Sheffield United go top, Reading reach the play-offs, and is that a Crawlindseyssance?Plus Huw Davies on teams dispelling the doubters...
31 March 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 ●
Football weather…
Wherever you found yourself this spring weekend, I hope you caught some of that crisp, clear football weather. Blue skies. Warm pubs. Coat temperature for most, but shorts for around 1 in 300 people – not all heroes wear capes. Time to tap the trusty barometer again to gauge where we’re at.
Welcome to Weekend Notes.
🚨 Big Stories
A selection of decisive moments from across the EFL
🔝 Carry on up the charts
🥉 A non-mover at No.3, it’s Scott Parker and his Claret Army with ‘CONTROL’. Let’s hear it again for that clean sheet — Burnley 1-0 Bristol City.
There are no free hits in the Championship. But there are free kicks, and we saw a couple of beauties among the automatic promotion contenders. Zian Flemming put Burnley ahead after 16 minutes and Scott Parker’s side began to make themselves comfortable, only for Jaidon Anthony to miss three good chances to extend the lead. Still, they saw it out with ease and a familiar scoreline, and move level on points with a second-place side from Yorkshire.
🥈 Dropping to second, it’s Leeds United with ‘MESSLIER’ — Leeds 2-2 Swansea.
…turns out it’s a different Yorkshire side in second. And this one was a shock. Nick Goff on The Betting Show noted that Leeds had won by a 21-0 aggregate scoreline in 3pm home games this season. So, what happened after Brenden Aaronson punished poor defending to put them ahead inside a minute?
The short answer – as painful as it is to single someone out – is Illan Meslier. Having saved a first-half penalty to keep it 1-0, the Frenchman later spilled a cross for Harry Darling to equalise. Then, after Willy Gnonto made it 2-1 in the 86th minute, Meslier let a 96th-minute shot slip straight through his hands. As a presumably delighted Elis James – Swansea’s most commonly referenced fan – might have put it, “BASICS, BASICS, FUNDAMENTALS.”
🥇 That means the EFL’s No.1 goes to Chris Wilder and the Sharpening Blades with ‘WE JUST WIN’ — Sheffield United 3-1 Coventry.
Blades produced their best performance of the season on Friday night, making “#SHUCOV” sound like an order from the football gods. Rarely have they pressed this ferociously nor looked so dangerous on the counter.
It was tight at 0-0, until Gus Hamer opened things up with a stunning free kick against his former club. As Coventry tried for an equaliser, the Blades played through them with ease, Tyrese Campbell and Rhian Brewster scoring either side of half-time to seal it. Michael Cooper’s late clanger gave Coventry a consolation, but Wilder’s side have found some main character energy at the perfect time.
⌛ Big at Both Ends — Middlesbrough 2-1 Oxford — This is tough to take for U’s fans after a first half where they did almost everything pretty well. Boro dominated possession, yet Oxford were solid and somehow missed two great chances before taking the lead through a Helik-finished set piece.
Different story after the break. Michael Carrick’s side stepped up. Kelechi Iheanacho and Neto Borges scored to send Boro into 7th, with results elsewhere favouring that ever-fickle mistress: hope. Two points separates four play-off hopefuls, whilst Oxford’s gap to the drop remains four points.
🔥 Kiln Hell, Some Lovely Finishing — Stoke 3-1 QPR — Stoke were averaging less than a goal per game (37 in 38) heading into this, but some clinical finishing in the Potteries put the game beyond QPR before the hour. Although 18-year-old Min-Hyeok Yang pulled one back late with a brilliant strike, Mark Robins’ side had already done the damage, fully capitalising on teams around them slipping up and moving level with Oxford on 42 points.
🔻 The Six Pointer — Hull 0-1 Luton — Hull were probably the biggest losers in the Championship relegation battle. Luton had edged the game before the winner went in, but only just. That goal was comical: one defender smashed the ball into another’s face, and it bounced over the line. Them’s the breaks. Whisper it, but Luton have picked up 10 points in five games — their best run of the season, by my reckoning.
📘 The Greatest Story, Pt.1 — Reading 3-1 Peterborough — Whilst the second tier is providing plenty of spark, League One is hitting us with emotive plotlines. Reading making it into the play-offs would be a miraculous story. Posh were the latest obstacle to overcome and the Royals did just that, taking their opportunities (plus an own goal) while the visitors failed to convert their own, in a game that was closer than the 3-1 scoreline suggests. It moves Reading into 6th. It moves hearts and minds.
