Two stories dominated the Championship conversation after Saturday's action: Middlesbrough's clinical surge to the top of the table, and West Ham's continued inability to turn the London Stadium into anything resembling a fortress. Both deserve scrutiny, because the numbers behind them tell you something important about where each club is heading.

Lankshear: the case for and the ceiling

Middlesbrough beat Charlton Athletic 3-0 to move two points clear at the summit, with Will Lankshear scoring twice to take his tally to 13 goals in 13 Championship matches since his £20m summer arrival. He has now scored in all but one of Boro's home games this season. That is a remarkable return by any measure in this division.

BBC Final Score pundit Aaron McLean, who called Lankshear an eventual England international before the season kicked off, feels the striker is justifying that faith. "He's got something, that X-factor," McLean said. "Now he's showing exactly why Middlesbrough spent £20m on him."

The claim holds up, at least in raw output. A striker averaging a goal per game in the second tier is genuinely rare; the last time Boro had a forward anywhere near that clip at this stage of a season, they were well on their way to winning promotion. The obvious caveat is sample size: 13 games is not 46, and defences will adapt. The more searching question is whether Middlesbrough can sustain the form around him.

McLean raises a point that cuts to the heart of Boro's season: keeping Lankshear at the Riverside depends on getting promoted with him. Every goal he scores widens the gap between his current wage and what top-flight clubs will eventually offer. Championship clubs have learned this lesson painfully before, watching goalscorers either agitate for moves in January or leave on cut-price deals in the summer. Promotion is not just desirable for Middlesbrough; it is the only argument that makes retaining a player of his current trajectory realistic.

Whether McLean is right that an England call-up would be premature is harder to assess from Championship statistics alone. But his broader logic, that Lankshear needs a full season at this level before being thrust into international scrutiny, is sensible. For now, Boro sit top and their striker is the most in-form forward in the division. That is the position every club in this league wants to be in at the end of October.

West Ham: the home record that cannot be explained away

While Middlesbrough are quietly building a title challenge, West Ham find themselves eighth and with a specific, damaging problem: all three of their Championship defeats this season have come at the London Stadium. They conceded three at home for the second successive Saturday, this time losing to West Bromwich Albion.

McLean posed the central question bluntly: are West Ham failing to respect the opposition, or are opponents arriving with a clear gameplan because they have spotted a soft underbelly and an inclination to start slowly? Both explanations are uncomfortable, for different reasons. The first suggests a mentality problem; the second suggests an analytical one that better-prepared opponents are already exploiting.

The split in the fanbase over manager Nuno Espirito Santo adds pressure but does not, by itself, explain the home record. What is measurable is this: conceding early goals at home is a pattern. Patterns in football, unlike single incidents, tend to reflect something structural, whether that is the shape used in the opening minutes, the press triggers the team is giving away, or the way they defend wide areas in the first quarter of the game. We do not have granular positional data to settle exactly where the goals are coming from, but the consistency of the problem across three home defeats points to something repeatable rather than bad luck.

McLean's observation that opponents enjoy the London Stadium experience rather than fearing it is the sharpest summary of the situation. A ground with a capacity of around 60,000 should, in theory, generate an advantage. At the moment, it appears to be generating the opposite: a stage on which visiting sides feel they have licence to perform.

With Jarrod Bowen having scored seven times this season, West Ham are not short of attacking quality. The problem is structural rather than individual, and structural problems take longer to fix. Nuno has time, but the Championship table waits for nobody, and three home defeats in a division where home form is almost always the bedrock of promotion challenges is a serious hole to dig out of.

What it means for the table

Middlesbrough lead by two points and have a striker in the form of his career. West Ham sit three places and several points of home-ground confidence below them. Both clubs began the season with promotion ambitions; right now, one looks like a genuine title contender and the other looks like a side still searching for its identity in this division. The gap between those two positions can close quickly in the Championship, but it will require West Ham to solve a home problem that is becoming harder to dismiss as a coincidence.

Frequently asked

How many goals has Will Lankshear scored for Middlesbrough this season?
Lankshear has scored 13 goals in 13 Championship matches since joining Middlesbrough for £20m in the summer, making him the division's most prolific striker at this stage of the season.
Why are West Ham losing so many home games in the Championship?
All three of West Ham's Championship defeats this season have come at the London Stadium. Pundits and observers point to a pattern of conceding early at home and failing to impose themselves on opponents, though the exact tactical cause has not yet been pinned down publicly.
Where are Middlesbrough in the Championship table?
Middlesbrough are top of the Championship table, two points clear of the rest, following their 3-0 win over Charlton Athletic.