L4 | S1 | W4: Port Vale’s fortress holds as Luton Town storm to the summit in Group 4

📰 Week 4 in Review – Season 1

Four weeks in and the La Rochelle groups are beginning to sort themselves out – though with 26 games still to play, nothing is close to settled. The most extraordinary story in the league remains Port Vale’s defensive record: four games, ten points, and still not a single goal conceded. They drew 0-0 at Sheffield Wednesday this week – a result that felt entirely deliberate. Andres Iglesias’s side are running away with Group 3, and the closer you look at how they’re doing it, the more impressive it becomes.

In Group 4, Luton Town edged above St Mirren at the summit on goal difference after putting three past Burton Albion. David Jeffery’s side were held to a goalless draw by Bradford City – their first dropped points – but remain level on ten points and are far from finished. Group 1 stayed deadlocked at the top, while Group 2 suddenly got interesting as Swansea City tasted their first defeat of the season.

🏆 Group 1 – Top of the table

Manchester City and Cork City remain level at the summit on ten points – both won this week and neither is showing any sign of slipping. Ady Lippiatt’s City beat Barnet 2-1, goals from Wijnaldum on 33 minutes and Suárez just after the break doing the damage before Kane pulled one back for the visitors. Meanwhile Cork City earned a 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest in a match that turned in the second half. Larsson struck twice, on 61 and 69 minutes, to complete the turnaround after Turkyilmaz had levelled. Wayne Mullins will know that keeping Larsson fit and firing is key to everything.

The week’s most quietly significant result came at Home Park. Plymouth Argyle beat Celtic 1-0 – Hodges scoring on 58 minutes – and the combination of that result and Walsall’s 0-0 draw with Doncaster reshuffled the standings below the top two. Celtic drop to fourth on six points and Plymouth climb to sixth, having been third from bottom just two weeks ago. Gordon Ottershaw’s side have now won two on the bounce and are beginning to look like a genuine mid-table force rather than an early-season struggler.

📉 Aberdeen sit tenth on four points after a 1-1 draw with Norwich – a side that is itself currently unmanaged. Alex Ferguson’s squad carries a rating of 313 and an experience figure of 40, among the highest in the group. A club with those numbers sitting in a Division 3 starting position after four games is not where anyone expected them to be. The recovery will need to start soon.

💙 Group 2 – The chasing pack closes in

Gavin Williams’s Swansea City had won all three of their opening fixtures and were looking increasingly like the group’s dominant force. This week Sutton United knocked them off. Daffy Duck’s side won 2-1 – Shearer opening on 16 minutes and Verth-Brown adding the decisive second on 85 minutes, with Anthrobus having levelled in between. Swansea remain top on nine points, but Liverpool and Southampton are both on eight, with Lincoln City, Sutton United, and Cambridge United all on seven. The Group 2 table is now congested in a way it simply wasn’t a week ago.

Lincoln City produced the most emphatic performance in any group this week. Will Hayward’s side put four past Grimsby Town – Oakes opening on six minutes before Dalmonte made the afternoon his own, scoring on 24, 38, and 65 minutes. Lincoln have an experience rating of 47, the highest in the group, and they looked every bit of it. Grimsby remain unmanaged, which hardly helped their cause. Lincoln’s goal difference of +3 ties them with Liverpool at the top of that column – not where most people expected them to be after a difficult start to the campaign.

🔍 Livingston are quietly worth watching. Andy Sillars’s side won 1-0 against West Brom – Cordoba scoring on 13 minutes – to climb six places to ninth. They were 15th just two weeks ago. Their experience rating of 46 is the joint highest in the group, yet they spent the opening weeks treading water. That combination – experienced squad, quiet climb through the field – tends to develop into something more significant as the season progresses.

❤️ Group 3 – Port Vale’s clean sheet run reaches four

Port Vale were held goalless at Sheffield Wednesday this week. In most circumstances a 0-0 away from home barely registers. In the context of what Andres Iglesias is building, it was another entry in a remarkable record. Four games in, Port Vale have not conceded once. Ten points. Plus-five on goal difference. They are leading Group 3 not through spectacular attacking play but through something more controlled and methodical – and if anything, that makes it more durable. The question is not whether they can win this group. The question is who gets close enough to test them.

