Category: Championship League

Driven by the ambitious ownership of Tom Wagner and an NFL icon, the Blues intend to take the second tier by storm

Unsurprisingly, Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion and global sporting icon, is braced for the challenges that await Birmingham City, where he is a minority owner. “Just because you were successful last year doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful this year,” he says, alluding to a season that culminated in promotion and a record-breaking tally of 111 points. “You have to put the same amount of work, commitment and discipline in – sometimes more – because the stakes only get higher. When the competition gets tougher, the margin of error gets smaller.”

It is his final answer in an interview that takes in everything from the “blue-collar nature of Birmingham”, which he compares with Cleveland and Cincinnati, to the Championship landscape and the bubbling rivalry with Aston Villa, which he was educated on during his first visit to England’s second-biggest city after acquiring his 3.3% stake.

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New manager on the need for his team to find an identity, the challenge of the second tier and on managing Dembélé, Doué and Doku at Rennes

Julien Stéphan had been enjoying his break from football for about two months when his wife’s patience finally gave in. “She said to me: ‘I hope you will manage again quickly – and very quickly – because I want to see you on the pitch and to see you back in your own environment,’” says the new Queens Park Rangers manager.

Stéphan left Rennes for the second time last November and estimates that as well as spending precious time with his two children he watched 20 to 25 games a week as he waited for his next opportunity. That finally arrived last month when the Frenchman took over at Loftus Road from Martí Cifuentes, who has since joined Leicester. But the chance to take a breather after six years as a manager during which he guided Rennes to the Champions League for the first time and led Strasbourg to sixth in Ligue 1 – their highest position since 1980 – was most welcome.

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• Winger secures switch from Bayern Munich to Watford

• Move should delight Australia coach Tony Popovic ahead of 2026 World Cup

English soccer fans can brace themselves for plenty of dazzling backflips after the young Socceroos star Nestory Irankunda secured a five-year deal with the Championship outfit Watford.

The Hornets announced the signing on their website late Friday, with the club’s sporting director Gian Luca Nani taking great pride in welcoming Irankunda.

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• Championship club under majority American ownership

• Luka Modric joined as investor and co-owner in April

The American rapper Snoop Dogg has bought a minority stake in the Championship club Swansea. The deal was announced three months after the Croatia international Luka Modric joined as an investor and co-owner.

Snoop Dogg helped to launch Swansea’s new home shirt on Monday. The 53-year-old is a keen sports fan and has described Celtic as his favourite football club in Scotland. He said last month he would love to open a burger van at Celtic Park.

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• Spaniard left QPR last month by mutual consent

• Foxes had also spoken to Gary O’Neil and Chris Wilder

Leicester have confirmed the appointment of Martí Cifuentes to fill the vacancy left by Ruud van Nistelrooy after relegation from the Premier League last season.

The Spaniard left QPR last month having been placed on gardening leave in April at the tail end of a Championship campaign that resulted in a 15th-placed finish in the 24-club division. Rangers finished seven points above the relegation places and the 43-year-old Cifuentes left by mutual consent last month.

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Having helped Tottenham win the Europa League the 34-year-old is stepping out on his own after building a library of coaching experience

For Ryan Mason, this opportunity has been a few years in the making. Since retiring from playing aged 26 after fracturing his skull – a horror injury that required 14 metal plates to be inserted into his skull, held together by 28 screws – he has built a library of coaching experience, working under José Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou. This coming season, after accepting his first full-time managerial role at West Brom, he has an opportunity to show his workings. “My last game was as a 25-year-old and I have had a seven-, eight-year apprenticeship, which in normal circumstances is quite a long time,” he says.

Nothing was normal about the end of Mason’s playing career. For a while there were 45 staples and he had a six-inch scar across his head. For about 10 days he had to be spoon-fed and being able to pick up a glass of orange juice was a major milestone. At the time he felt his career was in its infancy but stepping into coaching, initially in the Spurs academy, he discovered a new passion. “I definitely have a fire inside of me to be successful and fulfil the sort of dreams and ambitions that I had as a player,” he says.

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• Frenchman coached Rennes and Strasbourg in Ligue 1

• QPR say he has a record of creating ‘world-class talent’

Queens Park Rangers have appointed the Frenchman Julien Stéphan as their head coach. The 44-year-old’s arrival comes a day after Martí Cifuentes officially left, having been placed on gardening leave after the penultimate game of the Championship season. Stéphan has worked in Ligue 1 in two spells with his boyhood club, Rennes, with whom he won the Coupe de France in 2019, and one with Strasbourg.

“I feel very proud and excited to join QPR,” Stéphan told the club’s website. “QPR is a historic club with strong values and passionate fans, so I feel honoured. I wanted to come here because I know there’s a lot of passion around the club and around the team, and I feel very lucky to discover that.

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• Boro fill role left by sacking of Carrick earlier in June

• ‘It’s something that’s not lost on me, how big this is’

Rob Edwards has been confirmed as Middlesbrough’s new manager, their eighth since relegation from the Premier League in 2017.

