Manager and Player of the Month Awards – March 2024
In the EFL's March madness, these nine individuals stood out for impeccable performance.
Words: Ali Maxwell, Huw Davies, Matt Watts, Dana Malt, Sam Parry
This month, whilst some have failed to up their tempo and others have struggled to find a rhythm, certain players and managers are Marching to the beat of their own drum.
As we edge closer to the beach and the summer, we had the privilege of watching individuals banking their business-class credentials at the right time: the business end. Before they jet off, March gave us huge games to play, huge stakes to settle and huge prizes to be won and lost. It’s all still up for grabs, and here’s our list of high flyers for March. Special welcome to Dana Malt, making an NTT20.COM writing debut after two years or so as part of our social media team.
Kieran McKenna — Ipswich Town
How’s this for timing? McKenna has just been nominated for Championship Manager of the Season, soon to be rebranded Football Manager of the Season, presumably, and our own award comes just as his Ipswich side claimed top spot for the first time since August, overtaking Leicester and Leeds on a very Good Friday indeed.
Impressive promoted teams are meant to fall away in the spring (hi, Stevenage). The Tractor Boys have just ploughed on. They harvested 12 points from five games in March, the Championship’s best return, which doesn’t include beating Southampton on Easter Monday as March gave way to April.
In truth, it’s been quite tight. McKenna’s men trailed Bristol City 1-0 and 2-1 at Portman Road, only for 89th-minute limbs to elbow their way into a crowded pantheon of late Ipswich winners. They had to be patient at Plymouth, and were. They had to ride their luck at Blackburn, and did. Across the season, 65% of Town’s wins have been by a single goal, compared with 42% of Leeds’ wins and 44% of Leicester’s. Yet the breathless nature of some victories hasn’t detracted from a sense of calm off the pitch, embodied by McKenna in interviews.
Nor do the tight margins mean Ipswich are ‘lucky’. There’s a skill to staying in every game, and another skill in winning so many late on, not least with attackers who (loanees aside) weren’t considered top-end Championship talents before now. The majority of this team’s players have spent the majority of their careers in League One, and McKenna hasn’t just got a tune out of them but a whole damn symphony. Some 15 players have scored at least twice in the league this season.
Their resilience is clear between matches as well as within them. When the pendulum swung the other way and a 1-0 lead over Cardiff in the 94th minute became a 2-1 defeat in the 100th, that could, should have derailed Ipswich, but instead they smashed an admittedly accommodating Sheffield Wednesday side 6-0 in their next fixture. Cardiff represent the only points Ipswich have dropped in their last 10 games.
Travelling to Carrow Road this weekend will be another test of nerve. Ipswich were in similarly good form when they hosted their Old Farm rivals in December, and the subsequent 2-2 draw heralded a run of five winless matches and one league victory in nine. A similar run now would kill automatic promotion hopes, so with a resurgent Watford and three play-off hopefuls on the horizon in April, McKenna is entering exam season.
He’s had all of the right answers so far.
Mikey Johnston — West Bromwich Albion
The first ten days of March belonged to Mikey Johnston – and the questions raised by his stunning performances for West Brom. Never has the strength of Celtic’s wide players featured so heavily in EFL discourse.
Having found his game time limited in the first half of the campaign (Johnston played just over 300 minutes for the Bhoys in the Scottish Premiership), the Republic of Ireland international opted to head out on loan to West Brom. After impressing in February, Johnston took March by the scruff of the neck. His stunning strike at home to Coventry on the first day of the month (which was very similar to his goal against Plymouth a few weeks earlier) was followed up by another screamer at QPR and two more goals and an assist at Huddersfield.
The 24-year-old, who spent last season on loan at Vitoria de Guimaraes in Portugal, scored with six of his first 11 shots for Carlos Corberan’s side. The Glasgow-born winger’s unerring ability to cut in from the left, beat a couple of men and finish with aplomb made him look like a Championship cheat code.
Johnston’s career history to this point suggested that this hot streak wouldn’t last and, at time of writing, the Baggies man has lost some of his boing; going three league games without a goal. That being said, we have all seen what wee Mikey is capable of - and it’s quite spectacular.
Rav van den Berg — Middlesbrough
It is best to introduce Rav van den Berg to the NTT20 community by mentioning his standout moment of the month — and arguably of the season — which came against QPR on March 9th.
Boro were caught out by a ball lofted over the top by Chris Willock, and an outside-to-inside run by the nippy Ilias Chair. Chair, in full flight, touched the ball past an onrushing Seny Dieng in goal, and it was all but certain that he’d tap the ball into an empty net…
…bosh! Van den Berg nipped in with a last-ditch slide tackle, as clean as you’ll see given the precarious situation. With speed, he’d recovered the yards needed to edge in front of Chair and beat him to the ball.
That game saw Boro record their first clean sheet in almost two months, and their first on the road since October. They’ve not been as frequent this season as Boro’s defenders would like, but don’t let that fool you — van den Berg has still been very, very good.
