Sheffield Wednesday 7-2 Bromley, and the week Bromley had

Bromley have played two matches in four days and conceded twelve goals. On Saturday they lost 7-2 at Sheffield Wednesday. On Tuesday they lost 5-0 at home to Leyton Orient.

It is the sort of week that defines a season for a club at this level, and it has happened to a side that only reached League One recently.

Saturday at Hillsborough

Seven goals in a league match is rare at any level of English football. Sheffield Wednesday scored them against a Bromley side that also managed two, which makes it a nine-goal game rather than a shutout — and in some ways that is worse, because it suggests a match that was open rather than one where a team simply defended badly.

For Wednesday it was the sort of afternoon that changes the mood around a club. They sit second in League One with nine points from four, a goal difference of plus six, and a scoring record that now looks like the best in the division.

And then Tuesday

Four days later Bromley were at home to Leyton Orient and lost 5-0. Two matches, twelve conceded, two scored.

There is no reading of that which is comfortable. A heavy away defeat at a big club can be filed and forgotten; the same thing at home to a mid-table side four days later cannot. Whatever went wrong at Hillsborough had not been fixed by Tuesday.

The division around them

League One after four matches has Huddersfield Town top on ten points with a goal difference of plus six, Sheffield Wednesday second on nine with the same difference, and Blackpool third on seven.

At the bottom, Wycombe Wanderers have two points, and Wigan Athletic and Milton Keynes Dons have three apiece. Bromley are in that neighbourhood and arriving at speed.

The rest of the weekend produced its own scorelines. Blackpool beat Peterborough 4-0, Stockport County beat Wycombe 5-1, and Mansfield Town beat Luton Town 5-2 — before losing 5-0 at Reading on Wednesday, which is its own kind of week.

Where Sheffield Wednesday have come from

The context that makes Wednesday second in this division interesting is what the club has been through off the pitch. A team that spent recent seasons dealing with administration and a takeover is now scoring seven in a league match and sitting a point off the top.

That is the argument for League One as the most watchable division in England. It contains clubs that have been in the Premier League, clubs that have nearly gone out of existence, and clubs like Bromley who arrived from non-league inside the last few years — all playing each other every week.

Twelve goals, and what that number usually means

Conceding twelve across two matches is rare enough at professional level to be worth putting in proportion. It is more than several clubs in this division have conceded all season across four games.

It also tends to arrive in a specific way: not from one catastrophic defensive display repeated, but from a side that concedes early, chases the game, and is then punished for the space it leaves. A 7-2 in which the losing side scored twice fits that description almost exactly, and a 5-0 four days later suggests the pattern had not been broken.

The good news, such as it is, is that scorelines of this kind are usually a worse indicator than they feel. A team that is conceding heavily while attacking is a different problem from a team being pinned in and picked off, and the first is more fixable than the second.

What happens next for Bromley

The honest answer is that a club in their position has one thing to do, and it is not tactical. Twelve goals in four days is a confidence problem before it is a defensive one, and the fastest route out of it is a clean sheet in a game nobody is watching.

They have been here before in a different sense: Bromley climbed from the National League to League One in two seasons, which is a run that suggests a club capable of absorbing a bad week. The question is whether this division gives them the time.

Sheffield Wednesday, meanwhile, go into September second, unbeaten in three of four, and with the best goal difference in the division. Nobody at Hillsborough will be complaining about the fixture list.

The two clubs meet again in the reverse fixture later in the season, and by then this week will either look like the moment Bromley season went wrong or like an aberration that everybody forgot about. League One rarely leaves either verdict in doubt for long, and with a midweek round and a cup tie in the same month, neither club has to wait to find out which it was.