One home win in twelve: League One's second round broke the thing every division is built on
League One 2026/27, matchday two · 20 and 22 August 2026 ·
twelve matches, 25 goals, 6 draws and a single home win. Updated 23 August 2026, 08:22 UTC.
Home sides had 56 per cent of the ball, took
166 shots to 136, and were worth 16.70 expected goals to
12.78. They scored 10. The away sides scored 15. Across
207 full twelve-match rounds of the Championship, League One and League Two in our
database, one home win or fewer has happened
once — about
one round in 207. In League One's own 95 full rounds
the fewest home wins we had ever recorded was 2.
Every number on this page as a spreadsheet:l1md2.xlsx — five sheets: all twelve matches with
43 columns, all 24 clubs, 432 player rows, 1,286 live minute-by-minute snapshots, and the
round measured against our archive.
home sides
away sides
possession
56%
44%
shots
166
136
on target
45
50
expected goals
16.70
12.78
goals
10
15
conversion
22.2%
30.0%
The home sides out-created the away sides on every line above and lost the
round by five goals. Conversion is goals per shot on target; League One's long-run figure over
6,644 club-matches is 32.6 per cent.
Before anyone calls it a collapse: most of it is ordinary
25 goals in twelve matches is 2.08 a match against a long-run
2.60, and conversion came out at 26.3 per cent against a
median round's 32.9. That is cold, but not strange:
11 of 95 League One rounds we hold finished this cold or
colder, about one in 8. Shots, corners and
cards were unremarkable: 302 shots, 126 corners,
47 yellow cards and 1 red. The unusual part is not that few goals were
scored. It is who scored them.
One more thing separates it. 25 goals were scored by 25 different
players — nobody scored twice all round. In 75 full twelve-match
rounds across the three divisions, that has happened 3 times, or about
one round in 25.
Three clubs that stood out
Stockport County: 28 shots, 78 per cent of the ball, beaten at home
Stockport had 28 shots to Blackpool's 10, nine on target to three,
14 corners to two, 78 per cent of the ball and 2.91 expected goals to
1.68. They lost 1–2, and their goal did not arrive until the 94th minute
— Blackpool led from the 22nd.
In League One since 2019/20 a side has combined 28 or more shots with 75 per cent or more
possession 3 times; 1 of those ended in
defeat — Ipswich Town, 15 October 2022, 33 shots and 76 per cent at Portman Road,
beaten 0–1 by Lincoln City.
Our own live feed puts a number on it that a box score cannot. We sample every live match
minute by minute, and Stockport finished with 108 dangerous attacks to Blackpool's 13
— 89 per cent of everything dangerous that happened in that
stadium. Across the 59 matches we have sampled this way since 14 August, the next
highest share is 77.5 per cent, and this is the only one above 80.
Burton Albion: a man up, and a quarter of the ball
Burton won 2–1 at Leicester from 26 per cent possession, on
0.71 expected goals to 1.10 — the biggest overperformance of the round at
+1.29 goals above expected. They led 2–0 inside 25 minutes, and Leicester's
Oliver Skipp was sent off in the 29th. So Burton played roughly an hour with an extra
man and still let Leicester keep 74 per cent of it.
That is the part worth checking. Across 13,414 club-matches in our
database where the opponent was shown a red card, the side with the extra man has held 30 per
cent of the ball or less once.
Never as low as 26.
Huddersfield Town: the best attacking display of the round, one point
Huddersfield had the round's highest single-side expected goals at 2.57 and its most
shots on target with eight, away at MK Dons. They drew 1–1. MK Dons'
Craig McGillivray made six saves and was rated 8.5. Huddersfield's Ashley Fletcher
missed three big chances on his own — more than any other player in the division
that weekend.
club
pts
score
xG
goals−xG
Burton Albion
3
2–1
0.71
+1.29
Notts County
1
2–2
0.79
+1.21
Leyton Orient
3
2–0
0.94
+1.06
Oxford U.
3
2–1
1.24
+0.76
Peterborough U.