Prior to an injury collected towards the end of the month, he’s looked so incredibly unnerved that it’s hard to believe he’s 19. He is the quintessential modern-day defender — elegant on the ball, possessing a good long pass when necessary - but also very good at the bread and butter: defending.
He’s never rash. There’s never a headloss moment with him like you may see from a lot of young defenders taking their first steps into the EFL. He’s careful and considered when the opposition approaches. Crucially, his acceleration means he can recover situations well, especially if Boro play a high line and find themselves chasing.
A mature head on young shoulders, RvdB has marshalled the whole Boro backline himself at times. You’d find it hard to believe he’s not been in football for many a year, and that his last appearance for Boro was only his 66th senior career match.
Barring injury, Rav van den Berg will go to the top.
Michael Skubala — Lincoln City
Time for some wea culpa: we got it wrong.
In February, Lincoln City won 5 games and lost 1. Any manager of any club posting those kinds of results will win any Manager of the Month gong. And it’s nice, isn’t it, to celebrate pockets of a season for clubs drifting around mid-table. That is what we thought.
“Skubala’s Lincoln are an early addition to the 2024/25 watchlist…” — Manager and Player of the Month Awards, February 2024, NTT20.COM
Maybe, we should’ve added “...in the Championship”.
Maybe not, it’s too soon for that kind of talk. But if you’re not excited by Lincoln City don’t invite us around for Christmas. Because the Imps’ results in March – W4 D1 L0, with 17 goals for and 1 against – is a gift. Joe Taylor scored six. Jack Moylan scored four. Lukas Jensen kept four clean sheets. Imps are a Christmas present wrapped inside a birthday gift rattling around a delicious chocolate easter egg.
Brown bread on the bottom, playing out a solid 0-0 draw against Stevenage. Then a quite remarkable filling – something battered, fiery hot sauce, plenty of relish – with victories against teams ranging from top 6 (Barnsley 5-1) to mid-table (Bristol Rovers 5-0) to the relegation battlers (Cambridge 6-0). The bread on the top? Best of Both: a 1-0 over Leyton Orient on Good Friday, grinding out three points when they weren’t exactly forthcoming.
Look. At the beginning of March, Skubala’s Lincoln were 10th on 51 points. By the 31 March, they were 6th with 64. Perhaps the most startling measure of their climb is how their goal difference has leapt from +8 to +26.
And – SPOILER ALERT – a ridiculous Manager of the Month hattrick will be on the cards if Skubala’s side can repeat their first win in April five more times. Breathe it in Imps’ fans, it can’t get much better than this… after 10 wins out of 12, maybe it can?
Joe Taylor — Lincoln City
Lincoln’s red-hot form makes candidates of several players, including the briefly unplayable Jack Moylan and several members of a defence that conceded just once in five matches. Keeper Lukas Jensen was anointed the best in League One by Ali on the Monday podcast. Taylor is the headline, however. How could he not be, with six goals in 385 mad March match minutes? The 21-year-old is actually eligible for our Young Player of the Month award but has skipped ahead to graduate to the big one. They grow up so fast.
And Taylor is fast. It’s rare for a composed finisher to also boast pace as an asset, and vice versa, but the young striker always puts defenders on the back foot, especially when Lincoln counter-attack. That’s because he generally times and holds his run well, too, as seen with the second of his two goals against Cambridge and the first of his three against Bristol Rovers four days later (it was quite the week). Taylor sealed both goals with a measured dink.
He scores headers, too: a pair of them against the aforementioned Gas, despite a clear height disadvantage against two defenders who should be ashamed of themselves.
After six goals in eight days, it’s probably no surprise that Taylor’s overworked radar was off against Leyton Orient last Friday, though he was back in the goals a few days later. The Luton loanee is irrepressible, and surely being considered for a senior Wales call-up in the autumn.
Having looked better than League Two in the first half of the 2023/24 campaign, Taylor looks better than League One in the second, so he could be lively in the Championship next season – though Luton will hope that it’s out on loan again.
Charlie Hughes — Wigan Athletic
League One is rich in young centre-back talent. Ronnie Edwards and Eiran Cashin are perhaps the biggest names and boast the most well-reported Premier League interest. Still somewhat under the radar is Wigan’s Charlie Hughes — although not for long. A recent i article suggests admiring glances being cast by West Ham, Brentford and Ipswich.
It’s not hard to see why. A young, durable centre-back that relishes defending, has an impressive passing range and a seemingly-strong mentality? Everyone needs one of those!
Hughes has featured in 58 of the 64 league games that Wigan have played since a surprise debut on Boxing Day 2022. In the following weeks, despite Wigan’s poor form in the Championship, one thing became clear: this was a young centre-back with huge self-confidence and a penchant for a huge cross-field pass.
Since then, he’s established himself as one of Wigan’s key players, and an occasional captain — he wore the armband twice in March, and has done ten times this season. A defence-splitting pass played against Burton on Good Friday caught the eye, but this is the norm for Hughes. He is Wigan’s playmaker, tasked with taking the ball off the goalkeeper and starting attacks with a lot of long, forward passes, which he plays with quality well above the level.
