EFL Extra: The winners and losers from the festive period
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Coventry did not have a good Christmas – is it a slip or the rot setting in?
Ipswich and Watford by contrast had a bumper Christmas. With the squad at their disposal Ipswich look ominous and despite a slow start Wrexham are now only a point below the play offs in ninth.
In League One, much to Tom’s delight it's hard to look past Lincoln City who beat Cardiff, Stockport, Huddersfield and Peterborough over Christmas…can they really stay the course? At the bottom Rotherham are on an awful slide – is there any way back for the Millers?
Hats off to Bromley in League Two, but Walsall…not again surely!?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:10.0 | This is our EFL extra show every two weeks with me, Tom Clark and the former football |
| 0:14.5 | league defender Gregor Robertson discussing the best and worst performances in the championship, |
| 0:19.5 | League 1 and League 2. Greg Greg, we might be getting chaos |
| 0:22.7 | and managerial changes are plenty in the Premier League, but it's still been a pretty hectic time |
| 0:28.2 | in the three divisions below. Plenty of action over the festive period. So we're going to use |
| 0:33.4 | this show to judge which sides had a good Christmas and New Year period and who had a shocker. |
| 0:38.8 | So let's get straight into the championship and we have to start, I think, with the negatives, |
| 0:44.6 | with one of the most positive stories of the season in all three divisions. |
| 0:48.7 | But Frank Lampard and Coventry have not enjoyed their festive period, have they? |
| 0:52.7 | No, definitely not. |
| 0:55.0 | One point from the last three games, |
| 0:57.3 | it's actually nine points from eight games since the start of December. |
| 1:02.4 | And also kind of two defeats against Sipswich in the last month. |
| 1:08.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:08.8 | Kind of, I don't know, perhaps augurs at the likelihood |
| 1:12.9 | of a coming title race after all. |
| 1:16.0 | Like I feel we'll get on to Ipswich |
| 1:17.8 | because they're definitely one of the positives. |
| 1:19.8 | But certainly the second |
| 1:22.4 | of those wins was pretty comprehensive as well. |
| 1:24.7 | So Lampard has been pretty honest about it all |
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