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Football clubs are generally in one of three stages at any one time: crisis, reboot or stable.
It's amazing how quickly they can flit from one stage to the next; the sport is cyclical, and some can complete the transition inside a few years—then fall back to the first stage again almost without warning.
Clubs of all shapes and sizes go through these cycles. The elite are not immune.
Here, B/R Football has used the pause in action to profile five sides whose fortunes and prospects have greatly improved over the last 12 months.