Lee Bell tolls, Some like it Scott, and much much Moore
18 November 2024 | Weekend Notes brings you the biggest stories, stats and insights from the EFL weekend
● BIG STORIES ● CHEAT SHEET ● 5IVELIGHTS ● THE VIEW FROM ● FANTASY FOOTBALL ● WATCHING BRIEF ●
Game the system…
As a sport, football is about leagues, rules and structures. But as a game, football matches are about protagonists, battles and strategy. Winning is often about finding advantage where others cannot: playing and gaming the system. I like games, and in football and everyday life, I like those creative thinkers who see a solution in every problem and a problem where others may not.
Some examples*: Glastonbury tickets selling out within 35 minutes? You should’ve had 30 friends on 6 devices each. Olive oil prices at £10? Just self-scan the bottle as three baking potatoes. Rail fares up? Ask your nephew for their 26-30 rail card. Away ticket £41? Nab yourself an OAP price. Fast counter-attack catching you off-guard? Take a ‘good’ yellow, kick it long, waste time, and do not shake hands at the end. In fact, just get the game postponed in the first place. Or, best of all, find a way to score more goals than your opponents. Today’s Weekend Notes is all about the games.
*intended as satire; these suggestions are at worst illegal or at best not in the spirit of the game
🚨 Big Stories
A selection of decisive moments from across the EFL.
👃 Classic Pong — Stinking out my intro, League One ‘treated’ us to the to-and-fro of basic binary. 0-0s. 1-1s. And P-Ps. Matches that happened. Draws with an average of 6.25 shots on target per game. Blackpool began Saturday with an injury crisis that then worsened, as their two fit strikers both came off injured. Barnsley’s Stephen Humphrys scored another banger (per the last Monday pod: who’s making that goal-quality data set?). Exeter kept another clean sheet. But for every pong, there is a ping…
🔫 Elite Sniper — Stockport 1-0 Wrexham — And was there a ping?! Here we had well-loved characters from last year’s iteration: Challinor, Parkinson, Wootton, McClean. Such matches, where previously promoted sides fight at the top end, tend to happen to these two sides, see:
21/22 - Stockport 1st NL, Wrexham 2nd NL
22/23 - Stockport 4th L2, Wrexham 1st NL
23/24 - Stockport 1st L2, Wrexham 2nd L2
24/25* - Wrexham 3rd L1, Stockport 4th L1
This time that difference-maker was one Louie Barry, whose goal was excellent. Stockport were the aggressors, creating more and better chances than a Wrexham team that simply don’t hit the same when playing away. After four years duking it out, these two are separated by just a point in the League One play-off places.
🪖 Action Adventure at Stadium MK — MK Dons 3-2 Cheltenham — Sometimes things don’t go your way. For example, a set piece pulled back 30 yards and struck home through bodies within 6 minutes, or an equaliser called offside minutes later, or conceding another goal in the 13th minute via another defence-startling set-piece. But it wasn’t game over. A third successive comeback win for MK Dons, and a fifth successive victory, has us all re-rating Scott Lindsey’s side… more on that in The View From.
🥷 Rogue-like — Crewe 2-0 Notts County — Crewe are cutting some stealthy shapes. They’ve gone about it quietly, but the opener came with all the noise that a from-his-own-half-dash from Shilow Tracey deserved. It was an even game in which County fashioned some good opportunities, but Alex just about fended them off before nicking a second goal via a second-half penalty. They’re good at that. That’s why they’re up to 2nd in the early-but-not-so-early table. They’ve won five of their last six home league games, more than in their previous 15, when they tail-spun towards the back end of the last campaign (and still reached Wembley).
🧱 The Port Vale Platformer — Morecambe 0-1 Port Vale — You move back to front, beating enemies and avoiding obstacles; next level, same again. That’s the Darren Moore game. And at the pinnacle of the platform, Port Vale won their 10th league game of the season (the most victories in their opening 15 fixtures since Winston Churchill had the top job in 1953). They’ve trailed in only 11% of minutes this season and this latest victory, while not routine by any stretch, was built with solid defensive bricks, then sealed in the 83rd minute by Ethan Chislett. It was tough on Morecambe, who were resolute, but they don’t come more resolute than Vale’s Connor Hall – his performance was amongst the standouts on Saturday, and across the season for that matter.
📊 Monday Morning Cheat Sheet
From the WhatsApp group to the watercooler: stats to keep you ahead of the game.
👑 Monopoly — League One’s top scorer with 11 goals, Louie Barry also leads the way in League One when it comes to xG (6.6) and xGOT (8.2) – and no, we’re not mentioning the Norwegian this week.
🔍 Cluedo — It was Joe Whitworth in the goal with the velcro gloves, because three big saves helped Exeter to a clean sheet against Lincoln. He’s kept 9 of those clean sheets, the most in League One, and he also has its highest save percentage (83.6%).
🎟️ Ticket to Ride — In drawing that game, Lincoln grabbed their 77th point in 45 games since appointing Michael Skubala – that’s the most points of any League One team in that time (although, obviously, three of them were promoted and three came down).
