It has been a tremendous start to life at League One level for Wrexham, who achieved back-to-back promotions to get here. They remain unbeaten in league action and proudly sit joint-top of the table along with another newly promoted team in Stockport County and also big-spending Birmingham. They’ve done so by keeping three clean sheets in the process, including in tough away matches at Peterborough and Bolton. Furthermore, they’re also recording an average of 2.00 goals per league game, proving their effectiveness in front of goal.

The Welsh outfit therefore will expect to gain another three points if they can maintain such an average, especially facing a Shrewsbury outfit that hasn’t looked so strong defensively. In their defence, Salop would argue the 3-0 win over Leyton Orient last weekend may be the turning point in their campaign given their struggles in the opening few weeks, but Wrexham presents a completely different challenge. Paul Hurst’s side have the second-worst xGA in League One, which would have equated to roughly 2.00 goals conceded per league match.

Also, it simply cannot be underestimated how difficult it is for away teams travelling to STōK Cae Ras, which has been the case for a few seasons now. Since the start of May 2021, Phil Parkinson’s side have suffered only five league losses at their own stadium, which is simply staggering. They’ve won both league contests here this season, scoring three in each one, whilst they had the strongest League Two home record last season in their promotion campaign.

This encounter on Saturday is a case of one team aiming to bounce back from a defeat and the other hoping to continue the winning theme they began last weekend. Charlton saw their 100% winning league record ended by Reading, which saw them concede their first League One goals of the campaign, whilst Rotherham celebrated a victory over rivals Huddersfield at home. The next challenge for Steve Evans’ Millers is to end their losing away record in all competitions in 2024/25, but The Valley has now become a difficult place to get any points under Nathan Jones.

Another reason why Rotherham may find it challenging to get three points is purely because The Addicks are incredibly well-organised and difficult to break down. Reading may have defeated them 2-0 last time out but they scored around twice as many goals as their xGF on the day suggests. Charlton do still possess the strongest xGA in the entire league. The fact they’re also ranked joint-second in the division for number of shots blocked proves they have developed a love for defending and protecting their own goal. Jones clearly wants clean sheets to be the foundation that they build upon, which in turn should lead to a much-improved season than the last.

There is simply no doubt Charlton have made and continue to make strides forward under his management. He has overseen 21 matches since his appointment in February, but only four have ended in defeat. Just one of those setbacks was at home and even that was in the League Cup, meaning they are unbeaten at home in league action since Jones became manager. For the selection to be a winner, all Athletic essentially need to do is avoid defeat, and that shouldn’t be a huge ask based upon their recent record at The Valley.

Both Barnsley and Bristol Rovers enter Saturday’s contest in high spirits on a count of winning their respective previous matches last weekend. Barnsley rounded off a memorable few days after backing up their fine League Cup win over local rivals Sheffield United with a convincing 3-0 away success at Crawley in the league. As for Bristol Rovers, a 2-0 home triumph over Cambridge United ended their four-match winless streak in all competitions. Therefore, there should be a degree of swagger on show and each manager will believe this is a winnable opportunity. Being the home team, only a win would really be a good outcome for The Tykes, but they’ve kept only one league clean sheet all season.

At first glance, noticing Rovers conceding only two league goals so far may indicate something of strong defensive resolve, but a deeper delve into this may suggest otherwise. Matt Taylor’s side actually holds the fifth-highest xGA in the division, meaning they should’ve really conceded around four more goals than they have done. Considering Barnsley have earned the fourth-best collective xGF in League One then this is certainly a big tick in favour of potentially victory for the Oakwell club.

Both teams to score actually has not been a frequent winning bet for Bristol Rovers matches this season or to be honest that too frequent since Matt Taylor became manager. However, the presence of Barnsley could force that to change this weekend. The reason being, Darrell Clarke’s side have seen each team find the back of the net in 71.43% of their clashes in all competitions in 2024/25. They’re ranked fourth in the league based on number of shots they’ve had and yet they’ve conceded two or more goals in three of four home encounters. This suggests that whilst they are particularly offensive, especially at home, it is to the point where they can get caught out defensively a little too easily for their own liking.

