Leagues One and Two winners and losers ahoy
We turn our attention to Leagues One and Two as the Premier League and Championship are having a hiatus…
Winners
Ryan Lowe
If it is true that you start as you mean to go on, nobody gave the memo to Ryan Lowe and his high-flying, table-topping band of merry green men. Plymouth returned empty-handed from their opening-day visit to Rotherham United, hardly troubling the tight-fisted Yorkshiremen, but 11 games later, New York Stadium remains the only lowlight of a campaign which sees the Pilgrims top the League One table thanks to a 2-1 victory over Burton Albion.
The first half was sweeping, the second just about the perfect rearguard action as Lowe’s side showcased the best of both worlds in front of the Home Park home fans. The teams behind them have games in hand, but Lowe has previous when it comes to promotion – two in his three full seasons as a manager, both from League Two with Argyle and Bury. If Lowe spent the majority of his playing days in the bottom two rungs of the EFL, his managerial ceiling looks far higher.
The Ipswich Gatracticos
Ipswich’s incredibly embarrassing start was never going to last. Already, automatic promotion looks a bridge too far, but Paul Cook’s side are stirring up some semblance of form. One defeat in six and three wins in four sees the Tractor Boys chug their way up into mid-table as the dozen-and-a-half new signings begin to bed into something resembling a team.
23rd-placed Shrewsbury Town at Portman Road should always be a home banker, but there are few clubs in the last five years who have under-defied expectations quite so regularly as the Suffolk outfit, who for the first time in a long time, are looking up. If many of the new boys are yet to find form for their new employers, QPR loanee Macauley Bonne is making up for it. Having been denied in the build-up to the opener, the former Charlton forward still managed to bag his ninth goal of the campaign. Whatever happens to Ipswich, expect to see that man back in the second tier next season.
Record-breaking Wycombe
Morecambe ran them close in the last home outing, but Gillingham never looked like threatening Wycombe’s incredible run of home form; seven successive Adams Park victories for the first time ever, striding across this season and last. A two-goal advantage courtesy of the evergreen Gareth McCleary and Gills old boy Brandon Hanlan in the opening seven minutes was apt for lucky number seven in this sequence of successes in Buckinghamshire.
When promotion contenders were being discussed at the start of the season, few had Gareth Ainsworth’s side in line for an immediate return to the second tier. The Chairboys are sitting pretty as perennial underdogs.
The New Uniteds – Sutton and Hartlepool
On a day without any Championship and little League One action, it was fitting that the two teams who were plying their trade in the National League last season continued to prove their worth to the EFL. United we may fall, but these Uniteds are continuing their respective rises, and in quite incredible style too.
Sutton inflicted a taste of Port Vale’s own medicine upon the Valiants with two late goals to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat while Hartlepool maintained their unbeaten home record since returning to the EFL by coming from behind against Northampton. The victories leave the two teams either side of the play-off line and continuing the trend of promoted teams to this level almost always doing well. Don’t be surprised to see either still in their current positions come the end of the season.
Swindon Town
Sutton and Hartlepool may be showcasing their abilities as promoted sides by punching above their expected weight, but Swindon’s summer had all the hallmarks of a side who would become a catastrophe club.
Relegation from League One and the 30-day reign of manager John McGreal without taking charge of a competitive game made the Robins seem as if they would be flying south for more than just the winter, but as the cold mornings set in, Ben Garner’s side are feeling cosy in the top three. In front of the television cameras, Swindon went to local rivals Forest Green and departed Nailsworth with all three points to further their promotion credentials and continue their yo-yo status between Leagues One and Two.
It may not be the most glamorous existence, but it is far rosier than the future they appeared to have back in June.
Harrogate Town
Every time you think Harrogate Town have reached a new high, the Yorkshiremen continue to defy the expectations of even the most optimistic of Town fans. Against Scunthorpe, even the most pessimistic of Iron supporters would have struggled to believe just how bad this afternoon would become, but for now, the focus is on Harrogate.
Three goals up after quarter of an hour, a fourth goal added on 30 minutes and a fifth in front of the travelling away fans on the stroke of half-time meant Simon Weaver’s side were breaking records left, right and centre. Their goals were evenly distributed across the pitch as their personnel looked a metre faster, an inch taller, and every bit more determined and better than their pitiful counterparts.
Six goals scored for the first time in the EFL in front of an all-time record crowd made this a day to remember for all the right reasons for a club who show no signs of slowing down.
Lee Gregory
The last time Lee Gregory played at League One level, he scored 17 times in 37 games for a promoted Millwall side. In four Championship seasons since, he has scored a further 30, a mediocre but unimpressive return.
On his seventh start for new club Sheffield Wednesday, the former Stoke City forward hit his third goal – the 33-year-old’s fifth goal involvement of the term – to give the Owls the edge over fellow promotion hopefuls and fallen giants Bolton Wanderers. A difficult month for the club and for many individuals, Gregory is the man of the moment, and potentially many more for the Hillsborough side.
