It was Bonfire Night recently and League 1 has definitely started with a bang. Many twists and turns have occurred already with many more still to happen before now and the end of the campaign.
Who Has Started Well?
Stockport County, Bradford City, Stevenage and Lincoln City have all been early surprise pacesetters, alongside Bolton Wanderers and Cardiff City who many expected to be up there.
League 1 Relegation Candidates
At the other end of the table, Plymouth manager Tom Cleverley has been under increasing pressure and Blackpool And Peterborough United have both changed their own Head Coach. Port Vale are the other team in the relegation places currently. Posh have improved since this with a resounding 5-0 win against Wimbledon who sit just outside the playoffs being a real coupon buster. In the Fa Cup, they also knocked out high-flying Cardiff City in the first round.
With this being said, mid-table Burton Albion surprised the league with a 2-1 win away at Graham Alexander’s Bradford City on the 8th November. Rotherham United are another of those mid table teams but they turned over Lincoln City 3-0 on the same day.
Of course there will be many more twists and turns to come in League 1 before now and the end of the season but it would be a shock to not see Stockport County go up, despite having one of the smallest budgets in League 1, Dave Challinor has them playing some brilliant football. Bolton Wanderers and Cardiff City should both have strong seasons as well and with the January transfer window around the corner, both will be able to strengthen if needed.
I have to mention Burton Albion as well after their impressive win Saturday away at Bradford City. Honestly, midtable should be classed as a success. Gary Bowyer is a very clever manager and with players like Jake Beesley, Charlie Webster and JJ McKiernan to name a few, the yellow and black’s shouldn’t struggle.
A 6-0 win against St Albans recently got Burton into the second round of the FA Cup where they will face League Two side Crawley Town, beat them and who knows one of the big sides could be visiting the Pirelli Stadium.
Barnsley’s Davis Keillor-Dunn, Bolton’s Mason Burstow and surprisingly Plymouth man Lorent Tolaj all share the top scorer accolade in the third tier at this stage in the campaign. Assists wise, it’s Bolton again leading the way this time with Amario Cozier-Duberry.
A few more names to throw into the hat who could have big seasons are Bobby Pointon at Bradford City and Rob Street at Lincoln City. Pointon has become a mainstay in that Bradford City team despite bring just 22 years old. Street had a very fruitful loan spell in League Two with Doncaster Rovers, a season which saw the 24 year old score 12 goals in just 22 games in the league.
With goals scored, Bradford City sit at the top of the summit with 24 goals in just 15 games. On goals conceded Stevenage are tough to break down and this is shown in the fact they’ve conceded just 11 goals in 13 games.
To finish up with I want to mention three players who have really impressed me since the start of the campaign. Bradford City captain Max Power, Stockport County man Ollie Norwood and Burton Albion’s Charlie Webster. The reason behind choosing those 3 is simply put, consistency, very rarely if at all do any of them drop below a 6/10 rating on Sofascore. This trio all helptheir team’s tick and it’s no coincidence that all are midfielders.
Thank you for reading, and I look forward to any feedback because I’m bound to have missed somebodies team or a standout player.
