Premier League and Championship Promotion Drama

By Monday morning, the shape of next season’s Premier League will be clearer. Saturday lunchtime stages the final round of the actual best league in the world, the Championship. One of Ipswich, Millwall and Middlesbrough will join Frank Lampard’s Coventry in being a top-division club by 3pm, Rochdale-esque pitch invasions permitting, as automatic promotion is boxed off. There’s also a race for sixth, another triple-header, where plucky, Disney/tech bro/Hollywood-backed Wrexham kick off a point ahead of Hull and Derby in the chase for the playoffs. Will Ryan and Rob be there? Boro are the opposition, so will Chubby Brown and Jeff Winter be there?

Drama awaits over 90 minutes of sheer hell for fans, probably requiring more than an isotonic drink to wash down. Though that’s not the end of it. Once the Championship regular season bids farewell, another weekend of worry awaits for two of football’s grandest drama-magnets. West Ham visit Brentford, who have not won since 28 February but are nevertheless two points off what may be a Champions League spot – sixth – in a meeting of well-run club versus club run on the whims of a billionaire. Should the Hammers get a point – Brentford have drawn five from the last six – that would open a three-point gap on Tottenham. All eyes then on Sunday night at Villa Park, kicking off in the 7pm Heartbeat slot, as a result of Aston Villa’s Bigger Vase commitments. The hope for Tottenham is Villa replicate a disappointing display at Nottingham Forest that had Unai Emery going full Mr Hennetty in the Bureau after some ropey VAR-ing.

Spurs are formerly well-run turned case study into how not to run a club, rivalling legendary Manchester trendy nightspot the Hacienda, with a similar casualty list. Xavi Simons had intermittently offered hope he had the talent to haul Tottenham from the abyss, only to join the bed-blocked queue for an Enfield treatment room after ACL-knack. Not that latest gaffer Roberto De Zerbi is shedding tears about it. “It’s a tough moment, but losers cry,” he roared. De Zerbi is so keen for positive vibes that James Maddison has been on the bench the last two games when, following nine months of ACL recovery. Considering the risks to his long-term career, the chances of him performing his bullseye darting mimes in celebration are low, though desperation has become the order of the day.

If London-centric attention is drawn to those two clubs, a win for both, not impossible despite themselves, opens up a relegation battle where the magic 40-points total may not be enough. On 39, Forest are not out of trouble. Neither are Leeds on 40 nor Newcastle, on 42. Nobody’s breathing easy. Not least under-pressure Eddie Howe, who gave a presentation to Newcastle’s chiefs at a golfing hotel this week and emerged “under no illusion that … we need a win” against Brighton. Victories for the Hammers and Spurs are very much what the Premier League needs to lift it up towards the Championship’s drama levels.