Five things to look out for in EFL: Old faces, new places

Rotting pumpkins and burnt-out sparklers litter the garden, another international break looms and we're at the end of another of those gruelling 'nine-point weeks' in the Championship.

By tea-time on Saturday, almost every EFL side will be a third of the way through their season but the 2025-26 campaign is turning into the most open in memory across all three divisions.

We have friends, and some foes, reunited in the second tier, sack races heating up and subplots galore, and with last weekend's FA Cup first round games done and dusted it's back to regular business for League One and Two teams.

Here are five things to look out for across the EFL weekend.

Plastic snakes and spray-painted bedsheets at the ready, all eyes on Ewood Park on Saturday lunchtime.

John Eustace quit Blackburn last February to take over at Derby, dropping 16 places in the Championship table and swapping a play-off push for a relegation scrap

Rovers eventually finished seventh under Valerien Ismael, missing the play-offs by two points, while Eustace steered the Rams to 19th, one point clear of the drop.

While this 12:30 GMT kick-off is Eustace's first return to Ewood, it is not the first reunion, the rock-bottom Rams welcomed some very bitter Rovers fans to Pride Park in March in just Eustace's fourth match in charge and went 2-0 up inside seven minutes on their way to a 2-1 win, his first at the club after starting with three straight defeats.

Former Rovers players Andi Weimann, Danny Baath and skipper Lewis Travis have followed Eustace to Pride Park to add some more spice to this occasion.

Despite the subplots, the fixture also pits two of the division's in-form sides against one another.

Derby's 2-1 win over Hull City on Tuesday was a fourth straight win, while Rovers' 1-0 success at Bristol City the same evening was their third in succession.

At least one of those runs ends here, don't miss this…

Friday marks one year to the day since Mark Robins was sacked by Coventry to end a seven-and-a-half year stay at the Sky Blues, having steered them to within a penalty shootout of promotion to the Premier League the previous year.

Frank Lampard was named City boss three weeks later while Robins joined the Potters in January, and the rest, as they say, is history.

On Saturday, the two clubs meet with Coventry four points clear at the top after a blistering start to the season, though their unbeaten run was ended at Wrexham last week before they bounced back to come from behind and beat Sheffield United on Tuesday.

Three straight wins for Stoke, with nine goals scored and just one conceded, took them into second ahead of the weekend clash of the meanest defence in the division, with just nine goals conceded by Stoke in 14 games, against the leading scorers, with Coventry netting an astonishing 39 goals.

There was a sting in the tail for Robins on his first return to the CBS Arena last March when Sam Gallagher's double looked to have ensured the Potters a late 2-2 draw, only for Bobby Thomas to win it for Coventry in the 97th minute.

What we'd give for more drama like that on Saturday.

There's also another clash of promotion-chasers on Saturday which might have crept under the radar a bit.

Despite an injury crisis at Deepdale, a 2-1 win over Swansea on Wednesday was Preston's third straight victory and took them fourth ahead of their 12:30 GMT trip to Millwall, a point back in fifth after a 4-0 drubbing at Birmingham on Tuesday night.

If Paul Heckingbottom's men can make it four straight victories they would actually leapfrog Stoke into second, for a couple of hours, at least.

Quiz time. Of the 62 teams who both finished last season and started this one in the EFL, who has won the most points in 2025 so far?

Surely it's Coventry? Nope, not even close. It must be Bradford then? No. Wrexham? Afraid not.

Birmingham's back-to-back 4-0 home wins this past week took them up to 83 points and counting this year.

League One leaders Stockport are second with 78 while it's little old Charlton who are third, a further three points back, after their last-gasp win over West Brom at The Valley on Tuesday.

In a world where Sunderland have bounced straight from the Championship play-offs into the top four of the Premier League, is it really beyond the imagination to expect newly-promoted League One sides to be competing at the top of the second-tier?

There was a bit of heat on Chris Davies less than a fortnight ago after a meek 1-0 defeat at Bristol City, a fourth defeat in five away games without scoring.

However they head to Middlesbrough on Saturday brimming with confidence sat just two points outside the play-off places, and having scored as many goals in the past two matches as they did in the previous 11 combined in all competitions.

The side in sixth they are chasing? That would be Charlton, who rather edged through the nervy League One play-offs last year but have taken to the Championship like a, erm, Addick to water, with just three defeats in their opening 14 matches and the second best defence in the league with just 11 conceded.

That record will be tested on Saturday (15:00 GMT) as Nathan Jones heads back to his homeland to visit Wrexham, a club he previously referred to as "a circus" before backing down a bit, not that Phil Parkinson was buying it.

His Red Dragons have also found their feet following promotion, losing just one of their past eight games and going unbeaten in four at home, inflicting a first defeat on leaders Coventry last time out at the Racecourse to help them sit five points outside the play-offs themselves.

Popcorn at the ready, who can keep up with the Championship Joneses?

You can throw your cap over half a dozen sides at the top of League One with three points separating the top six sides going into the weekend, but those names are not necessarily the ones you might expect to be leading the fight for promotion.

Cardiff are the only team relegated from the Championship to be in the thick of things, with Luton floundering in 10th and with Jack Wilshere freshly at the helm ahead of their trip to fellow Hatters Stockport, who are top of the pile.

Before the season not many would have picked Peterborough and Blackpool to be in the bottom half, let alone make up the bottom two at this stage, while Reading were fifth-bottom and like the previous two also sacked their manager, swapping Noel Hunt for Leam Richardson in an attempt to boost their fortunes, it certainly began well as the Royals beat Stevenage 1-0 on Thursday night.

Another two sides expected to challenge for promotion were Huddersfield and newly-relegated Plymouth, who meet on Saturday (15:00 GMT) off the back of three straight defeats each, with Lee Grant's Terriers already six points off the play-off pace and Tom Cleverley's Greens third-bottom with nine defeats in their opening 14 games.

You feel corner flag pictures might already be waiting in draft folders in this brutal division.

Death... taxes... League Two being utterly bonkers.

Just five points separate the top 13 sides in the fourth tier and you might forgive Walsall fans for feeling a spot of deja vu.

After a run of 19 points from seven games took them top of the table, where they were for the majority of last season before capitulating, Mat Sadler's men have taken a single point from their past three games against Crawley, Barrow and Cheltenham, all struggling in or near the relegation zone at the time.

The Saddlers head to rock-bottom Newport on Saturday (15:00 GMT) and, should they lose for a third straight game, could find themselves as low seventh by the full-time whistle of Cheltenham v Notts County on Monday night.

You can follow the entire EFL programme as it happens on the BBC Sport website and app, starting with live text coverage of Watford v Bristol City on Friday (20:00 GMT).

We will have live text commentary on the Championship, League One and League Two campaigns all season on BBC Sport.