This afternoon’s Championship play-off final is bound to be nerve-shredding for Southampton and Leeds United supporters, but ought to be richly entertaining for everybody else.
The fixture that has been dubbed the £300 million game (the figure seems to inflate every season) gives both of these clubs the chance of an immediate Premier League return.
Leeds will feel they should have sealed automatic promotion given the quality of their post-Christmas football, but some late stumbles proved costly.
Daniel Farke’s team are favourites at Wembley, and from a bird’s-eye view they look the more balanced outfit. Leeds and Southampton had very similar seasons when it came to attacking output – practically the same expected goals produced, delivering 81 Leeds goals and 87 for Southampton. Leeds conceded 20 fewer goals than Southampton though, and their underlying defensive numbers were significantly better. Southampton did have the better of the head-to-heads as the only Championship team to do the double over Leeds.
Southampton will not waver from Russell Martin’s possession-based approach, with Southampton seeing more of the ball than any team in England’s top four divisions. Only Manchester City completed more passes and more 10+ pass sequences than Martin’s team. That ought to give this afternoon’s game an open feel, with Leeds’ wide players Crysencio Summerville and Wilfried Gnonto major threats.
“Externally the work we have done will be defined by the outcome, it always is in football, but for us I don’t think it will be,” Martin said.
“There is so much stuff to then be positive about and really for us to look forward to, to learn from and the same for the players, so it is such a fine margin between failure and success. Hopefully, we are successful on Sunday. Hopefully, we will achieve what we want to achieve.”
Strangely enough for two clubs of their stature, neither has much history when it comes to play-off finals. Southampton have never played in a play-off final. Leeds have played at Wembley just twice since the 1992 Community Shield, losing on both occasions. One of those was the 2008 League One play-off final, when they lost 1-0 to Doncaster Rovers. Leeds also lost to Watford in the 2006 Championship play-off final in Cardiff.
Full team news on the way shortly.