Wimbledon climbed to second on nine points after Ekoku headed home on 54 minutes to beat Dundee 1-0. Phil McCracken’s side have won three of their four games – their only loss came against Motherwell in Week 2, a result that increasingly looks like an anomaly. Sunderland were the group’s best performers this week: Tom Lambshead’s side scored twice in the second half against Crystal Palace – Bierhoff on 57 minutes and Adam on 69 – to move up to fourth. Two wins in a row for Sunderland, who were in danger of fading into the mid-table pack.

⚠️ Crystal Palace are in real trouble. Four games, no points, no goals scored, five conceded. They sit bottom of Group 3 and are currently looking at Division 4 as their Season 2 starting position. The dugout at Selhurst Park is empty and the results are reflecting that painfully. Next up is Motherwell – a side that has been climbing steadily and will see this as a chance to consolidate. Something needs to change at Palace, and soon.

💛 Group 4 – A new leader, and St Mirren’s first stumble

For three weeks, St Mirren had been the story of Season 1. Three wins from three, the lowest squad rating of any unbeaten side in the league, David Jeffery building something that had no right to work on paper but absolutely was. This week Bradford City held them 0-0. It is the first time St Mirren have dropped points, and the timing allowed Luton Town to move above them at the summit. David Pleat’s side beat Burton Albion 3-0 – Black opening on 19 minutes, Stein adding two more on 55 and 61 – and that two-goal swing in goal difference is now the difference between first and second place.

The result that deserves the most attention this week is Accrington Stanley holding Everton to 1-1. Rob Earle’s side went ahead through Okocha in the first minute – barely time to settle into a seat – and despite Silva equalising for the Toffees on 66 minutes, Accrington held on for a point. Everton have the highest-rated squad in the entire league at 397 and are on eight points from four games. The numbers suggest a side that should be further clear. Accrington in ninth have taken four points from their last two games and are not a club to be dismissed.

⚠️ Burton Albion have played four games, scored no goals, and won no points. They are the only club in any group without a point on the board. Andrew Burton has been active in the transfer market – Carlos Santos and Gennaro Acampora both arrived from the Circuit this week – but the squad still needs to find a way to put the ball in the net before any of that makes a difference. Next up: Ipswich Town at home, a side who just put two past Aston Villa without conceding. The fixtures are not getting kinder.

🗞️ Around the league

Score draw pool: Ten score draws this week and eight managers guessed correctly, each taking home £100,000. Congratulations to Paul (Leyton Orient), Daffy Duck (Sutton United), Neel Bhandari (St. Johnstone), Robert Morris (Sheffield Wednesday), Kevin Stewart (Dundee), Phil McCracken (Wimbledon), Liam1 (Heart of Midlothian), and Andrew Burton (Burton Albion).

New manager: A welcome to Neel Bhandari, who has taken over at St. Johnstone in Group 2. The club had been without a manager for a week, sitting in eighth on five points. There is plenty still to play for.

Crowd trouble: Three incidents in the league matches this week. Liverpool vs St. Johnstone produced 42 arrests, three officers injured, and £69,423 of stadium damage. Burnley vs Gillingham saw 59 arrests and £79,939 of damage. Sheffield Wednesday vs Port Vale – despite finishing 0-0 – was the worst of the three: 62 arrests, five officers injured, and £73,384 of damage. A friendly also turned ugly at Lincoln City vs Brighton, with 58 arrests, eight officers injured, and £74,448 of damage.

Transfer market: Seventeen deals completed this week. The headline was Antonio Valencia joining Leeds United from the Supremos Circuit for £1,001,000 – the biggest single deal of the week. Christopher Schorch went to Plymouth Argyle for £920,000. Coventry City picked up Fitness Coach Adam Lakatos for £301,555. Swansea City added a Personal Spy in Nicola Oscuro for £458,777. Sheffield Wednesday signed Roman Andreev for £417,884 and Bradford City brought in Viktor Lindqvist for £275,000.

Top scorers: G. Pellè of Southampton leads all scorers on five goals for the season. Rashford (Exeter City), Dalmonte (Lincoln City), and Larsson (Celtic) are all on four. Pellè’s five goals in four games is the most productive individual return in the league so far.

Televised games: Plymouth Argyle vs Celtic (Group 1), Sutton United vs Swansea City (Group 2), Bristol City vs Stockport County (Group 3), Hibernian vs Preston North End (Group 4).