Five things in EFL: Whose 2025 will end on a high?
Whose 2025 will end on a high as BBC Sport looks at the stories to follow in Monday, 29 December EFL programme.
Image source, PA Media
Image caption,
Coventry face Ipswich as Frank Lampard's side look to stay top, while Marti Cifuentes' Leicester need a win to end a poor run
ByGideon Brooks
BBC Sport England
With just one game to go before 2025 is wrapped up, fans up and down football land will be starting to wonder which division they will be in come next season.
Some, like Coventry and maybe Cardiff, will be confident the omens look good, yet for Sheffield Wednesday and maybe Port Vale or Newport County they are, let us say, less bright.
But fear not stragglers and take stock leaders because football has a habit of keeping you on your toes just when you were are reaching for the slippers.
So as we prepare to bid farewell to the first half of the season, it is with one incontestable fact echoing and that is that nothing, apart from the year itself, is done and dusted yet.
Heavyweight clash to kick off proceedings
Image source, Shutterstock
Image caption,
Frank Lampard's Coventry City have led the Championship since October
There are no doubts about the headliners among the dozen Championship matches on Monday, with leaders Coventry and third-placed Ipswich kick-starting the entertainment in the earliest match (18:00 GMT) at the Coventry Building Society Arena.
Frank Lampard's side have an eight-point lead over Middlesbrough, with a further five back to pre-season favourites Ipswich.
But the Tractor Boys will be hopeful the bruises from their 3-0 victory in the reverse fixture on 6 December are still tender.
Despite that highlight, Kieran McKenna's side endured a December very much in keeping with a two steps forward-one step back type of season.
Either side of that crushing win over the Championship leaders, there were draws against Blackburn and on Boxing Day against Millwall, as well as a loss in between to Leicester City.
Consistency from week to week has not been their strong point this season.
For Coventry, a free-scoring opening to the season saw them grab top spot and they have not released it since.
But with just two wins out of five this month and only four goals scored, could they be experiencing a touch of mid-season dip?
After scrambling past Swansea on Boxing Day, a more emphatic three points here against a side who may yet turn out to be their closest rivals would be huge.
Is the exit door beckoning as pressure builds?
Image source, Shutterstock
Image caption,
Leicester City have lost their past two games either side of Christmas
Two managers, Narcis Pelach at Stoke City and Wayne Rooney at Plymouth, lost their jobs in the period between Christmas and New Year last season.
But Port Vale have already started the ball rolling by parting company with Darren Moore and potential dismissals are building everywhere you look.
Nowhere is the pressure building more than at the King Power, with Leicester City manager Marti Cifuentes under mountains of the stuff after an underwhelming start to his tenure and two damaging defeats – 4-1 to his old club QPR then 2-1 against Watford on Boxing Day.
The Watford loss saw his side booed off the pitch at home, and with the crowd getting restless the need for a victory over John Eustace's in-form Derby County looks a must.
West Brom manager Ryan Mason is another who will be fearing a tap on his shoulder following a run of four wins in 15, which sees his side closer to relegation in 16th than they are to the play-off positions.
Doncaster Rovers manager Grant McCann admitted he was "worried" about his side's form after a 1-0 defeat at Blackpool on Boxing Day made it just one win in their past 15.
Monday's trip to promotion-chasing Stockport County does not look easy.
While Matt Hamshaw is part-way through a rebuild at Rotherham United and was unlucky not to emerge with a point from a 2-1 defeat at Bolton on Friday, he also admitted his job could be under threat after seven matches without a win ahead of their trip to Blackpool.
Agyemang and Mason-Clark among strikers in form
Image source, Shutterstock
Image caption,
Derby County striker Patrick Agyemang has three goals in his last three games
There is nothing to warm's a manager's heart better than a fully-firing frontman, and there are four strikers in the EFL who could not be finishing the year in better form.
Ephron Mason-Clark scored the winner in Coventry's 1-0 win over Swansea for a sixth goal of the season but, more importantly, made it three games running where he has found the net.
Derby County's Patrick Agyemang has three goals in his past three games (six for the season), including in the draw against Birmingham on Boxing Day.
In League Two, Matthew Dennis is attracting admiring glances from teams higher up in the pyramid after notching 10 goals for Notts County, including three in his past five games (although he could not find the net in the recent draw against Walsall and defeat to Chesterfield).
Elsewhere, Emre Tezgel is in form for Crewe with five goals in the past six.
Credible mentions also go to Leo Castledine of Huddersfield, who has three goals in his past two, and Oldham's Michael Mellon, who has four in his past three outings.
All to play for at the top of League Two
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Swindon Town manager Ian Holloway whose side could be top at New Year
Who will finish top of League Two is very much up for grabs.
Walsall, who host Oldham on Monday, hold a slender one-point advantage over Bromley, with Swindon Town a further two points back in third.
Bromley travel to Crawley Town, while Swindon make the trip to face local rivals Cheltenham Town.
"It is going to be a long old run from now until the end of the season," Swindon manager Ian Holloway told BBC Radio Wiltshire after the 1-0 defeat at MK Dons on Boxing Day.
"There are some good teams in there and we are one of them."
Walsall may well be the least bothered about topping the table into January given their experience last year, when they took a huge points advantage into 2025 only to take 19 points from their final 21 games and slip into the play-offs.
Nice to see you again... or not
Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,
Millwall and Bristol City players clashed on New Year's Day in 2024
By quirk of the fixture computer, this round of EFL matches are the closest in proximity to the reverse fixtures, which took place for all just weeks ago in early December.
And that could leave not only some lingering tension but open wounds.
Millwall against Bristol City descended into a mass brawl as bosses Alex Neil and Gerhard Struber and a number of players and backroom staff clashed.
Familiarity, so they say, breeds contempt, and if there were any other flare-ups from the weekend of 6 December or the Tuesday and Wednesday of 9-10 December when all these teams faced off, it would not take much to spark them up again.
It will also be interesting to see whether managers are inclined to make significant tactical shifts with the recent evidence to hand, or whether they will stick with the original plan in order to prove themselves right at the second attempt.