His instinctive finish showed the hallmarks of a player finding his feet at a level with which he is well accustomed. Continue to shine and he may be the wise old owl who helps earn Darren Moore’s side an instant return to the Championship.
Cole Stockton
Morecambe didn’t play, so Cole Stockton didn’t get a chance to be ridiculously incredible, but he’s a winner for being so almost every time the Shrimps have played this season.
Losers
Chris Beech
It had been a long time coming. Carlisle sacked manager Chris Beech in the wake of the 3-0 defeat at Bristol Rovers. In truth, that announcement could have come at almost any time since the Covid outbreak happened, but the hammering at the hands of Joey Barton’s side was a worthy final straw.
There are a multitude of problems at Brunton Park, and ending Beech’s time in the city does not solve much. However, while Beech was far from the biggest problem at the League Two strugglers, it was long apparent he was no longer the solution. Having initially guided the club away from the danger of relegation from the EFL in his first half-season in charge before starting 2020/21 with a flurry of new signings to finish 10th, this campaign saw Carlisle back where they started. Two draws and three defeats across their last five games see Beech’s former employers staring relegation from the Football League in the face once more.
Time for Sol Campbell?
Scunthorpe United, the non-crisis Crisis Club
Rewind back to the summer of 2018 and Scunthorpe United were just three games away from a place back in the Championship. Three and a half years later, the Iron are staring an exit from the Football League for the first time in their history.
Unlike fellow relegation zone strugglers Oldham Athletic and a plethora of clubs who have experienced such heartache through incompetent or downright useless and pathetic owners, Scunthorpe have not reached this point through a crisis. Yet they sit bottom of the Football League with an inexperienced, imbalanced, incredibly undertalented squad with a manager who is all passion and little skill, looking over their shoulders at the wilderness that is life below the EFL for former Football League sides.
Chairman Peter Swann chose this week of all weeks to tell Scunthorpe fans they expected too much. Not even with all the PR guff in the world can he begin to levy that excuse at a passionate, but disillusioned Iron fanbase. This club is made of stronger stuff, but the team isn’t. A series of bad decisions, one after the other, have led Scunthorpe to this point. Whatever decisions come next offer no guarantee of getting a club in freefall to arrest the slide. That’s criminal ownership and running of a club from Swann.
Vadaine Oliver
A nomadic experience in his younger days followed by being part of the York City side relegated to National League North meant Vadaine Oliver’s career very easily could have ended before it had even taken off. But redemption was achieved at Morecambe and Northampton Town before a career-best season with Gillingham in 2020/21, notching 17 goals.
This season, Oliver has continued that steady spree with four strikes, but missed a glorious chance to get Gillingham back into the Wycombe game, spooning a penalty over the crossbar to halve the deficit. As Gillingham continue to slide down the league, such chances can not be spurned.
Bailey Peacock-Farrell
Having begun his loan spell from Burnley in fine fettle, Northern Ireland goalkeeper Peacock-Farrell impressed with his shot stopping skills, but that had never been his problem. In his time at Leeds United, the custodian rarely had problems keeping good shots out, but he did have a penchant for conceding bad goals from his own errors.
At Wednesday, the same errors were creeping in, and the mind still boggles at how he allowed an Ipswich Town forward to take the ball from his feet in a recent League One outing. Be it in the Premier League or the pub leagues, lapses such as that are almost always going to be punished. Called away on international duty, Joe Wildsmith deputised in BPF’s place, and kept Wednesday’s first clean sheet since August. That will not have pleased the number one.
Salford City
It’s not a disaster by any means, but Salford look set for another season of mediocrity in League Two. In their third season at this level, the Class of ’92 owned side look a long way off the top seven sides already, and a full house of campaigns without at least a play-off finish is not what Gary Neville and Co. would have wanted for the Ammies.
Losing 2-1 to a Walsall side below Salford in the table is another nail in the coffin for manager Gary Bowyer, the latest in a line of managers able to deliver above mediocrity for a side who once knew nothing but superiority. While Sutton, Hartlepool and Harrogate continue to punch above their weight, Salford seem settled in this class. But settling will not do for owners and investors with the loftiest of ambitions.
Nigel Clough
It is difficult to count on one hand the number of consecutive seasons Mansfield Town have found themselves tagged as League Two promotion favourites. For all the shiny new squads assembled and for all the managers brought into get the best of them, the Stags perennially flatter to deceive.
The hiring of Nigel Clough in November 2020 was supposed to change that, but it is looking like more of the same at Field Mill. In guiding the club to 16th, Clough did a mediocre task but it was his first full season from where judgments would arise. A home fixture with crisis club Oldham represented a chance to kickstart the season, and with it, Clough’s reign at his latest Midlands club. But things are heading south quickly as Mansfield succumbed to a goalless stalemate with the Latics, ensuring it is just two wins from their opening 11 fixtures. Only the aforementioned Carlisle, Oldham and Scunthorpe sit below them in the EFL. They may just about not be the worst club in League Two, but they are the biggest underachievers. With every passing game, Clough shoulders more and more of that responsibility.