Ali Maxwell, George Elek, Sam Parry, Huw Davies, Matt Watts
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Jatta looked in line to provide a tidy profit to County in the summer and it has been a bit of a road back to the starting XI for the Gambian, but his importance to The Magpies was demonstrated with his double on Saturday. Will he provide a monetary impact through a sale in January, or an on-pitch impact via promotion?
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It’s been a dramatic seven days or so in the Championship. The ‘most unpredictable league in the world’ has been all too predictable in recent years, but 2025/26 feels like a throwback.
In amongst the chaos, though, Coventry keep scoring goals and keep winning games of football. The unbeaten Sky Blues made it six wins in a row with a 3-1 victory over Watford: goals from Brandon Thomas-Asante, Jamie Allen and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto wrapped up the points before half-time, and a Watford red card tied the bow on top. Thomas-Asante has seven goals in his last six league games, taking him to nine for the season.
Millwall and Bristol City also recorded their three win in eight days. In fact, the Lions made it four on the bounce with a 1-0 victory over Leicester, as Femi Azeez’s fourth goal in four games proved to be the difference. Even Mihailo Ivanovic’s missed penalty couldn’t rain on Millwall’s parade. They remain 3rd, while Leicester drop to 10th after back-to-back defeats. At Ashton Gate, 4th-placed Bristol City beat Birmingham 1-0 courtesy of Sinclair Armstrong’s first goal in 11 months, and it was everything that fans want to see from the 22-year-old: a devastating turn of pace followed by a tidy finish.
At the other end of the table, things are going from bad to worse for Will Still and Liam Manning. Southampton dropped to 20th as Blackburn came from behind to win 2-1 at Ewood Park – their first home win of the season. Andri (son of Eidur) Gudjohnsen found the 86th-minute winner, moving Rovers out of the bottom three at the expense of Sheffield United, who blew a 2-0 goal in their 3-2 defeat to Preston on Friday night. Norwich find themselves in 23rd after a brace from Swansea’s Zan Vipotnik consigned them to their fifth consecutive defeat.
The only team below the Canaries are Sheffield Wednesday, who lost 2-1 at home to Oxford. After being sent into administration on Friday, the Owls have found their points tally reduced from 6 to -6; however, more than 27,000 fans were in attendance at Hillsborough on Saturday to celebrate Dejphon Chansiri’s reign of terror being over. Now the reboot begins.
League One
Huw Davies
There were two sackings in League One. First, however, a roaring Devon Derby on Thursday night provided the sound of the start of the weekend, as Exeter and Plymouth hurled themselves at each other from kick-off.
Exeter would maintain that intensity; Plymouth would not. Though Argyle could rue the luckless Brendan Wiredu having his goal disallowed at 0-0, Jayden Wareham wasted a good chance for the hosts and Ilmari Niskanen hit the inside of the post before Reece Cole secured the lead, punishing a defensive mix-up with devastating calm. That was all in the first 20 minutes. The remainder of Exeter’s 2-0 win was comfortable for them and deeply uncomfortable for Tom Cleverley, whose Pilgrims sit 22nd in the table. Twenty-second.
Now to Sacking No.1 – or No.4, because Darren Ferguson has left Posh for a fourth time, Darragh MacAnthony pulling the trigger while weeping for his friend.
Peterborough had put in a decent performance but lost 2-1 at home to Blackpool, giving Ian Evatt a win in his first match managing the club he represented on some 250+ occasions. Their opener was farcical, the closer fantastic, as Scott Banks went full Mr Whippy for the Seasiders. Just look at the tiny gap between boots that Banks has to aim for here.
Credit: EFL
That took Blackpool above Posh to the dizzy heights of 23rd, completing a bottom three of clubs who thought they’d be up the other end.
Sacking No.2 followed Reading’s 1-1 draw at home to Doncaster – no L, but Noel Hunt out, despite the nostalgia of Reading’s equaliser coming from a Mr K Doyle (Kamari, not Kevin). Even though Thimothée Lo-Tutala helpfully let Doyle’s long-range missile fly through him, Tom Clancy’s prediction came to pass: Hunt Fired, October.
Do these dismissals distract from the pressure on Lee Grant, or intensify it? Losing at Wycombe took Grant’s Huddersfield to four consecutive defeats in all competitions, three of those in the league. There isn’t much he could’ve done about Alfie May’s straight red card after 25 minutes, mind, as May – given a rare go at centre-forward – made his case for playing as a striker rather than a winger by scything down Fred Onyedinma on the touchline. Shot count before the sending-off: 5-0 to Huddersfield. Shot count after the sending-off: 22-0 to Wycombe. Result: Wycombe 3, Huddersfield 0.
Finally, a trio of significant one-nil-ers from the five (!) binary winners on Saturday. Bolton beat league leaders Cardiff through another Amario Cozier-Dubery stunner, coming in the 94th minute – the game’s first and last shot on target. Jack Wilshere is off the mark at Luton thanks to Lamine Fanne’s strike away to Northampton and Hakeem Odoffin’s stoppage-time stop on the goal line. And after Brad Collins had saved Omar Bugiel’s weak penalty, with the rebound hitting the post, Alex Hartridge headed home from a free-kick which meant Burton Albion headed home from Wimbledon with a win.
