Town boss Paul Cook believes this season’s League One is the strongest there's ever been with no club likely to run away with it.
Cook, who won the division in 2017/18 with Wigan, was asked whether this is the strongest League One season with clubs such as the Blues, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday traditionally from higher divisions and the likes of Rotherham and Wycombe, who were relegated from the Championship last year having been promoted the season before.
"Of course it is,” he reflected. "Last time luckily I was promoted with Wigan, Wigan and Blackburn were the two strongest clubs by far. There was no real other competition in the league. I can’t remember the points tally, I think we probably got to 98 and Blackburn on 96. I think Shrewsbury pushed on 86 and then there was probably a gap of eight points.
"This year, you don’t see any team running away with the league, you just don’t. But that’s only as we sit today.
"There’s so much football to be played, there are so many big clubs, good clubs, there’s a window coming up in January and like good clubs always do, they’re always looking to make themselves better and stronger.
"We just want to look after our own business. At our club, I think we have a class about us that’s good. I think that was seen in a really good light against Oxford last week when it was fantastic game, in my opinion, played in front a really good crowd, a partisan crowd and the game was a draw and you move on to the next one.
"[Oldham manager] Keith Curle commented on the club on Tuesday night and I think that’s good. I think it’s healthy that people speak about our club well, but we’ve also got to be fiercely competitive and that’s what we're trying to do.”
Like Town fans, Sunderland supporters probably felt they would have only a short stint in League One, however, this is their fourth campaign in the third tier.
"I’d always have a more disciplined approach than most,” Cook continued. "I see a lot of clubs continually just sack managers and think that sorts the problem. I don’t see many clubs giving managers time.
"The bigger clubs that have fallen into League One, if you look at Leeds United today, if you look at Leicester City today, look at Southampton, Wolves, over a period of time with good decisions, they’ve all got back where they wanted to be.
"In my world, I think everyone has an instant [desire to] want to win today and go up today, but if you build properly - look at Brentford today where they are in the Premier League - success will come.
"Supporting your team is so tough sometimes because the bad days are bad, they really are bad and there’s no getting away from that, especially when you’re a big club and you’ve fallen to lowly heights. But the reality is that if the future’s solid, the future will be good.”