3
2–1
1.49
+0.51
Bromley
1
1–1
0.61
+0.39
Bradford City
3
1–0
0.62
+0.38
Blackpool
3
2–1
1.68
+0.32
Cambridge United
1
1–1
0.76
+0.24
Plymouth Argyle
1
1–1
0.76
+0.24
Luton Town
1
2–2
1.93
+0.07
Stevenage
0
1–2
1.00
+0.00
Leicester City
0
1–2
1.10
-0.10
Milton Keynes Dons
1
1–1
1.33
-0.33
AFC Wimbledon
1
0–0
0.34
-0.34
Mansfield Town
0
1–2
1.37
-0.37
Barnsley
1
0–0
0.44
-0.44
Wycombe
1
1–1
1.89
-0.89
Reading
1
0–0
0.90
-0.90
Sheffield Wed
0
0–1
1.36
-1.36
Wigan Athletic
0
0–2
1.36
-1.36
Doncaster R.
1
0–0
1.38
-1.38
Huddersfield
1
1–1
2.57
-1.57
Stockport County
0
1–2
2.91
-1.91
Every club in the round, ranked by goals minus expected goals. Positive means
the club scored more than the chances it had were worth. This is one round: it says what
happened, not what will happen.
Three players who stood out — and none of them is a striker
The three highest-rated players of the round were a centre-back and two goalkeepers, and
four of the top five were goalkeepers or defenders. In a normal League One round that
number is 1.34 of five; four or five has happened in
4 of 95 rounds we hold, about
one in 23.
Aden Baldwin, Bradford City — rated 9.0
The best mark of the round, and it went to a centre-back who scored the only goal at
Hillsborough in front of 33,188, the biggest crowd of the round.
Bradford won 1–0 away with 40 per cent of the ball and
0.62 expected goals to Sheffield Wednesday's 1.36. Baldwin also made
five interceptions.
Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Blackpool — rated 8.7
The goalkeeper on the other end of Stockport's 28 shots. Eight saves, one goal
conceded from 2.91 expected — and an assist: his kick set up Tom Bloxham
for the opening goal in the 22nd minute. Goalkeepers are credited with
an assist in 414 of 33,612 appearances in our database, about
one in 81. Doing it in the same match as eight or more
saves has happened 8 times — roughly
one appearance in 4,201.
Craig McGillivray, MK Dons — rated 8.5
Six saves against the round's highest expected goals and its highest shots-on-target
count. MK Dons were out-created 2.57 to 1.33 and took a point. Behind him, Reading's
Benn Ward was rated 8.3 in a goalless draw at AFC Wimbledon on 16 duels won, 12 aerials and
14 clearances — the round's most physical shift, in the round's emptiest scoreline.
What our live sampling added
Dangerous attacks are not in any box score. We record them ourselves, minute by minute,
while the match is on. For ten of the twelve matches here that gives a measure of territory
that shots and possession both miss.
match
dangerous attacks
share
result
Stockport County v Blackpool
108–13
89%
lost
Luton Town v Notts County
53–29
65%
drew
Wycombe v Plymouth Argyle
60–35
63%
drew
Leicester City v Burton Albion
45–27
62%
lost
Milton Keynes Dons v Huddersfield
48–31
61%
drew
Peterborough U. v Mansfield Town
53–37
59%
won
Stevenage v Oxford U.
47–36
57%
lost
Sheffield Wed v Bradford City
54–52
51%
lost
Bromley v Cambridge United
50–58
46%
drew
Doncaster R. v Barnsley
41–61
40%
drew
Dangerous attacks, home side first, from our own live sampling. Two matches are
missing because our feed gave them the same identifier as Championship fixtures played at the
same time. Sample so far: 59 matches since 14 August — enough to rank this round, not
enough to be a long-run baseline, and the page says so rather than pretending otherwise.
How this is measured, and what it cannot do
League One has expected goals again. The detailed feed for this
division was frozen from 14 August and delivered nothing for the opening round — that
page had to be built from a different endpoint and carried no expected goals at all. It came
back on. Every expected-goals figure here is from the restored feed, and this is the first
League One round of the season we can measure the same way we measure the Championship.
Two matches came in sideways. AFC Wimbledon–Reading and
Wigan–Leyton Orient share a fixture identifier with Championship matches kicking off at
the same time, so our database silently kept only one of each pair. Both are on this page,
pulled from the raw feed instead. It is worth saying plainly: if we had not checked the count,
the round would have looked like ten matches.
What a "round" is, in the comparison. Historical rounds are counted
as days on which exactly twelve matches of one division were played — that is the only
way our archive can identify a full round, because the source we hold does not carry a round
number for past seasons. This round was split across two days (one match on the Thursday), so
it is being compared against 207 same-sized blocks rather than against calendar-identical
ones. It does not change the count: no day of twelve League One matches in our archive
finished with fewer than 2 home wins.
