It’s set to be a dramatic final day of the EFL regular season on Monday with five teams battling it out for two remaining spots in the Championship play-offs.
Coventry City appear to have timed their run to perfection, losing just one of their last 16 matches, and Mark Robins spoke of the excitement around the club as they travel to Middlesbrough: “Potentially we’re three games away from a return to the Premier League. There are a lot of variables but ultimately it’s about us and what we do on the day. The excitement is there you can feel it.”
Millwall hold the final top-six spot but Gary Rowett’s side have stuttered with the finish line in sight, winning two of their last eight. A win against a similarly-struggling Blackburn Rovers will suffice, but anything else could let in Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion – or Rovers.
“It’s like watching Raiders of the Lost Ark and you can see the artefact ahead – 100 metres – and there are arrows flying past,” Rowett said. “If you focus too much on the prize, you’re going to lose your footing along the way.”
Key final day fixtures:
All 3pm on Monday 8 May 2023
- Middlesbrough vs Coventry
- Millwall vs Blackburn
- Preston vs Sunderland
- Swansea vs West Brom
When are the Championship play-offs?
The Championship play-offs start on Saturday 13 May with the sixth-placed team hosting third. Sunday 14 May is the first leg of the other semi-final, when fifth place host fourth. The return legs take place on Tuesday 16 and Wednesday 17 May.
All four teams will be battling it out for a place in the Championship play-off final at Wembley on Saturday 27 May.
Championship play-off semi-finals:
- 1st leg: 6th vs 3rd (5.30pm on Sat 13 May)
- 1st leg: 5th vs 4th (12pm on Sun 14 May)
- 2nd leg: 3rd vs 6th (8pm on Tue 16 May)
- 2nd leg: 4th vs 5th (8pm on Wed 17 May)
Championship play-off final:
- 4.45pm on Sat 27 May
Which other teams are still involved?
Luton Town, oh-so impressive again this season despite another change of manager, and Middlesbrough will both host play-off second legs the week after next having secured third and fourth place.
The Hatters, losers to Huddersfield in last season’s semis, have been the surprise package of the second tier, with beloved neighbours Watford to thank for freeing up Rob Edwards. Middlesbrough, meanwhile, have been fired by Arsenal reject Chuba Akpom as they seek to end a six-year exile from the Premier League.
From total farce to the play-offs – Coventry’s remarkable rise
By Daniel Storey, i chief football writer
Far away from the documentary makers and the media circus, it looked like just another season of chaos at Coventry City. This is a club that has feasted upon ignominy and turmoil as its daily bread for at least a decade, where every dawn is preceded and succeeded by darkness and the only certainty is that something is either about to, or just has, gone wrong.
The league campaign began with farce. With the Coventry Building Society Arena hosting the Commonwealth Games Rugby Sevens tournament over the summer, the pitch was unusable for professional football. Cue pointed fingers, as ever.
Chief executive Dave Boddy accused Wasps of promising a new pitch, only for them to enter administration. The only legacy of the Games here was a mud bath and a five-point deduction for Coventry City, mercifully suspended pending any other setbacks.
Coventry began their league season from behind the start line but somehow already nursing a stitch. They had four home games postponed and failed to win any of their first seven matches, sitting bottom of the Championship on 8 October.
By 5 December, the club had confirmed that they had been served an eviction notice by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, who had purchased the operating companies that managed the stadium when they entered administration. To repeat: just another Coventry City season.
Yet if there is one seam that runs through this club’s modern history, it is not their submergence in, or suffocation by, self-concocted hysteria, but their unerring ability to rise above it. The Championship is littered with clubs either being swallowed by financial difficulty or inertia or slowly reacting to it. Coventry are an exception.
Whatever happens to them, the team always copes. Since a 1-0 defeat at West Brom on 3 February, Coventry have lost one of their 13 league games. From the Championship relegation zone at the end of October to the edge of the play-offs in April.
Read Daniel’s full report on Coventry City here
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/w1t6CJV
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