📕 The Greatest Story, Pt.2 — Rotherham 0-4 Crawley — The only unlikelier yarn would be a Crawlindseyssance. The latest rebirth is going well. After putting on a show but scoring just once last weekend, they doubled, tripled and quadrupled down here. Junior Quitirna lit up the match with some mazy footwork before teeing up Kamari Doyle for the opener; Rushian Hepburn-Murphy showed his skills to set up Doyle again; Panutche Camara crossed for Gavan Holohan, who finished well; and Camara rounded off the scoring with a deflected effort. Rotherham were sluggish, Steve Evans was called out by the fans (and then thrown out by the owner), and Crawley were bounding. Once again, I write: “They couldn’t, could they?”
🫨 Avale ye of your scepticism — Crewe 0-1 Port Vale — Into League Two, where a brilliant last-ditch tackle from Jesse Debrah stopped a countering Crewe side early doors in the early game. The Alex continued to have the better chances at 0-0, but this Vale side have entered one of Darren Moore’s glitches. Their net lived a charmed life; their opposition’s, a cursed one. An 86th-minute winner from Jayden Stockley keeps the automatic hopefuls thicker than a Frijj milkshake.
🦷 Crosby Stills the (g)Nashing Teeth — Tranmere 2-0 Cheltenham — Tranmere fans have had every right to feel frustrated this season, but Andy Crosby’s interim spell has yielded 11 points from five games. Arguably League Two’s form team, Rovers went ahead through a set piece and never looked back. They hit the bar and missed a couple of chances before, in the final moments, Cameron Norman won the ball high and smashed it through the keeper’s legs, sealing a vital win.
Tranmere are now seven points ahead of the ever-doomed Morecambe (who beat Swindon 1-0) and nine clear of mega-doomed Carlisle (who lost 3-0 to Doncaster).
📊 Monday Morning Cheat Sheet
From the WhatsApp group to the watercooler: stats to keep you ahead of the game.
🏅 Champ records — Only Leicester (86) in 2013/14 and Reading (91) in 2005/06 have won more points in the Championship after 39 games than Sheffield United have this season (85 but with -2).
✍️ Badly drawn boys — Which EFL teams spend most of their minutes drawing? In first place it’s Rotherham with 60.9%, then it’s Stoke and West Brom in joint second with 59.5% of their minutes, and in third place, it’s Burnley with 57.4% — fine margins.
🔻 Trail-blazers and Loss Leaders — Which teams have spent the most minutes losing within games? In first place, it’s Crawley with 41.2% of minutes, with Plymouth Argyle just 0.1 behind on 41.1%, and in third it’s Shrewsbury with 38.7%.
🆙 Lead Leaders — Which teams have spent the biggest proportion of minutes in the lead? Birmingham kick us off with 44.3%; in second, Sheffield United have spent 43.8% of their minutes ahead; and in third it’s Leeds with 42%.
🔁 The Road to Wigan… turnarounds? — The Latic’s late leveller against Barnsley marked the first time Wigan have taken any points from losing positions at any time this season - that’s pretty remarkable.
❌ Wimbledown when it matters — While every other team in the top 10 of League Two has won a positive number of points in the final 15 minutes of games, Wimbledon have dropped a grand total of 8pts in those periods.
🥅 Your friendly neighbourhood Burnley stat — Clarets have now kept 28 clean sheets in the Championship, with only Port Vale in 1953-54 (30) and Gillingham in 1995-96 (29) ever recording more in a single season in the top four tiers.
🍲 Cardifferent gravy — And not in a good way, because Cardiff have given away the largest share of their leads of any team in the Championship: 59%, or 13 of 22 leads.
♨️ Sheffield prefers relish — Funny, the above, because the team who have gained the most points from losing positions in the second tier this season were Cardiff’s opponents: Sheffield Wednesday (21 points).
⁉️ Goalsy AF — Ashley Fletcher equalled his career-best tally of 11 at the weekend, scoring a 6th goal in his last 9 games for Blackpool.
📐 The Right Angol — No player has scored more goals in League Two since the start of March than Morecambe’s Lee Angol, who has nabbed four in five for the Shrimps.
🎦 5ivelights
In no particular order, a collection of our favourite goals or clips from across the 72.
Robin van Hogan? Scottie so hottie with this yelp-inducing volley for MK.
Culture Club: Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Kama-Kamari Doyle — he’s very good, he’s very go-oo-oo-d.
