A place in the Premier League awaits for one of Huddersfield Town or Nottingham Forest as the clubs prepare to go head-to-head in the Championship play-off final on Sunday.
Both teams have exceeded expectations to get to this point. After slipping out of the Premier League in 2019, Huddersfield recorded finishes of 18th and 20th in the Championship and were tipped for another season of strife this time around.
Instead, Carlos Corberan, Marcelo Bielsa’s former first-team coach at Leeds, steered them to an impressive third place.
Forest, meanwhile, propped up the division after taking a solitary point from their opening seven games but have been a club transformed under Steve Cooper.
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Despite eventually finishing fourth, two points below the Terriers, Forest were in contention for an automatic promotion place until losing against Bournemouth in their penultimate game.
Whoever wins a match that is frequently dubbed the “richest” in football due to the financial rewards on offer in the Premier League, will join Fulham and Bournemouth in the top-flight after they secured first and second place respectively in the table, with Burnley, Watford and Norwich all heading in the opposite direction.
Huddersfield defied expectations by avoiding relegation in their first Premier League season in 2017-18, but their demise the following year was stark.
David Wagner, who masterminded their promotion via the play-offs, left by mutual consent midway through the campaign and a host of expensive signings, including Terence Kongolo, Steve Mounie and Alex Pritchard, provided little return on their investment.
Just three years on from Town’s last top-flight game and the squad is almost completely different, with the exception of long-serving captain Jonathan Hogg.
The overhaul has been extremely thrifty with Corberan’s squad largely comprised of free signings like top-scorer Danny Ward and Championship goalkeeper of the year Lee Nicholls, low-cost buys such as Sorba Thomas from Boreham Wood and loans, the pick of whom has been Chelsea defender Levi Colwill. Academy star Lewis O’Brien, meanwhile, has been a mainstay in midfield.
Key to Huddersfield’s success has been their adaptability with Corberan frequently tailoring his tactics to try and nullify their opponent’s strengths, such as in the previous league meeting between the clubs when they enjoyed a 1-0 victory at the City Ground in December.
How to watch the Championship play-off final
- Date: Sunday 29 May
- Kick-off time: 4.30pm BST
- Venue: Wembley Stadium
- TV channel: Coverage begins at 3.30pm on Sky Sports Football or at 4pm on Sky Sports Main Event
- Stream: You can stream it on Now. Sign up for a monthly membership for £33.99 or else buy a day pass for £11.98
Whereas Huddersfield have recent Premier League experience, Nottingham Forest’s stay outside of the top-flight currently spans 23 years following their relegation at the end of the 1998-99 season.
This is the closest the club has come to a return since and an exciting young team managed by the hugely popular Cooper has got Forest fans believing that the good times might finally be returning. Cooper has been a revelation since arriving in September and the former World Cup-winning England U20 coach’s track record for developing young players has certainly been in evidence at the City Ground.
A trio of 21-year-old’s have caught the eye with Brennan Johnson leading the way for goals (18) and assists (10) in Forest’s squad, Djed Spence earning rave reviews from wing-back and Manchester United loanee James Garner controlling games in midfield. The whole team has evolved, though, and Forest ended the regular season with a run of 10 wins in their final 14 league games.
Only Fulham and Bournemouth scored more goals than Cooper’s side across the season, while they also boasted the second-best defensive record. It is perhaps those records, allied to the emergence of Johnson and co, that Forest are regarded as the bookies’ favourites, albeit only just, to reach the promised land.
Both clubs enjoyed dramatic play-off semi-final second leg victories in front of their own fans and will now be looking to make it a day to remember at Wembley on Sunday.
Lee Nicholls: ‘Huddersfield move came at just the right time’
By Mark Douglas, i‘s northern football correspondent
If you want to know how Huddersfield emerged from the Championship pack to play in the richest game in English football, look no further than goalkeeper Lee Nicholls.
Not just because he has emerged as the steadiest hand in a team with one of the best defences in the second tier, collecting 19 clean sheets and a place in the PFA team of the season. More because he represents the apex of a brilliant recruitment strategy that has delivered the Terriers to this point.
A club that hasn’t got a budget to match many of its promotion rivals has made a point of recruiting character and potential, which is what led them to Nicholls, who spent most of last season warming the bench at MK Dons in League One.
Huddersfield’s Head of Goalkeeping Paul Clements knew Nicholls from his time playing for England sides in his youth and wondered why his career “had fallen off a cliff”. But a summer meeting convinced him that he was a rough diamond who could transform Huddersfield.
It has proven to be a very astute move.
Nicholls attributes previous struggles to a “combination of things” but a family tragedy overshadowed pre-season. His brother-in-law Mick Broadhurst passed away suddenly in the summer and he admits he was still grieving when the campaign began.
“There was a lot of things that went into what happened at MK Dons – two or three or four things that tied together to create it. I lost someone really close to me and mentally I wasn’t there to be honest,” he tells i.
“I lost my brother-in-law who was more or less a brother to me. It was sudden – a heart attack – and the whole family took it really tough. I came back into pre-season not in the shape I needed to be and the season just went from there. I was on an uphill battle from there I think, to be honest.
“Then I got offered a new deal and I turned that down and I think then the club wanted to prepare to the future so they brought in another goalkeeper (Andy Fisher). He was playing well so I didn’t have a leg to stand on and I just pushed him, supported him and tried to help the team.
“By the end I was ready for a move and I wanted to test myself in the Championship again – so Huddersfield came at just the right time.”
Whatever happens, Forest are finally on the up under Steve Cooper
By Daniel Storey, i‘s chief football writer
The appointment of Steve Cooper as manager was a masterstroke, albeit several games too late to secure automatic promotion. Cooper led Swansea to two successive top-six finishes but the style of football – at a club where that was deemed crucial – was criticised by fans.
At Forest, Cooper found a blank canvas and a fanbase desperate for a new hero. He has fallen in love with them and the feeling is more than mutual. Between Cooper’s appointment and the end of the season, Forest took more points than anyone else. They conceded the fewest goals and scored the second most.
The identity of Forest’s best players matters too. Brennan Johnson was the top goalscorer and top assist provider. Yates and Worrall were named in the Championship Team of the Season. All three are academy graduates. Through everything, dark times and darker times, the ability of the academy to produce players somehow persisted and its head, Gary Brazil, merits as much praise as anyone else. This season, Forest reached the FA Youth Cup final for the first time in their history. The future is bright.
And so, because of all that, this time it was different. Forest floundered against Sheffield United but were not beaten and did not quite manage to beat themselves. Samba was the star, a miraculous extra-time save and three more in the penalty shootout.
Thirty-six thousand Forest fans will head to Wembley on Sunday for the first time since 1992 and they could have sold out their allocation twice over. Most of those will tell you that being clear favourites for the play-off final feels a little misplaced, partly because of the Sheffield United performance and partly because the fear never quite leaves you.
But whatever happens, next season need not be another year zero. The clock does not need to reset again. Loan players would leave if Forest don’t go up, but Cooper’s work this season makes them well-placed to attract the next crop. Johnson and Worrall may be sold for record high prices, but the academy is busy forging their replacements.
All that’s left is to make sure that their biggest match in two decades doesn’t contain any more fearful hushes. Now is the time for noise, to sing from Wembley’s stands about what once made this club great and what just might take them closer to greatness than they have been in far too long.
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