The logistical abilities of the average football fan are unparalleled. Becoming semi-professional travel agents and battling with Britain’s creaking infrastructure, tens of thousands will descend upon our nation’s capital ready for the EFL play-off finals next weekend. They’ll have navigated bank holiday engineering works, rail replacement buses and have been packed into London Underground’s most sweltering of carriages. The blood, sweat, tears and cold hard cash will all be worth it though, if their dream of promotion comes true.

By Sanny Rudravajhala

I’ve just sorted my travel (train), accommodation (mate’s spare room) and tickets (press box) for all three finals and it’ll be a privilege to be at Wembley once again. And in the Championship, we’ve got the prospect of Sheffield United facing Sunderland for a place in the Premier League.

Ok, yes, I thought it would be the broadcasters’ dream tie of a Lampard-Wilder face-off, but Regis Le Bris’ Sunderland gave us just the sort of dramatic finale that we’ve come to expect in the EFL, in booking their place to face Sheffield United.

Leading 2-1 from the first leg, Ephron Mason-Clark’s second half volley left us level and then Haji Wright with the final touch of the 90 minutes, headed wide from point blank range. It was the archetypal ‘50p head header’ (imagine the corner of a pentagon heading a ball and it going off at a completely skewed angle), all before Dan Ballard was in the money at the other end, in the final moment of extra time to send the Stadium of Light crackers and break Coventry hearts.

“The finish was amazing. Absolutely amazing”, Michael Dunne from Roker Report tells me. 

“The way the game was going, I think everyone was settled for penalties and despite us having a good bit of momentum going into the second half of extra time, you just never expect to score that late on. I was half looking at the corner, but half just mentally preparing myself for penalties, and then I was jumping for joy and running around the place. It was just one of those amazing moments that will go down in the history of Sunderland. The occasion, the finale and the man who scored the goal, Dan Ballard, who was probably our best player over the two legs. Everyone the next day since has been booking their flights, trains, tickets, accommodation, getting everything sorted, but it’s just great.”

For Sheffield United, it was much simpler. Bristol City were spirited but as soon as Keiffer Moore climbed head and shoulders above his defender to nod home and give them a 4-0 aggregate lead, the tie was effectively over, with Sheffield United underlining their quality with a 6-0 overall finish and allowing their supporters to focus on the final and getting over the line.

“I’ve seen my club fall foul of the playoffs every time we’ve ever been in it, so I’m obviously approaching Wembley with some trepidation”, says Sam Parry of The Pinch newsletter and podcast. “The semifinal was fairly straightforward, but I think it’s also important to add that in those two games against Bristol City and in the final two games of the season, we’ve posted some of our best expected goals (xG) numbers shifting into a 4-4-2 as we have all season. We come into this arguably as strong as we ever and, excluding Ollie Arblaster, have everyone available. So, I’m sort of a mixture of confidence in the team but apprehension about the task because it’s never going to be easy and these ties are often decided by a single goal. But really, we were third by such a big margin that we probably rightfully go in as favourites.”

The table has been thrown out of the window by now but just to go back to it, it is still incredible that Sheffield United didn’t go up automatically with 90 points, but even adding their deducted extra two for defaulting on payments to clubs, they still wouldn’t have made it and will arrive at Wembley as equals with Sunderland, despite the 14-point gap in the table.

A ‘season of two halves’ is how Michael describes Sunderland’s campaign. I picked out the draw with Burnley as their Sliding Doors ‘nexus-point’, where two late Wilson Isidor penalty misses felt like the beginning of the end of the automatic promotion hopes, and Michael says Regis Le Bris has evolved the team’s style to cope with the rigours of such a demanding season.

“From August until mid-February, we were fighting for the automatics but we were never really in the driving seat. But we were playing some really good football. We started the season off as a high press attacking team, where opponents weren’t even able to get out of their own box, never mind their own half, because we pressed up so high and scored. You just need to look at the Sheffield Wednesday game early in the season when we battered them for the first 45 minutes and were 3-0 up by half time. We were just brilliant. But gradually, we changed into more of a low defensive block, counter-attacking team. We have a lot of young players, we have the legs and we are fit but the tactics changed and we became a little bit less exciting to watch. We were still playing well, defending well and defending our box well but the February loss to Leeds at Elland Road ended our automatic chances and the season sort of petered out.”

Wilder in from the wilderness, Le Bris breezing in from across The Channel

For Sam and Sheffield United, he says Chris Wilder’s impact has been ‘huge’ but not without first taking a hit. He returned to Bramall Lane in December 2023 with his own reputation bruised from spells at Middlesbrough and Watford and was immediately fighting fires.

“We have to remember that Paul Heckingbottom was sacked and Chris Wilder was brought in to make a better fist of fighting relegation in the Premier League and ultimately spectacularly failed at that job.  I don’t think it was one that he could have ever succeeded in, but he took it and talked about trying to keep us up and, ultimately, he failed.

“So, it has to be massively to his credit that he has got rid of a lot of players, churned almost an entire squad and turned that team around. I think it’s an incredibly tough thing to have achieved, especially with the general sense of depression with what had gone on the season before. It was painful to get battered four and five-nil every week, so to bring the positivity back and to be fighting amongst the automatic places for 90% of the season, I think is an incredible job.”

Whereas Wilder returned to a club where he’d already achieved two promotions, I’ll hold my hands up and say I didn’t know who Regis Le Bris when he arrived at Sunderland from Lorient last summer. Michael was similar but the Frenchman has also made his mark. 

“He deserves so much credit. He was virtually a nobody coming from France. Last year we had loads of creative players and one big thing he did was adding two strikers. Eliezer Mayenda was out on loan and couldn’t get a game in Scotland at Hibernian and we bought in Isidor from Russia, which added to a squad full of talent. Le Bris has given the team a structure and a style of play. And now we have those strikers at the other end of the pitch that are capable of scoring goals. That’s unlike last year where it became completely disjointed after Tony Mowbray’s second season and then Michael Beale’s appointment, which just did not work at all. I think the club then took a step back and wanted to make sure they got someone who has worked with a lot of young players, knows how to defend and puts a playing structure into place. It’s suited the squad that we had, and I think it’s amazing that we have got to the playoff final.”

Wembley, the Premier League and the 22 taking to the hallowed turf will have to wait though. Right now, it’s all about the 90,000 getting to North London from two great cities of The North.

Wilder and Le Bris may have their own meticulous planning but if you want to know the best place to eat, drink and stay around Wembley, just ask Michael, Sam or any Blade or Makem. It’s the side of football you never knew you needed to be an expert in, just don’t bring a bag bigger than the Wembley-stipulated one sheet of paper, unless that is, you’re living it up in the press box next weekend!

(Cover image from IMAGO)

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