1) Time for some play-off pleasure
Norwich have sold their full allocation of 38,800 tickets for Monday’s play-off final, while Middlesbrough sold their initial 38,000 and then got a few more. Meanwhile Arsenal and Aston Villa get 25,000 each for the FA Cup final, meaning Wembley will contain some 27,000 fewer partisan fans for the season’s great showpiece. It’s the absence of the FA’s 20,000-strong army of “volunteers through the football family” that allows the Championship play-off final to create an explosion of noise and colour on a scale that is a distant memory for Cup final day (the Cup semi-finals, where the competing teams share around 60,000 tickets, are better).
For all the support the teams get, in the last couple of seasons they haven’t really performed – both QPR last year and Crystal Palace in 2013 won 1-0, with at least a 90-minute wait for the first and only goal. So we are perhaps due a classic goalfest, though Middlesbrough – that ludicrous 4-3 defeat at Fulham last month excepted – have recently rattled off a string of sober scorelines, with one or both sides scoring nil in seven of their past 10 games. Their 46 league matches this season have featured a total of 105 goals, while the remainder of the top six have on average been party to 137 each (Boro’s is the third lowest total in the division, though they’re considerably outdone by Sheffield Wednesday’s 92). Unless their top scorer Patrick Bamford – injured in last month’s 1-0 win at Carrow Road – is fully recovered the chances of all those fans witnessing wild feats of goalscoring will diminish further. SB
2) It’s goodbye to Steven but is it farewell to Raheem and Brendan too?
Stoke City and Liverpool were both involved at the business end of the 1946‑47 title race, of course. But how times change. No such final-match excitement here. Stoke are cushioned in mid-table, while all that’s on offer for Liverpool is the potential of a Europa League spot. Still, Brendan Rodgers could do with the win that would secure fifth place and guarantee European football at Anfield next season. Liverpool have been so dismal of late, and the mood around the club so bleak, that without it, he could be at severe risk of losing his job. But victory at the Britannia could be too much to ask. Liverpool could easily have lost the game they narrowly won against Stoke at Anfield in November, while they have shipped three goals on each of their last two visits to the Potteries. Stoke have won seven of their past 11 home games, and are looking increasingly confident under Mark Hughes. The brouhahas surrounding Steven Gerrard and Raheem Sterling guarantee an afternoon of heightened emotion whatever happens, but the real drama could envelop the manager if things don’t go to plan for the visitors. Expect gossip. And for the record, Liverpool won the league in 1947, Albert Stubbins scoring the winner in their last match at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Stoke subsequently losing theirs at Sheffield United. A long time ago. SM
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3) Wycombe’s extra-special big giant turnaround
Wycombe started the final day of last season second to bottom of the Football League, needing to win their last game and for either Northampton or Bristol Rovers to lose theirs. They won 3-0 at already-relegated Torquay, and though Northampton beat Oxford, Bristol Rovers lost at home to Mansfield, allowing the Chairboys to survive on goal difference. This season, with the same manager and a squad embellished only by a handful of free transfers, they won 34 more points and came fourth (there is a new chairman, ice cream magnate Andrew Howard, though he is yet to sprinkle the club with his hundreds and thousands). Having been knocked off the top of the league only on 31 January and in contention for automatic promotion until the last day of the season there may be some disappointment with their final league position, but even so theirs is surely one of the great turnarounds in modern league football. “I am so proud about what we’ve achieved this year – on and off the pitch this club is going in the right direction,” their manager, Gareth Ainsworth, said. “We now have this one opportunity to make it extra special.” Whatever the result of their Wembley play-off against Southend, it already qualifies as that. SB
4) Newsflash: Newcastle’s fans deserve a break
Unless the penny finally drops, and Steve Bruce realises he is not employed to get results for Manchester United any more, Hull City will be going down. Newcastle could still find themselves relegated instead, of course, and almost certainly deserve it after a dismal run of form which bears repeating: nine losses in their past 10 games, 18 in their past 24. But they’ll probably get away with it, just, no thanks to John ‘Walk out the Door’ Carver and his risible channelling of David Brent and Gloria Gaynor. The Toon might even register only their third win of the calendar year against West Ham, who have been abject themselves since suffering a dreadful thrashing in the FA Cup at West Brom in February. But whatever Newcastle’s fate, let’s hope the post-season debrief spares their fans any more of the I-told-you-so revisionism regarding the Alan Pardew era. Partly because Pardew’s Newcastle were past masters at embarking on dismal runs themselves. But mainly because it wasn’t just about results, or the quality of the football. Toon fans, contrary to the tired old stereotype, don’t ask for much as paying customers, but they would like a manager they respect, and can relate to. For various reasons, Pardew was never that manager, and subsequent events at Newcastle and Crystal Palace are in this context neither here nor there. Newcastle’s fans have suffered enough this season; they don’t need it ended with a sanctimonious lecture. SM
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5) Swindon’s frightful finish
They may have finished the season fourth in League One but if a team’s ability is judged on their form over the past few months, Swindon must be among the worst play-off finalists in history. Since the end of a run of nine wins in 12 games on 17 January they have 25 points from 20 matches, the 14th-best record in League One. When that run ended they were 26 games through a 46-game season and level on points with Bristol City; by the time the season ended City were 20 points better off. From April Fool’s Day their form tailed off further, and between then and the final day of the regular season they took nine from nine, the 17th best record in the division, with a 3-0 defeat at their Wembley opponents Preston along the way. Since many of the players they have relied on weren’t even at the club when the campaign got under way – with the striker Jonathan Obika signing on deadline day in September and the likes of Jack Stephens and Jordan Turnbull, from Southampton, and Louis Thompson and Harry Toffolo, from Norwich, all arriving on loan after the big kick-off and making 176 league appearances between them – the early-season form that eventually carried them, limping, into the play-offs is more remarkable still. “We were worried in pre-season about what was going to happen to us and it wasn’t a positive pre-season by any stretch of the imagination,” their top scorer, Andy Williams, said this week. “But once we began to bring these players in I was very confident.” Whether after recent results – including the manic second leg of their semi-final against Sheffield United, when they led 3-0, 4-2 and 5-3 with two minutes to go and eventually clung on to a draw – they retain enough confidence to pip Preston we will soon find out. “Our style is very different and I believe if we use that and impact them with our style, there is definitely a chance we’ll be victorious,” their Iraqi midfielder Yaser Kasim told the Swindon Advertiser, intriguingly. SB
