Five talking points from the EFL weekend, including a dream debut for Cardiff's Jordan Hugill

Few Championship strikers divide opinion more than Jordan Hugill.

The 29-year-old's backers see an incredibly industrious centre-forward with an excellent spring, who will selflessly hold the ball up for team-mates and still gets into enough goalscoring positions to consistently hit double-figures - as he did for Preston and QPR - as well as having played a part in Norwich's title win in 2020/21.

The debate is a passionate one but this writer is very much in the pro-Hugill camp, (we may or may not have once argued with a random Albion fan about it on the bus), and it seems Cardiff fans like what they have seen early doors, too.

The striker from the north-east scored six minutes into his Bluebirds debut, helping his new side to a 2-0 victory over Nottingham Forest, easing the relegation fears of Steve Morison's side.

Ilias Chair has long been regarded as one of Queens Park Rangers' key players.

The agile Moroccan at times has opposing defenders on strings. His ability to feign one way before darting the other is akin to a motorcyclist adjusting between the curbs on a particularly intense rally, while the 24-year-old can also be creative and devastating from range.

Despite this, the Rs have taken a remarkable 16 points from six games in Chair's absence, with Chris Willock stepping up to prove he can be the main man.

The attacking midfielder grabbed two assists in the 4-0 victory over Reading last time out in a man-of-the-match showing, despite a brace from target man Lyndon Dykes.

The weekend's third tier action delivered two eye-catching results.

Gillingham 2-7 Oxford saw Cameron Brannagan score from the penalty spot four times in the same game, something that has never been done before in English professional football.

Events at Priestfield, though, were overshadowed by midtable Bolton's 6-0 thumping of promotion contenders Sunderland, who had recently gone on a recruitment drive - supposedly to further their top two ambitions.

Both results prompted a change in the dugout: the Gills, despite their sense of crisis and surely impending relegation, might just have been able to attract former Millwall and Cardiff boss Neil Harris to Kent, according to reports.

Black Cats chairman Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, meanwhile, sacked head coach Lee Johnson and Duncan Ferguson, who has moved on from Everton with Frank Lampard said to be appointed, is now the heavy odds-on favourite for the gig.

November's 2-0 loss at Sutton left Mansfield languishing in 18th and many were fearing another season of unfulfilled promise after disappointing 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns.

What followed, though, has been a spectacular, club record eight-match winning streak, which has propelled Nigel Clough's troops into the play-offs. A sign, if nothing else, that things can change so quickly in football.

The Stags had to win ugly in windy conditions against Leyton Orient, but the second goal from Ollie Clarke in that 2-0 victory was superbly worked.

With Kieran Wallace and Lucas Akins joining from Clough's former club Burton to add to an already thriving squad, the last three months of the campaign look bright for Mansfield.

Winning heavily away to your nearest challengers always feels like a significant moment in a title-winning campaign.

With that in mind, it is understandable that Forest Green Rovers head coach Rob Edwards instigated emphatic celebrations after a 4-0 victory at Tranmere: the long-established defensive kings of the division, no less.

Football is all about enjoying those moments, yet similarly, Edwards has to be sure to weed out any traces of complacency from his Green Devils squad, especially with what's to come.

The Nailsworth outfit have another trip to a promotion contender in Port Vale as soon as Tuesday, which kicks off a run of four games in 12 days - three of them against top nine opposition.

Outsiders will look at Forest Green's 10-point lead, and 11-point gap to fourth, and conclude it's all over bar the shouting.

For Edwards, though, it will be a case of demanding the same standards from star men like Kane Wilson, Nicky Cadden, Jamille Matt and Matty Stevens to ensure they don't suffer a Foinavon-style collapse in the run-in.