He’s also a good 1v1 defender, can handle himself aerially and defend the box, as shown in standout defensive displays against Leyton Orient and Blackpool last month.
Up against Ronnie Edwards (Peterborough United) and Karamoko Dembele (Blackpool) for League One Young Player of the Season, Hughes is unlikely to be playing in the third tier next season. Wigan lead the way across the entire EFL for league minutes being played by academy graduates: 40 per cent of their team is made up of academy graduates. Hughes follows his team-mate Sam Tickle in winning this Very Prestigious Award.
Pete Wild — Barrow
January and February were rather unkind to Pete Wild and Barrow. The Bluebirds were 2nd in League Two on Christmas Day having conceded just 17 goals in their opening 22 matches.
However, a run of seven league wins in a row before Christmas gave way to a run of just two wins in their next 11 games. All of a sudden, Wild’s once watertight defence was conceding two goals per game.
After their 5-3 defeat to Salford on 17th February, Barrow needed an opportunity to reset and, thanks to the Great British weather, they got just that. The Holker Street club wouldn’t play again until 5th March. A 2-0 victory at home to Gillingham was followed by another 2-0 maximum at home to Colchester. Draws against Walsall and Harrogate proceeded another home win to nil – this time against Newport - and a 3-1 victory over Grimsby made for a very Good Friday.
Clearly, a return to keeping zeros and ones has provided the foundation for Barrow to get back to their best, but the emerging partnership up front between Dom Telford and January addition Cole Stockton has also been crucial. With the dangerous Ben Whitfield out wide and the likes of Emile Acquah and Jamie Proctor in reserve, Wild now has some very appealing options in the final third; something which he hasn’t always possessed.
The top three may just be out of reach for Barrow but, thanks to an impressive turnaround in March, the Bluebirds are on course for a top seven finish.
Charlie Lakin — Sutton United
Following four league wins in total up to the end of February, Sutton now have four in a row, three of them in March with Lakin at the forefront. He was Steve Morison’s first signing, arriving to such little fanfare that Sutton announced it alongside Dominic Gape’s departure in the same perfunctory news story. In fact, Lakin could save their Football League status.
The Burton Albion loanee needed time to settle – six games with no goals, no assists and no wins – but having had a proper gander at Gander Green Lane, he’s made nine direct goal contributions in his 11 appearances since, not including one or two pre-assists. Those goal contributions were crucial as Sutton climbed out of the relegation zone that had been their home since August.
Sutton have three relegation rivals: Colchester, Grimsby and Forest Green. Having equalised in Sutton’s 1-1 draw with Colchester in late February, Lakin converted a high-stakes late penalty to take a point from Grimsby and set up the game’s only goal against Forest Green. Clutch. (He has since scored in a win against Swindon, too, though that’s a matter for the April awards.)
Then there’s his creator’s hattrick in the 3-1 victory over Accrington: one undefendable corner and two well-weighted through balls adding up to three assists from six key passes in total. Lakin is always looking for those through balls; he is a central midfielder, after all, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that he’s also making important interceptions (four in that Accrington game) and winning the majority of his battles.
Although Lakin’s loan to Wimbledon didn’t work out, with Armani Little and Jake Reeves unshiftable in midfield, he did impress when given a chance. Now his spell with Sutton has ensured there’ll be a few interested parties if his Burton contract isn’t renewed this summer.
Matthew Craig — Doncaster Rovers
This Barnet-born Scotland under-21 international played 13 minutes for Tottenham on the final day of the 2022/23 Premier League season.
Grant McCann admitted to tracking Craig from the start of the season, and it was Doncaster who persuaded Spurs that they were the best landing spot, after an impressive first half of the campaign in PL2. While teammate and fellow January addition Hakeeb Adelakun has made the headlines with goal contributions, it’s Craig who has injected all-round quality in the central midfield zone.
Comparisons with a popular former Doncaster sitting midfielder Ben Whiteman have been made, with Craig a hard-working, tenacious screener that wins duels, makes interceptions and can handle a midfield battle. He’s also a composed, solid passer of the ball, and will happily play a big switch, and shows nice ambition and ability to carry the ball into midfield and beyond to keep Donny moving forward. But Donny fan and NTT20 Squad member Ryan Fisher was keen to highlight his out-of-possession quality.
“He seems to always pick up the correct positions to intercept passes and seems to win a lot of 50/50s. His willingness to constantly harass opposition players out of possession gives our midfield a bite that has been sorely lacking for such a long time.”
In the 2-0 win against Forest Green, he showed off his playmaking ability, having the most touches of any Doncaster midfielder and making three key passes. In games against Bradford and Crawley, his role was a defensive one: 11 tackles made across those two games.
His twin brother Michael has started 17 games for Reading this season in League One in a similar position — which has us dreaming of a Craig Twins double pivot at some point in the future. Matthew has the elite academy experience but is having to play catch up when it comes to senior league minutes. Early signs suggest that this is a player with an exciting future, and one we expect to see in League One next season.
Agree with our picks? Disagree? Let us know, and as ever… go well!