6) Palace to chase a meaningless Premier League record
Crystal Palace were magnificent last weekend as they crashed Steven Gerrard’s party, changed the music without asking, took the most expensive beer from the fridge, and plonked themselves down on the most comfortable chair with their boots up on the coffee table. That spectacular 3-1 win ended a run of four straight defeats, though Palace had been unfortunate not to beat, rather than lose to, Manchester United the previous week, and played well at Chelsea in the game before that. All of which suggests that Palace’s four losses in a row which preceded the Liverpool result were less instructive than their four-game winning run in March and April. Alan Pardew’s side have found some form at the end of the season, and a point here will secure their highest points total of the Premier League era. A win – no mean feat against a Swansea side who have won four of their last six games on the road – might even see Palace finish in the top half of the Premier League for the first time, depending on results elsewhere. Palace, of course, finished third in the First Division in 1991, and in the top half of the table the following year, the last before the Premier League begun. The records they will be chasing this weekend, then, are in effect meaningless. But this is a meaningless game at the end of the season, so for once, where’s the harm in a little FA-approved fun? SM
7) Hull can’t conjure a happy finish
Hull must beat Manchester United at home if they’re to stand any chance whatsoever of staying in the Premier League. This calls to mind the last time they had to win the final game of a top-flight season to stand any reasonable chance of avoiding relegation, back in 2009, when their visitors, uncannily, were Manchester United. They lost 1-0, which doesn’t augur well, but more happily they stayed up anyway because Newcastle lost to a team in claret and blue – Aston Villa that time – to go down instead (when they went down the following year their demotion had already been sealed before their final game). But Hull have a long-standing habit of doing terribly in their final game of any season. Excluding play-offs and cup finals the last 10 seasons have brought three draws and seven defeats, and going back another five years to the turn of the millennium brings one victory, but also three defeats and a draw. Manchester United, meanwhile, have won 11 of their past 15 final-day matches, drawing two and losing just two, both when the league title was already wrapped up. SB
8) Time to celebrate the greatest league in the world (clue: it’s not the Premier League)
The Scottish Championship was arguably the most entertaining division in Britain this season. Three of the biggest clubs in the country contested it – poor Queen of the South, in a good place right now, will be cursing their timing and their luck – and everyone brought something special to the table. Hearts were by far the best side, breezing it from the off in their beautifully styled retro shirts. Rangers provided a boardroom soap opera which made Dallas look like Acorn Antiques. Hibs, meanwhile, chipped in with one of the best goals scored in Europe this season. (Laugh it up all you like, but if Barcelona had put this pitch-long move together, with Lionel Messi finishing it off instead of Lewis Stevenson, we would never hear the end of it.) That goal sealed a 2-0 win at Ibrox in February, and at this point they enjoyed the upper hand over Rangers: three wins out of three in the league, the pick a jaw-dropping 4-0 rout at Easter Road just after Christmas. But Rangers ground out a deserved win at Hibs in March, new manager Stuart McCall making his first big statement, and this week the wily playmaker Haris Vuckic, on loan from Newcastle, proved the difference in the first-leg of the Premiership play-off semi-final. Can Hibs reassert themselves and channel that early-season mojo? McCall admits Rangers’ 2-0 first-leg lead flatters his side, so it’s not beyond them. It should be a thunderous game. Either way, one giant of Scottish football is certain to remain in the second tier for another season. Yep, poor Queen of the South will be cursing their luck. SM
9) Will Pochettino tell it like it is?
Hats off to Mauricio Pochettino for his refreshing candour: he simply cannot be bothered hiding his disdain for the Europa League. Unfortunately for the Tottenham manager, his team appear to have done enough to qualify for it next season, despite losing three of their past six games. Even defeat against Everton, who have won six of their past nine matches, probably won’t be enough to give Uefa’s unloved behemoth the bodyswerve. Pochettino’s post-match interviews could be interesting, then, if he decides to elaborate on his plans for next season, which may or may not include fielding the tea lady and Alan from accounts in Europe. Uefa probably needs to do something about this at some point. Turning its second club competition back into a straight knockout would probably help alleviate the boredom and ennui. And maybe it could bring the Cup Winners’ Cup back as well, while it’s at it. But don’t hold your breath. SM
10) The outgoing champs try to finish with a flourish
It has not quite gelled for Manchester City this season, yet they have not lost the ability to rattle in the goals. They have scored 21 in their last six home games. They have also hit a pleasing rich vein of late-season form since being turned over in spectacular style at Old Trafford: five wins on the bounce, a sequence which has included impressive wins at Tottenham and Swansea, plus a six-goal humiliation of QPR. Manuel Pellegrini, the sword of Abu Dhamocles constantly hovering over his head, will be desperate to finish the season with a sixth victory in a row against a Saints team in a poor run of form (that astonishing first-half, five-goal outlier against Aston Villa apart). A decent end-of-year return – coupled with the second-place finish that was far from nailed-on back in March – should be enough to earn the City manager another season in the job. But you know how these things pan out, and the mood music after the game might be worth cocking an ear to. SM
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