Chesterfield are stuck on five points from the opening four league matches and this isn’t an accurate reflection of the their dominance in games so far. The Spireites have won the xG battle in each fixture so far, 1.65 v 0.22 against Swindon, 1.98 v 1.06 against Crewe, 0.93 v 0.16 against Salford and 2.32 v 1.38 against table topping Gillingham, where admittedly game state and a red card played it’s part but it was difficult to not come away with the notion that they were unlucky to not win the fixture.
Despite these numbers, Chesterfield are actually over performing their xG for the season. However, that can be put down to the five goals scored at Crewe on matchday two. If we take that match out of the equation then Chesterfield have scored just two goals from an xG of 4.91.

With 59, Chesterfield have taken the most shots in the league. They have the most touches in the penalty area by a considerable margin, 96. Doncaster are second best with 85. They’ve also attempted the most dribbles and the second most crosses. All this whilst ranking third for possession and second for xGA.

This isn’t really an anti-Grimsby pick. Their data reads fine – practically mid-range on most metrics. And that’s probably what they are. A solid mid-table team who will beat the weaker teams but maybe not have enough about them to take on the league’s contenders.

And that’s how I see Chesterfield – as a contender. I think they can leapfrog Grimsby in the table with three home points on Saturday afternoon.

Two blunt teams meet at Gresty Road on Saturday afternoon where opposing goals is the play.

Morecambe have started the season with four 1-0 defeats, to Walsall, Gillingham, Doncaster and Newport. It has the look of a hellish fixture list. Derek Adams’ new look Shrimps should be commended for keeping themselves competitive in each match but they have a serious lack of quality which is hindering them troubling the scoreboard.

Morecambe have mustered just a total of 1.93 xG over their four opening matches. And that’s not the only worrying data. Not surprisingly, given the low xG number, Morecambe have registered just 27 shots but alarmingly less than 30% of these have been on target and almost 50% (13/27) have come from outside of the penalty area.

Crewe’s data doesn’t read quite as alarming. But, it’s not good. Just 2.87xG over four matches with just four teams in the division having a lower total. Before last weekend’s 2-1 comeback win over Bromley, Crewe had failed to score a goal.

More evidence to back up a low scoring game comes in the way of Crewe’s defensive numbers. Yes, they’ve conceded seven in four, but five of those came at he hands of a Chesterfield side that are primed to challenge at the top end of the table – a million miles away from Morecambe’s level. Crewe’s xGA for the season is 3.83 but 1.98 of that came in the Chesterfield hammering. That would make just 1.85 xGA over their over three matches against Barrow, Swindon and Bromley combined.

Admittedly, this selection is not massively data driven.

Newport have been a breath of fresh air at the start of the new season. Three wins from four see them fourth in the table and the highest scoring team in the division. I’ve just got a feeling that they’ve fell on the right side of the fixture list, To date, they’ve played Cheltenham, Doncaster, Accrington and Fleetwood. Doncaster aside, that looks pretty soft even though their dropped points came on opening day against Cheltenham.

With the exception of a high xGA number there’s not much in the data that suggests a big decline is imminent but it’s just a feeling that comes down to, in the main, the small sample size.

Port Vale’s manager Darren Moore is starting to come under pressure, at least from the club’s fanbase. They would’ve expected to start the season with more than four points from four matches. Vale’s numbers aren’t good – their four goals scored overperforms their xG by 0.49 and they rank lowest in the division for touches in the penalty area – this despite having a plethora of attacking options in the squad.

Despite the data suggesting different, there’s just an chance that Newport aren’t as good as they’re numbers suggest and Vale need to show that pre-season optimism wasn’t unfounded. It feels like a game to take a swing in, to throw a dart at, all whilst keeping the draw onside as an insurance policy for if Port Vale really are poor enough to continue to create little.