Watch Derby vs West Brom live on Sky Sports Football from 12pm on Saturday; Kick-off 12.30pm
Friday 23 August 2019 13:46, UK
Phillip Cocu hit with Championship reality, Jack Butland facing the drop at Stoke and managing expectations at Huddersfield.
Here are five things to look out for in the Sky Bet EFL on Saturday...
Phillip Cocu must have thought he had cracked the Championship after Derby's opening-day win at Huddersfield, a side who had just been relegated from the Premier League.
But it hasn't been quite so smooth sailing since. A Martyn Waghorn penalty miss cost them in a goalless draw at home to Swansea, while they then drew 2-2 at Stoke and lost 2-1 at home to Bristol City.
Ahead of their clash with West Brom, which is live on Sky Sports Football on Saturday, Cocu insists they are still a work in progress. "We are still not on the top of our game because some players need to fit in," he told Derby's official website.
"An example is Krystian Bielik. He is playing now and has to get to know how we want to play and his team-mates too. It's the same for Jamie Paterson as well. The pieces of the puzzle have to come together. We have an idea of how we want to play but it has to develop and especially if you want to play by being dominant with the ball.
"The pieces have to fit together because against defensive teams it is not easy and the understanding has to be really good. We will keep on working over the next couple of weeks and months on this."
Not many people would have been expecting Jack Butland to be playing for Stoke by the time they kicked off their second season back in the Championship.
Even fewer would have expected to see him dropped in a league where he should really be the standout goalkeeper. Now, with his place in the England squad under threat, Butland's form has taken a nosedive. His first error leading to a goal against Preston in midweek was poor, his second was a disaster.
"We are travelling on the bus and there's a big story about Jack being left out of the England squad, it's all unsettling," said Stoke boss Nathan Jones after their defeat at Deepdale.
"Maybe I need to put him out of the firing line and wait until the window shuts to get his head focused because all the stories are about what's not happening to Jack rather than him being Stoke City goalkeeper.
Stoke are bottom of the Championship heading into Saturday, where they host early-leaders Leeds. Jones must decide whether to stick or twist, with summer signing Adam Davies waiting in the wings to take his place.
Generally, the expectations of any relegated side, however demoralising the circumstances surrounding their drop, is to challenge for promotion again the following season.
But can that really be said for Huddersfield? A club who achieved promotion in remarkably unlikely circumstances, then only really survived a season in the Premier League by divine miracle.
They have also lost their two most influential midfielders in Aaron Mooy and Philip Billing, and don't seem to have any secondary goal threat behind that of Karlan Grant.
Boss Jan Siewert is gone, and Mark Hudson will take temporary charge of his second game against Reading on Saturday, having been beaten in his first against Cardiff in midweek.
"Whilst most Huddersfield fans weren't expecting an instant return to the Premier League, the first five games have been sobering stuff," Huddersfield fan and podcaster Richard Kosmala told Sky Sports. "The talk now is all about steadying the ship with a team that has forgotten how to win. An experienced head is urgently needed as our new manager."
With so many troubling stories in League One at the moment, surrounding the plight of Bolton and Bury, it may have been somewhat overlooked by the casual observer that Coventry are being forced to play their home games at St Andrew's in Birmingham this season.
The fact they have won both their games so far at their temporary new home, as well as picking up two draws on the road - including a remarkable comeback against Portsmouth with nine men in midweek - only serves to highlight what a remarkable job Mark Robins continues to do with the Sky Blues.
As well as all the off-field upheaval, Robins has also had to deal with a huge turnaround in terms of his squad. First-team stalwarts Lee Burge, Jordan Willis, Conor Chaplin and Tom Bayliss are among those to have moved on in the summer, while several players who made a big impact on loan, such as Dujon Sterling and Bright Enobakhare, have headed elsewhere.
"There has been a lot of upheaval, a lot of change and still a lot of unknowns, but we have to play the hand we're dealt," said Robins on the dawn of the new season. "The challenges that we have been given this season are unprecedented. There are significant challenges for me as a manager, for us as a football club and logistically through trying to get people to watch us and be interested in what we are doing."
More than 6,000 fans so far have made the 16-mile journey to St Andrew's. A hugely-impressive number which may continue to swell if they keep winning games. Gillingham are their next opponents on Saturday.
Scunthorpe were competing near the top of League One and looking contenders for promotion not so long ago. Now, they head into their fifth game of the season propping up the entire Football League.
Paul Hurst was brought in to steady the ship, but they have picked up just a single point so far. They have also conceded 11 goals, at last three more than any other club so far.
It is never an easy task turning a club around that is on a downward trajectory, but they shouldn't be this bad at this level, and the trip to Macclesfield on Saturday represents a great opportunity for them to belatedly get up and running for the campaign.
Hurst would have been seen as a bit of a coup for a League Two side at the start of the season, but he will know from his brief spell at Ipswich that patience is rarely forthcoming when the threat of relegation looms.
He is the fifth man to sit in the dugout - including two caretaker spells for Andy Dawson - since Graham Alexander was sacked with the club in fifth in League One in March 2018. So maybe a bit of patience wouldn't go amiss this time around.