“It’s a real privilege to be given the opportunity to be head coach of this great football club,” said Edwards after long-running negotiations to finalise the 42-year-old’s three-year contract and composition of his coaching staff were finally concluded. “It’s something that’s not lost on me, how big this is, how important this is and what it means to people. There is an amazing fanbase here.”

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• New manager ready to helm ‘ambitious project’

• Wilder expresses ‘great regret’ at his departure

Sheffield United have appointed Rubén Sellés as their new manager after Chris Wilder expressed “great regret” over his departure from Bramall Lane. Sellés was swiftly named as Wilder’s successor on Wednesday evening with the Spaniard signing a three-year deal at the Championship club.

The 42-year-old former Southampton, Reading and Hull manager said: “When we first heard about the possibility of coming here, it was a no-brainer for us to join a club with this kind of history and with a mission to move forward and try to be even more competitive. This is a very powerful and ambitious project. It was very important at the start of the conversations that everyone is on the same page.

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• Former Luton manager in line to succeed Michael Carrick

• Steve Cooper and Danny Röhl were also in the running

Rob Edwards is poised to take charge at Middlesbrough after impressing the owner, Steve Gibson. Only an unforeseen 11th-hour hitch will prevent the 42-year-old former Luton manager being in charge when Boro’s players start pre-season training at the end of June.

Edwards will replace Michael ­Carrick, who was sacked when the team finished a disappointing 10th in the Championship, after seeing off strong competition from the former Nottingham Forest and Leicester manager Steve Cooper and the Sheffield Wednesday head coach, Danny Röhl. It is understood Edwards ranked high on Gibson’s shortlist in 2022 when Carrick took over.

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• Head coach had been in charge since October 2022

• Decision taken on Teesside after post-season review

Michael Carrick has been sacked by Middlesbrough after two and a half years in charge. Although the former England and Manchester United midfielder was liked and admired by Boro’s owner, Steve Gibson, his failure to lead the team out of the Championship ensured his first managerial posting ended in disappointment.

Carrick led Boro into the playoff semi-finals in 2023 but they missed out on top-six finishes in the past two seasons. The 43-year-old has become the 17th Championship manager to have lost his job since last August.

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• Manning arrives after leading Robins to the playoffs

• Sheffield Wednesday charged over late payment of wages

Norwich have appointed Liam Manning as their new head coach after the club triggered the release clause in his contract at Bristol City.

Manning impressed after leading the Robins to the Championship playoffs for the first time in 17 years and Norwich quickly identified him as their No 1 target to succeed Johannes Hoff Thorup, who was sacked after a disappointing end to the season. Norwich, who were relegated from the Premier League in 2022, finished 13th last season

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Tom Watson’s last kick as a Sunderland player was a dramatic injury-time winner that secured promotion to the Premier League

For far too long playoffs have felt impossibly high altitude for a Sheffield United side who have never won promotion this way, losing four finals. Wilder has addressed theproblem by reminding his players that the Wembley air is really not all that thin and maintaining that history is bunk.

His hopes of avoiding another demoralising repetition of the past should be enhanced by Gustavo Hamer’s presence. Two years ago the Brazil-born attacking midfielder scored for Coventry against Luton at Wembley and, as the Championship player of the season, he possesses the confidence and class to alter the Blades’ playoff story.

What’s trigonometry got to do with it?

During Le Bris’s teenage years in the western Breton village of Pont-l’Abbé, he devoted his spare time to completing an in-depth analysis of Arsène Wenger’s tactics as Monaco’s manager. As an adult, he spent holidays touring clubs across Spain and England – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton and Leeds included – to watch their coaches. “He’s not someone who shouts at you,” the Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor says, “but he makes you understand things really, really thoroughly.” The winger Patrick Roberts agrees. “He’s efficient,” he says. “He’s brought us new ideas and he’s capable of changing our play depending on the opponent. He’s modern.”

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Blades have come up short in their four previous attempts to gain promotion via an end-of-season showpiece final

When the half-time whistle blows at Wembley on Saturday afternoon, Tom Lockyer will temporarily replace Sheffield United and Sunderland as the centre of attention.

It is two years since Lockyer collapsed on England’s most famous pitch after experiencing atrial fibrillation during Luton’s Championship playoff final win against Coventry and almost 18 months since he had a cardiac arrest and almost died while playing for the club at Bournemouth.

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• Premier League: 10 things to look out for on the final day

• Fixtures | Tables | Sign up for Football Daily | Email Luke

The latest omission of Jack Grealish isn’t a surprise. Grealish is a bit-part player at Manchester City these days and wasn’t used in last weekend’s FA Cup final defeat by Crystal Palace. The match winner in that game, Eberechi Eze, is included. The Palace duo of Marc Guéhi and Adam Wharton miss out, presumably due to injury (although it should be said Tuchel hasn’t seemed entirely convinced by Guéhi).

Tuchel has not been able to name Marcus Rashford because of injury; West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen misses out after failing to take his opportunity last time. Newcastle’s Dan Burn gets another go.

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