🔠 Boggle — Riddle me this: only Colchester (0) have won fewer League Two away games this season than Salford (1), but Salford have also lost fewer than anyone else (1).
♟️ Settlers of Keepmoat — Salford’s opponents, Doncaster, have won just one of their last six home games (W1 D3 L2), after winning 11 in a row between February and September.
🔴🟡 Connect Four — Fiona on the NTT20 Squad informs us that a profusely-bleeding James Husband of Blackpool went through four different shirts during his side’s weekend draw, and that’s… probably a record? We think?
🛑 Trivial Pursuit — Morecambe are winless in their last 11 home league games (D3 L8), their longest such run in the Football League.
📽️ Charades — Defensively Sound Barrow, who had the joint-best Goals Against record in League Two going into this weekend, haven’t actually kept a clean sheet in any of their last nine league matches.
✏️ Sudoku — Only two EFL teams’ points tallies could be pencilled into a Sudoku grid: Shrewsbury (8) and Burton (8) are the sides left in single digits.
🗞️ Paperboy — Not content with the easy paper round, Fleetwood Town prefer the circuitous route when it comes to goals, bagging 70% of their tally on the road.
🤬 Cross word — Namely, whatever Paul Cook said to the referee post-game, after he judged the standards of officiating to have reached their nadir in Chesterfield’s loss to Harrogate – the Spireites taken 4 points from their last 4 games.
🚢 Berry’s Battle Ships — You’re placing them off the left, aren’t you? Berry good, James, berry good. Another Berry banger for Chesterfield’s forward makes it a punnet of profitable strikes – they may be predictable, but stopping them is another thing entirely.
🎦 5ivelights
In no particular order, a collection of our favourite goals or clips from across the 72.
No right to do that… Barry buries another.
Like a hot knife through… Butterworth with the mazy run and finish.
Not so shy, as Tracey races from halfway.
Not so Tracey, as Humphrys races from halfway.
James Berry just pops it nonchalantly in the top right corner.
The View From…
Scott Lindsey MK II
On the last day of last season, Scott Lindsey secured 7th spot for Crawley Town in League Two, in what became one of the most compelling and dominant examples of play-off success ever seen in the EFL. For that job alone, he justifies the ‘miracle-worker’ tag.
We’re now seeing Scott Lindsey MK II, and he’s not just a fresh face, but a warm and irresistibly likeable personality in the Dons’ dugout. One of the good guys, eh? But I reckon he’s always been a bit MK MAFIA, The Godfather, The Don: I don’t only love the player, but the game.
Since arriving a few miles north of Bletchley, Lindsey has cracked the Milton Keynes code: 7 points secured before his arrival, and 20 added since. Only Port Vale can boast a better tally.
Yet it’s the manner of MK Dons’ wins that has me heading straight to their weekly highlights. How about this: in their last three games, they’ve trailed Grimsby 1-0, Swindon 1-0 and Cheltenham 2-0. They won all three of them.
“Just when I thought we were out, they pull me right back in…”
Those aren’t outliers in a pattern – they are the pattern, and Lindsey is the enigma code. Last season, one-third of Crawley’s wins were comebacks. They went behind in 24 of their 46 games, went ahead in 22, and never drew a game 0-0. Forget their deeply average season-long xG performance, because the tingle of pure Lindsey vibes was immaculate. And they still are.
MK Dons are yet to keep a clean sheet in any of their wins under Lindsey. In fact, they’re yet to keep a clean sheet since he got the job. And yet, with sharp-shooters, key capos and the best getaway driver, MK look the part and Lindsey looks a Don. The vibes are there. The results are there. Five wins in a row is MK’s best run in the league since 2022, taking them from 19th to 5th.
And what about this wrinkle? Among last season’s play-off contenders, Lindsey’s Crawley didn’t concede the most goals – MK Dons did (joint with Donny). That surprised me. And while this isn’t remotely a repudiation of or even a comment about Mike Williamson’s time in charge, I think it’s worth pointing out that there is both sufficient continuation and difference in the new regime. Just the right amount. A new shoe fitting like an old slipper.
🏆 Fantasy Football
Go head-to-head against team NTT20 in our EFL Fantasy Football league
George elected for a League Two-rich team in this week’s fantasy football, including a couple of double-gameweek selections. We’ve racked up 43 points thus far with a few more to come.
We remain top-half and upwardly mobile, while the big-game players keep striding forwards: a great 97-point haul from Jotis Giants this week, with Mr Browne's Boys leading the way by 6 points.
📺 Watching Brief
Upcoming live EFL games
Fri 22 Nov 2024
20:00 Plymouth Argyle vs Watford
Sat 23 Nov 2024
12:30 Coventry vs Sheffield United (All other 12:30 KOs on SkySports+)
Sun 24 Nov 2024
15:00 Swansea vs Leeds
Had a pop at making the quality of goals leaderboard that the lads have mentioned in the last couple of pods and (the way I've done it anyway) James Berry is blowing everyone else out of the water with his shots from that left hand side