It says it all about the thoroughbred nature of the League One promotion race that four of the teams playing in Tuesday’s night of destiny are former Premier League clubs.
Two promotions, play-off places and the survival battle are all at stake on a night when nerves are certain to be frayed.
Wigan – 2013 FA Cup winners – tussle with Portsmouth, 2008 FA Cup winners, looking for the point which will clinch a remarkable return to the Championship after last season’s bruising administration.
For Sheffield Wednesday the need for points is desperate as they sit just outside the play-offs. Opponents Fleetwood are 20th and above Gillingham in the final relegation place on goal difference.
Championship
- Up: Fulham have been promoted and need four points from the last three games to go up as champions. The second automatic promotion spot will come from either Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Nottingham Forest or Luton.
- Down: Derby County, Barnsley and Peterborough confirmed.
League One
- Up: Wigan will be promoted if they avoid defeat at Portsmouth on Tuesday. If Rotherham draw or lose and Wigan win, they also win the title.
- Down: Crewe confirmed. Doncaster and AFC Wimbledon are vulnerable and both will be relegated if Fleetwood avoid defeat against Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday.
League Two
- Up: Forest Green Rovers. Exeter are guaranteed a play-off place but will also be promoted with victory over Barrow on Tuesday.
- Down: Scunthorpe and Oldham confirmed.
And on Wearside, in League One’s match of the day, Sunderland – a main stay of the Premier League until five years ago – meet Rotherham. The former need a win to clinch a top-six place while the Millers require a win to make a decisive move past MK Dons and virtually assure promotion.
It is no wonder Rotherham’s manager Paul Warne, an impressively honest character who has admitted in the past he hates the tension of match days, reckons this is the toughest League One he has ever known.
“Everyone who gets into the play-offs this year will have 80 points, four years ago we went up through Wembley with 74 so the standard of play has been very high for the top 10 teams,” he says.
“Even down to the clubs [who aren’t in the promotion race] Charlton, Portsmouth Ipswich, Wigan – these are big clubs, big teams, big fanbases. It’s probably the toughest League One I’ve ever known.”
For 80 points to be the high watermark required to sneak into the play-offs is extraordinary. To put it into context Oxford, who will miss out with a current tally 75 points, would have made it into the top six in each of the last 11 seasons. As it is Sunderland may need 83 to qualify for the play-offs for the third year in succession and cap a strange season at the Stadium of Light.
Six weeks ago it looked as if their season was in meltdown, the ill will of fans who were desperate to see Roy Keane coronated as manager after Lee Johnson’s dismissal reflecting the fall out of automatic promotion contention.
But behind-the-scenes they are run differently these days. Analytics and data play a big part and it was felt that Alex Neil, former Preston and Norwich manager, was the better fit.
It has been unflashy and sometimes workmanlike but Neil’s biggest virtue has been his ability to plot a path through the noise and deliver results. They are nine unbeaten and Saturday’s 5-1 win over Cambridge was a sign of a side coming into form at the right time.
They will need it against Rotherham. “They’re a good team, they’re going to threaten to go up automatically,” Neil said.
“They’re big, they’re robust, they put the ball forward, they’re strong, they’ve got a lot of legs in their team. It’s going to be a tough game – we have to match them.”
For Warne, Rotherham’s recent form has been a disappointment.
“The elephant in the room – well, it’s not much of an elephant, it’s a herd – is we were in an unbelievable position six or seven weeks ago so that’s the element of disappointment. Everyone had their sugary sweets and I’ve now taken their sweets off them, no-one is getting sweets off me at the moment,” he said. Victory at the Stadium of Light would be the rush his Rotherham need.
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