One round explains almost nothing. Measured inside League One alone,
a club's matchday-one goal difference explains 1.7 per cent of its points per game
across the rest of that season, and last season's points per game explains
10.2 per cent. Nothing on this page is a forecast.
Deserved goals are not expected goals. The per-match tables carry
both. Deserved goals is our own number — 0.319 goals per shot on target, fitted on
League One club-matches. It knows nothing about where a shot was taken from; expected goals
does.
Attendance is reported for 8 of the twelve matches
(111,846 in total, 13,980 a match across those grounds). Missing is
written as missing, never as zero.
Take the numbers with you. The whole round is in
l1md2.xlsx: Matches (12 rows, 43 columns),
Clubs (24 rows), Players (432 rows, every metric the feed sends),
Live minute by minute (1,286 snapshots from our own sampling) and
Round vs our archive. Blank cells mean the feed did not send that value — never
zero.
Sources. Match and player statistics from our own feed, stored in our
own database; dangerous attacks from our own live sampling. Historical rates are our own
calculations over the seasons we hold. No third-party table is reproduced here.
Every match, if you want to check
The scorelines below are on any live-score site. They are here so every number
above can be traced back to the match it came from. 10 of the 25 goals came before
half-time.
Sheffield Wed created more and lost it: expected goals 1.36–0.62 against 0–1 on the board. Conversion: 1 goals from 7 shots on target (14.3%), against League One's long-run 32.6%.
Burton Albion: Kgagelo Chauke 8.2(1g, 1 key passes, 7 duels won) · Matthew Dennis 7.6(1g, 3 duels won) · Finn Delap 7.5(10 duels won)
Leicester City created more and lost it: expected goals 1.10–0.71 against 1–2 on the board. Conversion: 3 goals from 9 shots on target (33.3%), against League One's long-run 32.6%. Leicester City held 74% of the ball.
half-time 0–0 · 8,900 attendance · referee M. Woods · Weston Homes Stadium · 22.08.2026
Luke Williams against Nigel Clough · 4-2-3-1 v 3-1-4-2
Full match
2
goals
1
1.49
expected goals
1.37
1.59
deserved goals (ours)
1.28
5
shots on target
4
5
shots off target
4
5
shots blocked
2
15
shots total
10
8
shots inside the box
7
7
shots outside the box
3
6
corners
3
65
possession %
35
538
passes
278
441
passes completed
188
2
saves
3
9
fouls
18
1
offsides
1
2
yellow cards
2
53
dangerous attacks (live)
37
120
attacks (live)
85
First half
0
goals
0
0.22
expected goals
0.52
2
shots on target
3
5
shots total
8
Second half
2
goals
1
1.27
expected goals
0.85
3
shots on target
1
10
shots total
2
Best rated
Peterborough U.: Benjamin Woods 7.9(1g, 1 key passes, 3 duels won) · Carl Johnston 7.5(1 key passes, 6 duels won) · Harry Leonard 7.3(1g, 2 key passes, 8 duels won)
Mansfield Town: Frazer Blake-Tracy 7.2(4 duels won) · Rhys Oates 7.2(1a, 1 key passes, 8 duels won) · Michael Smith 7.2(1g, 1 key passes, 4 duels won)
Peterborough U. won it on 1.49–1.37 expected goals. Conversion: 3 goals from 9 shots on target (33.3%), against League One's long-run 32.6%. Peterborough U. held 65% of the ball.
Stockport County created more and lost it: expected goals 2.91–1.68 against 1–2 on the board. Conversion: 3 goals from 12 shots on target (25.0%), against League One's long-run 32.6%. Stockport County held 78% of the ball.
Leyton Orient: Tony Springett 7.9(1g, 8 duels won) · Fin Stevens 7.7(6 duels won) · Yusuf Akhamrich 7.6(1g, 1 duels won)
Wigan Athletic created more and lost it: expected goals 1.36–0.94 against 0–2 on the board. Conversion: 2 goals from 5 shots on target (40.0%), against League One's long-run 32.6%.
Plymouth Argyle: Murphy Cooper 7.6(3 saves, 1 duels won) · Julio Pleguezuelo 7.3(9 duels won) · Bradley Ibrahim 7.3(1a, 1 key passes, 5 duels won)
Points shared on 1.89–0.76 expected goals. Conversion: 2 goals from 8 shots on target (25.0%), against League One's long-run 32.6%. Wycombe held 65% of the ball.