In front of his former fans, Gus Hamer hammers home a 25-yard free kick.
Who did it better? Turns out that if you lie down in the wall, you have a great view of Zian Flemming’s set-piece brilliance for Burnley.
The Allen Key — Turning the screw just when Walsall needed it, Taylor Allen’s freekick kept Saddlers astride the top spot.
The View From…
“...you were saying?”
To me, Friday night established the weekend’s theme early: teams dispelling doubts and making a point or three. ‘You think we’re lacking, or lucky, or look unsustainable in our form; now sit yourself down and we’ll show you what’s what.’
Grimsby suggested they’re the real deal. Sat unexpectedly in the top seven alongside a horde of promotion favourites – clubs who can variously boast deep coffers, esteemed gaffers or a shiny plaque declaring them to have solved football – the Mariners have had to watch as people gush about Colchester behind their backs, on their shoulder, breathing down their necks with one of the best form lines in the country. With 7th place up for grabs, ColU grabbed the mic, looked to camera and challenged Grimsby to a ladder match.
And Grimsby smacked them down. Colchester’s equaliser should’ve given the hosts as much momentum as their mud-soaked pitch would allow, but after that goal, Grimsby outdid them 6-1 for shots from inside the box, 5-1 for shots on target and 1-0 for shots into the goal. After losing four away games in a row, they’ve taken 13 points from visits to Bromley, Doncaster, Cheltenham, Walsall and Colchester.
This was a massive victory, not just for pushing ColU back down the ladder but for the self-confidence it should bring. David Artell’s team have almost been dismissed as interlopers in the League Two promotion race, onlookers assuming they’ll eventually fall back to where they ‘belong’ (the same goes for Reading in League One, albeit for very different reasons, and they also won at the weekend to lodge themselves in the play-off places). Grimsby will not be moved.
Also on Friday night, Sheffield United made a statement. They didn’t need to prove anything to themselves, which Chris Wilder has communicated with great effect to his players and the fans, but to outsiders there’s been a touch of ‘the lady doth protest too much’ in his insistence that the haters don’t faze him and performance statistics can do one because, “We win games of football”. Don’t we all crave recognition for success after working to earn it? Well, this 3-1 win over 5th-placed Coventry was Wilder’s flex. Top off. Guns out. SIIUUU. You must be impressed now.
The pattern continued on Saturday. Mike Dodds’ Wycombe, cast as defeated challengers in Wrexham’s inexorable promotion epic, instead kept pace with a deserved victory over Lincoln. Norwich, the flighty data darlings, revealed backbone in resisting a Baggies barrage (7 shots on target, 4 big chances) and stabbing home a stoppage-time winner. Crawley crushed Rotherham 4-0 at their own gaff, getting their former manager sacked and hinting that their League One status and Scott Lindsay’s abilities may have been written off too soon this season.
In League Two, Chesterfield – chastised for a dreadful post-Christmas slump – made it 13 points from 5 matches to keep their faint play-off hopes alive. Morecambe beat Swindon to keep equally faint survival hopes alive. Statements, statements, statements. Even Walsall, whose winless run lengthened to seven matches, ensured they avoided defeat with a crucial late equaliser.
Last of all, not a club but a player. Middlesbrough faced Oxford, and after yet another poor first-half display in which he missed from close range and had Boro fans asking, “Whyyy?”, Kelechi Iheanacho was described by one member of the NTT20 Telegram group as “one of our worst ever signings”, a statement I repeat here not through derision but near-total agreement. He’s been woeful. But he stuck away a chance and Boro came back to win; despair dispatched, they’re level on points with the play-off places again. And wasn’t it heartening to see Tommy Conway give his beleaguered buddy a big cuddle to celebrate? Kel, grab some inspiration, belief and a crate of orange soda, and meet me at Wembley.
🏆 Fantasy Football
Go head-to-head against team NTT20 in our EFL Fantasy Football league
Our rules state that one simply has to pick a player who has made the cut in 0.1% or fewer other Fantasy Teams. This time, Sam picked Stags GK Christy Pym – not a bad shout, in a strong week.
A lovely 76-point haul and 16th place for the week in the NTT20 league, with all 7 players set to play again in midweek. Congrats to Gameweek 34’s table-topper, Krul Summer. And as ever, Mr Browne’s Boys, we applaud you.
Never expected to see myself top of the FEFL GW table on a Monday morning!