We’re about that time in the lower leagues’ season where many clubs are playing an uneven amount of games. I hate it because it’s difficult to gauge just who really is where in the tables. Are Doncaster Rovers really the 12th-best team in League One? I don’t know!
But we’re still going to do a quick roundup of the other clubs in the English football system. There’s been a lot of club football lately, international matches be damned.
We’re about 25% of the way done with the season and one thing’s for certain: It is very, very tight at the top. Just two points currently separate first from sixth, although some teams have a game (or in Stevenage’s case - two) in hand. Again, this makes it difficult to determine just who is where.
There are a couple things we do know, though. It’s a rough season for Luton Town, who are 5-1-6 in the league and sitting 14th. Just below them? Leyton Orient, who last season were 90 minutes away from promotion to the Championship.
I feel like I have been waiting years for Salford City to be decent after it was taken over by all those former Man U players in 2014. But here we are, more than a decade later, and they’re still on the bubble of the League Two playoff picture.
But at least they’re not Newport County. In a year that’s bringing such great news to other Welsh clubs, Newport are in danger of getting bounched out of the Football League.
I never thought I’d say this, but there are some fun clubs in here I’d like to see on the television. A lot of them I remember from my Fifa days (which were very brief), where I’d loan out my player to these kinds of clubs like Scunthorpe United.
Speaking of Scunthorpe, they’re currently sitting fourth after promotion from the National League North last season.
(Yes, I had trouble with the numbering at the end, but Rochdale is 1, Southend 7).
Fitzie’s track of the day: Sundown, by Gordon Lightfoot
And now for your links:
The Athletic ($$): “Tottenham embody this season’s Premier League: Set pieces, long throws, and no cohesion”
Football London: “Xavi Simons needs more time to bed in at Tottenham, Thomas Frank insists”
BBC: “‘We have to pull fans back together’ - Nuno has a ‘problem’ at West Ham”
The Guardian: “‘Little Magpie’ José Mourinho relishing taking Benfica to Newcastle”