Welcome to League One - where half the division could still be relegated 

Shrewsbury Town
Shrewsbury Town are one of more than a dozen teams fighting for League One survival Credit: Getty Images

The Premier League might like to consider itself the most competitive league on the planet, but those whose gaze rarely strays from the elite end of English football should really cast a glance at the bottom of League One.

This is the division where 13 teams are embroiled in a relegation struggle. Three points separate Plymouth Argyle, in the top half in 12th place, and Walsall in the relegation zone. Five clubs are tied on 44 points. “Congested” does not even come close to describing it.

“It’s a really unusual league. I’ve never seen a division that will have from 12 to 22 separated by six points,” says John Coleman, the manager of 15th-placed Accrington Stanley, who, with over 1,000 games to his name, counts as more world-weary than most. “Everyone will feel they have a chance to get out of it, but everyone will be mindful that they can fall into it.”

The concertinaed bottom half of the table has seen two sackings this month, most recently Keith Hill, Rochdale’s manager of six years, in a desperate search for a late-season bounce.

Accrington have also been on a poor run, with just one win from their past five games, although that is not as bad as Wycombe, who are 14th but have not won since Jan 26. Their nine-game barren streak puts them on the worst run in the league other than Southend United, who have failed to win since Jan 19 and are teetering just outside the relegation zone in 20th.

But even decent results can see a club slip down a table layered as precariously as this. Wally Downes, AFC Wimbledon’s manager, says he foresaw this compression in December, when his team won seven points from three games and still could not climb out of the relegation zone.

“I’ve not seen it as tight as this but I assumed it would [be], because we had a very good run recently and went to the bottom of the league,” he says. “Lots of teams were winning about two months ago and I thought, ‘We’re a little bit adrift now.’ But everybody can’t keep winning, so I assumed that if we won a couple of games, which we’ve done, there’d be a concertina effect and that’s what’s happened.”

Though 22nd, Wimbledon are the only team in League One on a three-game winning streak, so pulling themselves out of danger is within touching distance – four points, to be exact.

But there are no certainties when every team from Plymouth in 12th to rock-bottom Bradford have won between 12 and 10 games. Compare that to the Championship, where Hull City in 12th have 14 victories while bottom side Ipswich Town have just three.

It might be a quirk of mathematics but Downes says the instability also demonstrates the strength of the league.

“All the leagues are getting stronger,” he says. “The trickle-down effect from the higher divisions is there in this league. With our budgets and our crowd, we’re expected to compete with Sunderland and three or four teams who were in the Premier League. The league is stronger because of the clubs who have dropped down a bit but still have a lot of financial clout.”

Despite the uncertainty Accrington face, Coleman insists the entertainment value is better than in the Premier League.

“The games you’re playing are end to end,” he says. “We played Blackpool a few weeks back, both teams hell for leather at each other, chances, giving away penalties, sendings-off, and it was all good.

“I think sometimes you watch the Premier League and it’s almost a bit bland, a bit safety first, and there’s not a lot that goes on in games, so at least you are entertained in our league.”

According to Coleman, there is more riding on survival for Accrington than many others, as they seek to avoid undoing the hard work that catapulted them to the third tier for the first time in the modern era.

He is also certain the survival battle will go to the wire. “This will go to the last game. We’re hoping, in our case, it doesn’t. But it could.”

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