The Lower League Week – Posh Peterborough slaughter the Royals

Wolves Packed with Talent

Wolves’ strong start to the season continued on Friday night against Crawley. Having the depth to leave last year’s SPL second top scorer Leigh Griffiths on the bench, they began with Kevin Doyle and Bjorn Sigurdarson up front, and took the lead through Sigurdarson.

It was an impressive but inconsistent display, with some really good passing and some excellent crosses in particular. But they didn’t take advantage of their opportunities, and Crawley broke through the Wolves’ defence a few times themselves.

Crawley’s stoppage time equaliser would have given Crawley a deserved point, where it not for a slightly debatable penalty, which Griffiths tucked away. It was a good display from Wolves, with some glimpses of the quality few players in League One are capable of, but they’ll need to be more consistent to keep up their position near the top.

Carlisle Go a Whole Week Without Losing by Four

It’s been a particularly awful start to the season for Carlisle. Despite edging out Blackburn in the League Cup, they lost each of their first three league games by four goals, making their Friday game at Colchester, who had two wins against promoted sides and a draw against Sheffield United, a crucial one.

In each of their first three league matches Carlisle have started badly, going behind inside 25 minutes every time and being 3-0 down at half-time two times out of three. But on Friday, it was the other way round. Brad Potts battled his way through some half-arsed Colchester defending to give Matty Robson the chance to strike from the corner of the box, powering the ball into the far corner. Colchester came back, equalising when a couple of clever passes gave Freddie Sears the chance to slot home and end the game with a draw.

In a shock turn of events, Carlisle were able to bring some self-respect home. Courtesy of Jameboy

Speaking on the WAGU Podcast, Jon Colman of Cumbrian Newspapers made the point that defence was Carlisle’s biggest problem last year – their 77 goals conceded was the worst in the division. Last year, they conceded four in league matches against Notts County, Bournemouth, Swindon and Leyton Orient twice.

But rather than making the defence the priority to strengthen over the summer, captures of forwards Lewis Guy, David Amoo and Adam Campbell show more resources seem to have been ploughed into the forward line. The release of experienced defenders Peter Murphy and Frankie Simek meaning that, at least before this week’s signing of Danny Butterfield, Carlisle’s defensive options were probably weaker than last year.

A 5-2 midweek defeat to Leicester wasn’t ideal, particularly given that defence has been the Cumbrians’ long-standing problem. But given that Leicester are probably the strongest team Carlisle have played and it was the smallest of their four defeats in six, it was at least a small step in the right direction.

Didn’t He Do Wells

In Bradford’s weekend victory over Sheffield United, Nahki Wells scored in his eighth scuccessive game, the first Bradford player to do so. In that time he’s scored two braces, including three of his side’s five goals in the playoff semi-final. The achievement is slightly less impressive in that Wells had a three month break in the middle to recharge his batteries, rather than having fatigue set in over the course of the run of games, but it’s certainly nothing to be sniffed at.

Goals Galore for Coventry

Possibly the worst cliché in football is that ‘you couldn’t write this kind of drama’ – which a commentator will come out with after a late goal – exactly the kind of obvious twist you’d expect from a hack writer trying to be vaguely surprising.Going up one level on the excitement scale, there’s games like Newcastle’s now legendary 4-3 defeat to Liverpool, and Everton’s 4-4 draw with Manchester United a few years back – the type of surprising match that come along once in a blue moon.

Then there’s Coventry’s start to the season – the amount of goals both for and against being insanely high.

After starting the season with 3-2 defeats to Crawley and Leyton Orient in the league and cup respectively, they beat Bristol City 5-4 in their first ‘home’ match at Northampton, won 4-0 at Carlisle, and at the weekend drew 4-4 at ‘home’ to Preston, who have one of the division’s better strike forces.

Though Leon Clarke is the bigger name, Callum Wilson ran the show at the weekend. The 21-year-old ran 40 yards and still managed to be composed enough to pick out Clarke for the first goal, then scored twice himself. The goals saw him outpace a defender with a yard or two’s head start, and play a tight pass into the centre and remain sharp enough to immediately look for the next phase of play – both goals that were very impressive in their way.

His five goals makes him the joint top scorer in League One, alongside Bradford’s Wells.

Given Wilson’s influence on their strong start and the fact that the Sky Blues started the season with two young centre halves before adding Andy Webster, it’s a further boost that this week their Academy achieved Category Two status.By Academy Manager Greg Rioch’s count, youth products under the age of 21 made 141 appearances last season, a figure that would be impressive for just about every club in the country.

As a result of starting the season on -10 points, Coventry, League One’s top scorers, are currently bottom of the league. Unfortunately, troubles off the field look set to define the Coventry City experience for the next few years, but on the field the Sky Blues are providing the type of mad excitement that football is at its absolute best.

Poolie Till I Cry

Mad excitement is not a phrase that could be used to describe Hartlepool United’s start to the season. Depending on interpretation, the lowlight of Pools’ season so far could be failing to get any shots on target at York, or failing to score against ten men Southend for 45 minutes. Pools now haven’t scored in the opening four league games – the last of the teams in the Football League and Conferences not to have netted in a league match. It’s not a recent problem either – the home team has failed to score at Victoria Park in 33 of the most recent 66 matches.

As a Hartlepool fan, I’m confident that the current position of second from bottom will be improved on by the end of the season, but the ongoing lack of goals is a millstone to any hopes of development.

Posh Slaughters are Common

It’s not been a bad week for Peterborough. At the weekend they beat Tranmere 5-0. Admittedly against a team who’ve only one point and are going through their worst start in 32 years, but you can’t sniff at that kind of result.

