Category: Football (Soccer)

The Championship’s best team will need to be smart in the transfer market to give themselves a chance next season

When Leeds United sold £140m of playing talent last summer, Daniel Farke deviated from accepted managerial convention and declined to throw his toys out of the pram. Farke is a little too unconventional, a little too resistant to groupthink, to always do the expected and his club’s owner, the San Francisco‑based 49ers Enterprises, is poised to reap the benefits.

The German’s unusual amalgam of high emotional intelligence and advanced numeracy have helped to provide the framework for the freshly secured promotion to the Premier League that Leeds so narrowly missed out on last May.

The Premier League-bound Clarets and their manager have no shortage of motivation heading into next season

If the opening night was anything to go by, it looked as if Burnley’s return to the Premier League at the first time of asking was inevitable. It was Scott Parker’s first game in charge, a tricky trip to Luton, who had dropped down with the Clarets. One team had enjoyed a summer of continuity whereas everything had changed at Turf Moor but it was Burnley who left with a dominant 4-1 victory.

That warm night at Kenilworth Road was not indicative of what was to come. By the end of the month, three of the goalscorers had left – 12 first-team players departed in total in August – forcing Parker to almost reset after the campaign had started, but it helped mould his squad into his vision for a promotion push. It would not be done with the flair and style with which Vincent Kompany et al accrued 101 points and 87 goals to win the title two years ago but, with the potential to reach a century, the result could be the same.

• Canaries missed out on playoff spot in Championship
• A 3-1 defeat at Millwall marks Thorup’s final match

Jack Wilshere will take charge of Norwich’s final two games of the season after the Canaries parted company with Johannes Hoff Thorup.

Norwich have slipped to 14th in the Championship after winning only twice in 14 matches, with their 3-1 Easter Monday defeat at Millwall being their fourth loss in five games. Thorup was appointed head coach on a three-year deal last May and the Dane leaves alongside his assistant Glen Riddersholm.

• Hull beat Preston 2-1 as four of bottom five win
• Millwall bolster playoff hopes as Coventry and Boro falter

West Brom have announced the departure of Tony Mowbray after the club’s play-off hopes were all-but ended by a 3-1 Championship defeat at home to relegation-threatened Derby.

The visitors twice punished the Baggies from set-pieces when Ebou Adams and Jerry Yates struck from corners in the first half. Adam Armstrong’s goal halved the deficit and made for a nervy final 20 minutes until Nathaniel Mendez-Laing sealed maximum points for Derby, two minutes from time.

Leeds United’s long march out of the wilderness is over. The last lap of an often gruelling and sometimes downright painful journey into the Premier League proved joyous and unexpectedly straightforward, the only frustration being a slight delay to the start of the formal celebrations.

It was occasioned by the need to wait for the final score from Turf Moor, where Burnley beat Sheffield United to join Leeds in the top tier while consigning Chris Wilder’s side to the playoffs.