good morning!
The EFL Championship regular season has come and gone. Leicester City and Ipswich Town are heading to the Premier League. Birmingham, Huddersfield and Rotherham will be moving down to League One.
We’ll have a full Championship recap later, but right now we have to focus on the fight for the third promotion. The playoffs start this weekend. Here’s what we’ve got:
Leeds (3) vs Norwich (6)
Southampton (4) vs West Brom (5)
This is a difficult one to predict. All four clubs are entering the playoffs on pretty bad form, so it’s really anyone’s guess as to what’ll happen.
And that’s where this ‘anyone’ comes into play.
Leeds vs Norwich:
This is an exciting matchup. Daniel Farke’s new club versus his old club. That’s a nice storyline. Leeds enter having lost three of their final five matches. Norwich are winless in their last three, meanwhile.
History says Leeds won’t go up. The playoffs aren’t really their thing. Leeds did the double on Norwich this season, but that second win was back in January before Norwich really got cooking.
While Leeds have a stronger attacking threat in Crysencio Summerville, I think their defence has gotten a bit leaky recently. So that should be good news for Norwich’s goal-scoring threats of Josh Sargent, Gabriel Sara and Jonathan Rowe.
Fitzie’s prediction: Norwich advance
Southampton vs West Brom:
Soton also did the double over WBA this season, went on a very long winning streak and then eventually faded out of the hunt for automatic promotion.
Just when it looked like they could claw their way back in, Southampton lost three straight. They did make it up with a win against Leeds on the final day.
Heading into the season, I thought WBA would get promoted because Carlos Cobreran is a very good manager (and I thought Russell Martin was a little overrated). But Martin’s Southampton have played some of the most fluid football in the Championship this season. It doesn’t always result in goals, though.
I think the big difference here is Adam Armstrong. I’d say he’s a reliable attacking threat for Southampton, and that’s why I think they’ll go to Wembley.
Fitzie’s prediction: Southampton advance
Fitzie’s track of the day: Dancing with Myself, by Generation X
And now for your links:
The Athetlic ($$): Tottenham’s Jessica Naz in FA Cup final after ‘everything came crashing down’
Football London: Ange Postecoglou to consider three changes vs Burnely
Bayer Leverkusen advance to Europa League final