With York set to return to league action after a fortnight’s break, it seems an appropriate time to take a look at some of the storylines that are playing out in League Two so far. The league table is still somewhat amorphous and difficult to draw conclusions from, with no clear division yet between contenders and strugglers: 19th-placed Colchester are just two wins off league leaders Salford, while Crewe find themselves in the automatic promotion spots having won only three of their nine games. But let’s take a look at a few themes that are beginning to emerge.
Bottom half: relegation hangovers, exciting takeovers and a sack race
Down, down, deeper and down
Looking first at the bottom half of the table, one thing that’s immediately clear is that the four sides relegated from League One last season have had a tough start to life in the bottom tier. Three of these sides (Exeter, Northampton and Port Vale) are in the bottom five, and while Rotherham are a little higher in 17th, they’ve still had a fairly underwhelming start.
What’s gone wrong for these sides? The first thing to note is that relegated teams struggling in League Two shouldn’t actually come as a surprise, as it’s generally been the norm over the past few seasons. Looking at the previous four campaigns, over 80% of teams coming down from League One have gone on to finish in the bottom half of League Two the following season. Two of these actually ended up in the bottom two, leading to a second successive relegation into the National League (Forest Green Rovers in 2023/24 and Carlisle in 2024/25), and others have only narrowly avoided this fate, such as Crawley last season.
