A chaotic League One, a Boxing Day jinx to break, keeping the fans informed and is Gustav Lindgren the new Matt Godden?

It’s now a perfect description of League One in the 2025-26 season, the bit about random and unpredictable behaviour at least.

There will be a mass of clubs entering a new year with hope of challenging for promotion. Many of those same clubs will also be looking over their shoulders at the prospect of suffering relegation. Peterborough United are currently one of them, four points off eighth place with a game in hand, but only two points clear of the drop zone despite now winning three games in a row for the first time this season.

Things ought to become clearer after all teams have completed three games in a hectic seven day spell from Boxing Day to New Year’s Day to reach the halfway point of most campaigns, but one wouldn’t bet too much on that happening. The hectic festive programme notoriously throws up weird results as squads become stretched by fatigue and injury.

That appears to be happening to Posh who also have a Boxing Day hoodoo to break. They haven’t won on December 26 since 2017, but they will go into a home game with Leyton Orient in good spirits after Saturday’s hard-fought 1-0 win at Port Vale continued an excellent little run of form under new boss Luke Williams.

It’s now 15 points from a possible 21 under Williams which is promotion rather than relegation form.

TALKING POINTS FROM PORT VALE 0, POSH 1...

1) Of course Williams is free to use the media in any way he wishes. He can give them as little or as much information as he wants. It’s always been this way. Pre-match clubs in my experience are rarely fully honest, for want of a better word, about availabilities for fear of alerting upcoming opponents. Post-match is a different matter though and sharing clarity on the specific nature of an injury including likely time of absence seams pretty harmless to me. These days social media tends to fill in the gaps anyway. News of a bad injury to Harley Mills broke on X on Friday afternoon. The revelation Mills has suffered a damaging hamstring problem was announced in the same way on Saturday night and pretty much confirmed by the chairman later in the evening. Delivering sketchy, partial information leads to inevitable speculation. It’s natural for fans to want knowledge on key players and just as natural for the media to feel responsible about reporting it. If the club issue the medical bulletins themselves they control the narrative.

2) The absence of Mills for a lengthy period of time is a problem for the now and the future, especially as Jacob Mendy looked way off the pace in his comeback game at left-back at Port Vale. Carl Johnston, a natural right-back, replaced Mendy and was outstanding, both when defending and getting forward in support of the excellent, yet enigmatic, Kyrell Lisbie. Posh seemed set to lose a right-back in the January transfer window as they have three of them, but Johnston’s performance at Vale Park might cause a re-think. There are obvious difficulties in playing right-footers on the left side, but Johnston overcame them impressively. Sustaining that form is another matter and, as it’s hard to believe Rio Adebisi can return from 19 months out and be effective even if he is due back in action in January, there is a decision to be made. If Posh still decide to let a right-back leave next month, the neat-passing, but less dynamic James Dornelly might be the better option to go. He did okay at Vale, but Peter Kioso will remain the number one in his position.

3) Is Gustav Lindgren set to suffer the same fate as former Posh strikers Matt Godden and Jack Marriott (the second time around)? They were gifted forwards who rarely started because they were battling against Ivan Toney and then Jonson Clarke-Harris for a place in a team that deployed just one forward and two wingers. Lindgren was excellent when he came on yesterday with his willingness to run in the channels and his ability to pick out teammates with accurate passes. He played a huge part in the only goal of the game, but it’s tough to see him starting a game while Harry Leonard remains fit.

4) It’s not just Leonard’s goal-scoring that gets him noticed. The workrate is immense and the bravery to go into combat with much bigger, physically imposing central defenders is eye-catching. And like all good goalscorers he never hides. He failed to convert two decent chances in the first-half at Vale, and came close on a couple of occasions after the break as Posh sought to break the deadlock. But he kept plugging away and gained his reward with a late winning goal, his fourth in three games and his eighth in 11 matches in all competitions, all scored since Williams arrived.

5) It’s a survival of the fittest for League One clubs with that hectic run of matches on the horizon. It was good therefore to see Posh winger Cian Hayes back in action for the first time in three months yesterday. He is direct, quick and tricky, but could do with getting his head up more regularly and more quickly. That’s a particular skill of Lisbie who set up the winning goal yesterday and who created a couple of other good chances for teammates by slowing himself down and finding the right pass. If Posh make Lisbie into a more consistent finisher they will have another Ephron Mason-Clark on their hands. Hayes’ return makes it more likely Posh will try and offload Abraham Odoh in January.