League Two
Sam Parry
Hayes Lane was an ideal venue for a lovely, big-coated Saturday afternoon. There were eight wins in the fourth tier, and six of the winners beat teams above them. Let’s have a look at those six.
Hayes Lane in the sun for Bromley 2-1 MK Dons
1) Bromley 2-1 MK Dons I was at this one, so let’s start here. Paul Warne’s MK took an early lead (5’) and sat on it. They sprung a few dangerous counters while allowing Bromley to fire in cross after cross after set-piece. That’s a risky business in the land of giants. Mitch Pinnock attempted 17 crosses and only four found a team-mate – quantity over quality, but the sheer quantity of pressure always felt like it would tell. Two centre-backs, two second-half goals, and Andy Woodman’s side climb into the thickets of a tightly-packed top half.
League Two before and after the weekend (source: soccerassociation.com)
2) Walsall 0-1 Cheltenham Leaders Walsall probably should have been ahead in the lunchtime kick-off against Cheltenham, but at 0-0 in stoppage time Jake Bickerstaff outmuscled his marker, cut back, and his cross pinballed in off Aden Flint for a mad, late and loopy victory. Steve Cotterill’s Robins have gone WDWW in his first four league games. Wowzers.
3) Harrogate 0-3 Newport On the back of three losses, Newport travelled north and put three past Harrogate. All three were symptoms of really poor defending, but to their credit, Newport forced the issue. Kai Whitmore was at the heart of it all, two assists taking his tally to six goal contributions in 13 matches.
4) Crawley 4-0 Bristol Rovers The biggest winners of the weekend were Crawley, who claimed only their third victory of the season. The game was notable for Tom Lockyer coming back to professional football and Bristol Rovers, but it wasn’t the return he’d hoped for.
Jack Sparkes’ red card for handball in the box was an odd one. Should a flailing arm as the ball is crossed count as denial of a goalscoring opportunity? Not sure. Either way, it was stupid in the extreme. Crawley missed the resulting spotkick but the floodgates were creaking open. Another loopy own goal, a deep cross and tap-in, a set-piece scramble, and an edge-of-the-box drive from Louis Flower made it four. Rovers have lost four league games in a row: 1-2, 0-4, 1-4, 0-4. Ugly stuff.
5) Salford 2-1 Gillingham Only one side in the top seven won. Enter Salford. Though it was shades smashy-and-grabby, they deserved it. Kallum Cesay broke lines with running and passing for the opener, then scored himself from a tight angle. He looked quality in the first half.
Digression: here’s what we wrote about Cesay’s signing this summer:
Between those two goals, Salford keeper Matthew Young saved a penalty, and not long after, Gills pulled one back through Josh Andrews’ lovely touch, turn and volley. It was 2-1 at half-time and stayed that way thanks largely to Adebola Oluwo’s second-half defending. Cesay, Young and Oluwo: three standout performers in back-to-back wins under Karl Robinson, who will be hoping for more green streaks and fewer red.
6) Crewe 3-2 Grimsby This was a cracking game that was 0-0 for less than six minutes. Grimsby scored twice through Jamie Walker; Crewe scored thrice through Emre Tezgel, who completed his hat-trick thrillingly late on 87 minutes. Dave Artell, managing against his old club, won’t be too concerned about his team’s display; they zipped it around in their usual way. The real story here is how Crewe rediscovered their attacking spark after a big dip in performances and results. If they can keep that up, we might need to readjust the readjustment on Lee Bell’s side.
Finally – although not one of the six – a word for Notts County, who beat Cambridge 2-0. On 17th August they had one point from three games and their star striker was suspended. Since then, no team has scored more, won more, nor collected more points. They’re two off top spot and rising fast, and what’s that — a brace from Alassana Jatta? Scary stuff, heading into the thick-and-fast of winter.
🔂 Cov’s Burnley inversion — Last season, barely a week went by where Burnley didn’t break some kind of defensive record; this season, Coventry are at it but the other way around. Their 34 goals in 12 games is the most by any second-tier team after this stage since Wolves in 1965/66 (also 34).
🎩 Glad Hatters — In Jack Wilshere’s first away game as Luton boss, they earned their first league victory at Northampton since February 2001, ending a run of four straight defeats there.
🦁 Four Lions (goals) — Femi Azeez has scored in four consecutive Championship games; he’s the first Millwall player to do so since Tom Bradshaw in 2021/22.
💲 Robin the rich — Bristol City’s 1-0 win over Birmingham gave them three league victories in a row for the first time since December 2023.
🟥 Givin’ it to the poor — MJ Williams’ red card was Barrow’s third dismissal in 14 League Two games, which is already one more than in their entire 2024/25 season.
🫵 “Whose side are you on?” — Playing for this week’s opponents, Colchester United, former Swindon players Ellis Iandolo (172), Rob Hunt (107) and Jack Payne (88) had more Robins appearances to their name than Ian Holloway’s starting XI put together.
💪 Fleetwood fightbacks — Fleetwood have won 10 points from losing positions this season, more than any EFL side – and nine of them in their last five matches.
⏺️ Alfie May hits record — On his 333rd English league appearance, Huddersfield’s Alfie May was sent off for the very first time in his career.
⏰ Late-Late Bolton — Amario Cozier-Duberry’s last three League One goals for Bolton have all come after 90 minutes; no EFL team has scored more stoppage-time goals this season (5).
