Five things to look out for in EFL: Clocks, parachutes and cold play

Sorry to break it to you if you hadn't looked out the window lately, but British Summer Time comes to an end this weekend.

By the time the clocks go back on Sunday morning, almost every team in the EFL will be over a quarter of the way through their season.

While the tables have been taking shape, giving fans a good idea of what the season may hold, the forthcoming five months of Bovril, bobble hats and floodlit finishes will go a long way to deciding who will spring forward and who will fall back when BST returns next March.

Here are five things to look out for across the final EFL weekend of October.

Ipswich Town, Southampton and Leicester City were the three names at the head of the betting for Championship promotion back in the height of summer.

The ladder from the EFL to the Premier League has turned into more of a revolving door in recent years, with all three sides promoted from the Championship coming straight back down in the past two seasons.

In each of the past five seasons, two of the three teams promoted to the top flight have been in receipt of parachute payments, following an earlier relegation.

But if that pattern is to continue, two of those three sides, or Sheffield United, the only other Championship side receiving parachute payments this season, are going to need to find their feet pretty fast.

The current top eight consists of sides who finished fifth, 10th, eighth, sixth, fourth in League One, 18th, 21st and 15th last season.

The Blades did climb out of the drop-zone on Tuesday with a third win in their opening 11 games, but Saints have won only twice, the Tractor Boys three times and the Foxes four - the only one of the relegated sides to sit in the top half going into the weekend.

Ipswich will kick-off the Saturday programme with the lunchtime visit of West Brom to Portman Road (12:30 BST).

Tuesday's 3-0 defeat to newly-promoted Charlton ended Town's five-match unbeaten run at home, with Kieran McKenna making seven changes from the side which went down 2-1 at Middlesbrough last Friday.

Leicester head to Millwall (15:00 BST) off the back of one win in seven following their midweek defeat at Hull City, while Saints have won only one of their past 10 after a dismal defeat at Bristol City on Tuesday and head to Blackburn (15:00 BST) seeking to avoid the ignominy of being dragged towards the drop zone.

It is worth noting Luton were the sole relegated team not to get promoted back to the Premier League last year, and ended up getting relegated to League One.

In all, only one of the 10 sides relegated from the Premier League, Championship and League One currently occupy a top-six spot - Cardiff in League One.

An interesting anomaly or a sign of things to come?

Quirky one for you... technically speaking, five of the past seven Sheffield United managers will be on the touchline as the Blades head to Deepdale to begin the EFL weekend on Friday (20:00 BST).

Preston North End boss Paul Heckingbottom managed more than 100 games across two spells in charge at Bramall Lane between 2021 and 2023, the first of them as an interim boss before Slavisa Jokanovic's 22-match stint.

His predecessor - and also eventual successor - was a certain Chris Wilder, who is back in charge after Ruben Selles' even shorter spell at the helm, which lasted just six games.

Between them the pair have managed more than 400 league games as Blades boss, but Friday's meeting will be the first time in nearly eight years - since Wilder's original spell in charge - that the Lilywhites sit comfortably above the Blades in the table. The visitors do however remain favourites to win this one despite their slow start to the season.

Back-to-back wins over Watford and Blackburn have kick-started the optimism at United and hauled them out of the bottom three while North End have lost successive games against West Brom and Birmingham to fall away from the early pacesetters, having began the campaign with one defeat in nine.

Just one point separates the top five teams in League One as we head into the final games of October.

Stevenage were overhauled at the summit by Cardiff on Saturday, courtesy of Boro's 1-0 defeat at sixth-placed Lincoln while the Bluebirds came from behind to beat Reading.

Now second, Alex Revell's side have a game in hand on Cardiff and Bradford, and two over AFC Wimbledon and Stockport in fourth and fifth, but the manner of their rather toothless display against the Imps will give hope to Saturday's visitors Bradford, who are third on goal difference alone.

Newly promoted from League Two, the Bantams have taken to the third tier like, er, ducks to water, and contested one of the games of the season last Saturday with a pulsating 2-2 derby draw against Barnsley.

Graham Alexander's side have dropped just seven points in their seven games since August and they have all come in Yorkshire derbies, losing to Doncaster before draws with Rotherham and the Tykes.

They have taken eight points from their four away games outside of Yorkshire and are the division's leading scorers with 22 goals, though Boro boast the meanest defence in League One with only nine conceded.

Something has to give...

At the opposite end of the League One table, there is another tight battle raging, between two sides tipped by many for a play-off push, at a minimum, this season.

Blackpool have lost all six away games this season and haven't scored on the road since Ashley Fletcher's goal after 22 minutes of their opening away game at Exeter on 9 August.

They slipped to rock bottom courtesy of Wycombe's dramatic equaliser at Bloomfield Road on Saturday.

They will seek to break their duck as they visit second-bottom Peterborough on Saturday (15:00 BST).

Posh have lost three of their five home games without scoring, but a 1-0 win at Burton last time out did haul them off the bottom at the expense of the Tangerines.

We're almost a third of the way through the season in the fourth tier and you just have to love a division like League Two.

Five of the top eight sides lost on Saturday while five of the bottom seven won - including top two Walsall and Swindon being toppled by lowly Barrow and Accrington respectively.

What fresh chaos do we have in store on Saturday?

Leaders Walsall, second-placed Swindon and Paul Warne's MK Dons in third all face bottom-half opposition (can lightning strike twice?) while there are some intriguing match-ups in the race just off the pace with Grimsby hosting Crewe, Gillingham welcoming Salford and Cambridge United heading to Notts County.

Six points separate the top 10, with only nine points between the top 16 at present, so the table will surely have a very different complexion after the final round of matches for a fortnight, with the FA Cup first round at the start of November.

You can follow the entire EFL programme as it happens on the BBC Sport website and app, starting with live text coverage of Preston v Sheffield United on Friday, 24 October.

We will have live text commentary on the Championship, League One and League Two campaigns all season on BBC Sport.