They’ll have expected a midweek League Cup tie against recently ex-Premier League Reading to prove a sterner test…yet they won 6-0. Reading rested key players like Royston Drenthe, Nick Blackman and recent Liverpool target Alex Pearce, but recognisable names like Adam Federici, Adam Le Fondre and Pavel Pogrebnyak started. Peterborough have now scored 23 in six, winning all their games.

Despite the speed at which they’ve adapted to League One, they’ve had obstacles that could potentially have disrupted them. The job of replacing Dwight Gayle was only completed three days before the season started when Britt Assombalonga signed, while Tyrone Barnett, who has been on the transfer list since November for disciplinary reasons, has scored three goals in six games. Squad player Nathaniel Mendez-Laing and Gabriel Zakuani, who played every minute of the season until midweek, are also transfer-listed because of the same incident, while Tommy Rowe, who was transfer listed after rejecting a new contract offer, has played a part in every game, scoring three. Lee Tomlin, who slapped in a transfer request in the summer, has been a key player, netting six in six (albeit three from the penalty spot).

During Darren Ferguson’s two spells in charge of Peterborough, they’ve won three promotions, but never as champions. Given that Peterborough picked up 42 points from the last 25 games in the Championship last year and have made very few changes in or out, there seems a strong chance that could be improved upon.

Peterborough fans will probably have a lot of fun this year. Courtesy of Richard Humphrey

Chesterfield’s Backbone

The key to winning titles, apparently, is grinding out wins when not playing well.

If that’s true, then Chesterfield’s weekend win – opening the scoring and grabbing a stoppage time winner to defeat Southend 2-1 is their best result so far. Southend had won all of their first three games, while Chesterfield now have 10 points from four games, sitting just one goal off the top of League Two.

Chesterfield manager Paul Cook, despite seeing his side create twice as many shots and shots on target as their visitors, described the display as ‘lethargic’ – but squeezing out a victory against a team with a perfect record is nothing to be sniffed at. Gary Roberts has settled in quickly, his goal being his third since his summer move from Swindon, where he won League Two two years ago. He’s looked very impressive and direct even on highlights – that and the manager’s insistence that the statistically impressive weekend display was disappointing both bode well for the season as a whole.

Wycombe’s Financial Wonders

It’s always a tough balancing act between retaining the club’s best players and cashing in to strengthen the squad. Wycombe Wanderers have done very well this week, picking up a “generous” portion of Matt Phillips’ £5 million transfer from Blackpool to QPR, while they’ve sold Charles Dunne, a left-back in the last year of his contract, to Blackpool and loaned him back until the end of the season.

Not a bad bit of business.

Super Cooper?

It was Mark Cooper’s first game as permanent manager of Swindon at the weekend, and he was denied a debut victory by Cody McDonald’s late equaliser. Despite a mildly disappointing result, reports suggest that Swindon’s short passing game was generally dangerous and exciting, rather than the Robins coasting towards victory while offering little.

Midweek was more impressive, with Nile Ranger scoring his first goal for the club in a 2-0 victory over a QPR side that included Wright-Phillips, Jenas, Faurlin, Austin and Zamora.

While the upset is a step in the right direction for Cooper’s reign, there could still be departures as the new board look to cut their cloth. Most notably is former captain Paul Caddis, frozen out by Paolo di Canio after leading his side to the League Two title, seemingly because his newborn baby was affecting the intensity of his pre-season training.

A slightly childish game of ‘he said, well he said …’ has broken out between Caddis and the new chairman Jed McCrory, with the pair conducting their discussions through local radio rather than in person. The chairman has claimed that Caddis refused to take part in last season’s playoffs, as he saw his future with Birmingham, and Caddis has insisted that “There’s been reports I’ve asked to leave the club, which is not true. I want to help the club and I’m not being allowed to do that.”

Despite playing 28 times in the Championship last season, Caddis has been frozen out of first team action this year, and has reportedly turned down a move to Blackpool. Both sides are cutting things close if they want to avoid an outcome that harms themselves as well as each other.

Probably a difficult season ahead for Swindon. Courtesy of Berswin

MK Dons Undone Late On

After a disappointing season last year in which the perennial playoff competitors didn’t even come close to what has been their normal region of the table, MK Dons have started the season relatively slowly. Having scored only one goal in two very winnable ties against Shrewsbury and Crewe (collecting four points) the Dons drew 2-2 in successive matches against Preston and Bristol City, with former Don Sam Baldock scoring twice for City. It’s a mixed start that sees Karl Robinson’s side in 10th place with six points, but still undefeated.

The mixed start continued a slight upward curve with a 2-0 lead at Sunderland, through Patrick Bamford’s strike from range and Izale McLeod racing through the defence before chipping the keeper from distance. But the Mackems’ superior firepower asserted itself in the end, with di Canio’s men scoring four times in the last quarter of an hour to win the tie. A disappointing way to end the match, of course. But MK Dons have scored twice against strong opposition for the third game in a row, and McLeod, scorer of 54 goals in his first spell at the club, has opened his account for the season.

Rest of the News

Leyton Orient continued their strong start to the season, winning their fourth league game of the season to stay top of League One, before losing by a single goal in extra time against Hull.

Bristol City are struggling a little to adapt to League One, having picked up two points from four games, while promoted Gillingham have achieved the same points.

Oxford have proven that their opening day victory over Portsmouth was no fluke, leading League Two with 10 points. Last year’s playoff finalists Northampton have lost all but their victory over promoted Newport, who are in the playoffs with seven points.

Bristol City knocked Crystal Palace out of the League Cup, Notts County pulled a 2-0 deficit against Liverpool back to 2-2 before losing in extra time, while Bury lost to a strong Norwich side 6-3 in normal time.

Burton pushed Fulham all the way to a penalty shoot-out, while Tranmere followed up their weekend 5-0 defeat by knocking Bolton out of the League Cup, 4-2 on penalties.