EFL five things - Time to get the calculators out
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The sun has made a few appearances this week, spring is in the air and there are furrowed brows among football fans up and down the country.
Remaining fixtures are being studied, who needs what to go up, make the play-offs or survive?
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This weekend the EFL is serving up some tasty head-to-heads including a meeting of two sides who were in the Premier League last season but are experiencing very different fortunes, plus there is the small matter of the top two facing off in League One.
Here are five things you may want to look out for in the EFL on Saturday.
Tigers and Lions roaring into contention
Femi Azeez has scored eight goals for Millwall this season [Getty Images]A pre-season list of promotion outsiders may have had Millwall on it but Hull City? Not so much.
While the Lions only missed out on last season's play-offs by losing at Burnley on the final day of the campaign, Hull were staying up on goal difference.
The Tigers also had financial issues and transfer embargoes to navigate along with the appointment of the relatively unheralded Sergej Jakirovic as their sixth boss in barely three years.
Yet here we are on Saturday at the MKM Stadium (12:30 GMT) and it is fifth against fourth with both sides comfortably inside the top six but far from out of the automatic promotion race.
City, beaten at Ipswich on Tuesday, will see this game and Tuesday's trip to sixth-placed Wrexham as pivotal to their hopes, while Alex Neil's side have recovered from a surprise defeat by Portsmouth to impressively dispose of Birmingham and Preston.
"Millwall were consistent in making things difficult and being organised and hard to beat, but you also need to create opportunities and score goals," EFL pundit Jobi McAnuff told the BBC's EFL podcast 72+ this week.
"You look at the goals they've been scoring. Femi Azeez has been fantastic but also the players they've brought in to really complement that organisation and hard working side of things."
The Premier League dream is very much alive for these two.
Rovers and Pompey drawn back into the darkness
Blackburn midfielder Sondre Tronstad will miss the remainder of the season [Getty Images]When Blackburn Rovers and Portsmouth matched each other with successive victories in February they may have begun to see light at the end of the Championship relegation tunnel.
Back-to-back defeats since has seen the gloom return making Saturday's meeting at Ewood Park (12:30 GMT) one of those must-win or don't-lose affairs.
Victory for Blackburn could move them seven points clear of trouble and above their opponents, lose and the dotted line could be just one point away with a game at fellow strugglers Oxford to come on Wednesday.
While Pompey have the boost of defender Conor Shaughnessy returning from injury, Rovers have lost influential midfielder Sondre Tronstad for the rest of the season - it never rains but it pours in Lancashire although the weather is also a sore point there this season.
"When our backs are to the wall and the pressure is on we seem to pick up results in key moments so hopefully it'll be the same this weekend," Portsmouth boss John Mousinho told BBC Radio Solent.
Differing fortunes for Town and Foxes
Leicester City are on a nine-game winless run in the Championship [Getty Images]Relegation from the Premier League can really bring differing fortunes, just ask Ipswich and Leicester.
When appointed as boss until the end of the campaign last month, Gary Rowett became the third different voice Leicester City's players will have listened to as head coach this season.
If they do not buck up their ideas they could be playing in a third different division in the space of 15 months come August.
Since joining Ipswich Town in suffering an immediate return to the Championship at the end of last season, what could go wrong has gone wrong for the Foxes.
A failure to get going under Marti Cifuentes led to the head coach being sacked in January. A six-point deduction for breaching financial regulations followed last month and, coupled with a winless league run of nine games, they find themselves in the relegation zone.
There is an appeal against the points penalty but even if that is successful, Leicester would only be 19th so you can forgive supporters for looking enviously at their opponents as they head to Portman Road on Saturday (15:00 GMT).
Despite failing to win any of their opening four games after relegation, Ipswich have steadily and impressively got into their stride, and have won eight of their past 11 Championship matches.
Victory against Leicester would move them up to second place for at least a day with Middlesbrough not facing QPR until Sunday (16:30 GMT).
Beating Hull City on Tuesday meant Kieran McKenna became the fastest Ipswich boss to reach 100 wins while promotion this season would make him the first to achieve two elevations to the top flight with the Suffolk club.
Bluebirds and Imps leaving League One behind?
Michael Skubala has won 61 of his 128 games in charge of Lincoln City [Getty Images]Cardiff City against Lincoln City will surely be a Championship fixture next season with these two barely in sight of the chasing pack in League One as they meet in south Wales on Saturday (12:30 GMT).
The Bluebirds' swift return to the second tier has looked pretty inevitable from the moment they opened the season with a seven-game unbeaten run including five wins - Cardiff have the most wins (22) of any side in the top four divisions and have been streets ahead of the rest, alongside the second-placed Imps.
It is 65 years since Lincoln were last in the second tier and their 17-match unbeaten streak is seemingly taking them back there at a canter.
Victory in the principality would give them the double over their opponents and take them top.
"It's going to be as tough as it gets because of how good the opponents are," said Cardiff boss Brian Barry-Murphy, although both will surely face even bigger tests next season.
Crawley creeping into trouble
Scott Lindsey's only league experience as a player was 12 appearances for Gillingham [Getty Images]As managers go, Scott Lindsey is a popular figure at Crawley Town.
First joining them from Swindon in January 2023, he kept them in the EFL before bagging a memorable promotion via the play-offs the following season.
A brief spell away at MK Dons did not work out and so last March he was back in Sussex but this time was unable to save them from the drop to League Two.
Now just one point clear of the relegation zone, Crawley need him to rediscover his skills of escapology and quickly, but their run of two wins from the past 20 outings is hardly cause for optimism and is the worst sequence of any of the current bottom four in League Two.
His former club, where he had seven relatively unhappy months in charge, are the visitors on Saturday (15:00 GMT) and with Swindon chasing promotion Lindsey can expect no favours.
BBC Sport will have live text coverage of all the weekend's EFL action starting with Preston v Oxford United and Cheltenham against Barrow on Friday night.