WYCOMBE ARE WINNERS… JUST NOT ON THE PITCH

WYCOMBE only got into the Championship via a random calculation called points per game. When last season’s League One campaign was frozen by the pandemic, it was decided a club’s points would be divided by matches played and extrapolated over a completed season. Tranmere went down that way. Wycombe leapt from eighth to third and made the play-offs, which they won. They have remained steadfastly in the Championship’s bottom three since and went down. Now there is talk they could stay up, after Derby lost their appeal against EFL sanctions for breaches of Financial Fair Play rules. Rob Couhig, Wycombe’s chairman, may push for any punishment to be applied this season. If that is a points deduction of two or more, Wycombe would survive and Derby would drop. ‘I don’t know that the season is over,’ Couhig said. ‘I don’t know whether we’re ready to go to lawyers yet, but the message is: watch this space.’ So Wycombe were promoted via Rick Parry’s office, and might stay up in a court of law. Just as well fans weren’t admitted this season if what happened on the pitch was the least of it.

We’ve heard a lot of commentators speaking up for the fans since the Super League proposals broke, and their words are no doubt sincere. However, the last time Manchester United kicked off at 3pm on Saturday away from home in the Premier League was January 20, 2018, against Burnley at Turf Moor.

even those who respect the enormous revenue Tv brings to football might think three years and four months a long time to be without the most traditional and revered kick-off time and that will not sit well with the fans. One wonders, however, how many of their new allies want to go in front of the camera and talk about it.

KEEP hanging around barbers and eventually you’re going to get a haircut, and the same is true of Sam Allardyce and relegation-threatened clubs. West Bromwich Albion were a bad team too far, devoid of personality, class and presence, beside Matheus Pereira. Slaven Bilic pointed out these shortcomings to the ownership before the season started. He wasn’t around to take them down, but he was right.