction of Squad Cost Rules in League One, in place of Profit & Sustainability restrictions, because they didn’t consult the Professional Football Negotiating & Consultative Committee first. That’s right: it’s PFA v EFL re: SCR replacing P&S with no A-OK from the PFNCC. SMDH over here.
Joe Bryan has retired, aged 32, ending a career in which the left-back was one of only two players to score 2+ goals in a single Championship play-off final this century. Go on, name the other one. (The answer’s at the bottom)
In transfer WTFery, Crystal Palace youngster Hindolo Mustapha ended his loan spell at Wigan before the league season could even start, in order to join Notts County in the same division.
But dominating the EFL’s water-cooler talk is Sheffield United’s rumoured bid of up to £10m for Harry Souttar, which has prompted questions such as, “How much?”, “Why?” and “How much again?” Souttar’s Championship quality is without question, as is the fact that he has played for Chris Wilder’s Blades before. However, spending so much of United’s limited budget on a 27-year-old defender in League One – let alone one whose injuries have restricted him to 61 league appearances across his last five seasons – would show the strength of Wilder’s position within the club.
When you're watching all these games, do you have multiple tabs open or do you just binge on the highlights? Is there an NTT20 version of what goes on at Sky HQ, but with fewer Mike Deans?