CRUNCH TIME
Championship clubs scrambling for glory and survival
Crunch time in the championship. The final sprint for a transformational prize. A time for clear minds when a manager’s job is to ensure his players are not distracted by the surrounding clamour, according to Dave Bassett, the grand master of promotion.
‘ Give them confidence,’ says Bassett, who was promoted seven times in a long managerial career.
‘Stay natural. Don’t overthink it. Make sure they’re not tense. Do the training you need to do but don’t overwork them. I always found it was important to keep the laughter going.’
Easier said than done when the Premier League beckons and so much hinges on the estimated windfall of £170million.
Leeds have toiled outside the top flight for the last 15 years. Sheffield united have spent just one of the last 25 years in with the elite.
norwich have slightly more recent experience but that does not lessen the breathless anticipation and, with the help of subsidised tickets, they will take 5,000 fans to Wigan next month, their biggest away following in 15 years.
Promotion matters, and with only five weeks and eight games to go, the promotion chasers are issuing their rallying calls.
In the words of Muhammad Ali: ‘Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
norwich were firmly in the groove going into the international break with eight wins in nine games, scoring freely and with striker Teemu Pukki, signed on a free from Brondby, the division’s top scorer despite not netting in three games.
They might already be up were it not for such an awful start to the campaign when they won once in the first six games and Daniel Farke’s future was in doubt. West Bromwich Albion, at home against Birmingham today, may not have abandoned the idea of automatic promotion but in reality the three teams above them seem to be fighting for the top two places.
At Sheffield united, chris Wilder can clinch a third promotion in four years. When he went up with Oxford in 2010, Wilder called upon his old boss Bassett to deliver a speech to his players ahead of the play-off final at Wembley.
The Blades boss knows exactly what is required and his team have not conceded a goal in seven games since they leaked three in the final 12 minutes at Aston Villa and turned a 3-0 lead into a draw.
A 1-0 victory at Elland road in their last outing has given them an edge over Leeds but Marcelo Bielsa’s team will chase to the end.
‘We have to keep our supporters with us and close to us,’ said Bielsa yesterday. ‘We lost in front of our fans. We must respond. We could take many positives from the last game but we cannot forget about the result.’
none of the top three meet in the run-in and they will all play away from home on the final day, May 5.
‘You have to be careful,’ said 74- year- old Bassett. ‘ It’s very tempting to look at the fixtures and think Sheffield united will beat Bristol city and norwich will win that one at Middlesbrough and so on, but it’s no good wasting your time on that. no one will ever get it right. Putting the opposition out of view is hard but you can’t control what they’re doing.
‘It’s far more important to show you believe in your team and believe they can do it. They’ll see through you if you don’t.’
Behind them comes a stampede for the play-off places. nottingham Forest in 11th are only three points behind Aston Villa in sixth.
Preston, in seventh, are unbeaten in 12 and have momentum rolling. As do Villa, with four wins in a row, although Dean Smith will be aware of a testing end to the campaign with the last two games against Leeds and norwich.
unpredictability is proving to be the championship’s great asset.
It is a competition replete with proud clubs, rich in tradition and followed by passionate supporters; many among them wealthy from time in the Premier League and with top- class stadiums, training facilities and academies.
This has been the season when the clubs have grown in confidence and realised what a strong product they have. There are, of course, famous clubs to be found unravelling in the depths.
Bolton’s demise has been excruciating and Ipswich are crashing in to the third tier for the first time since 1957.
Birmingham’s promotion hopes ended with the deduction of nine points for breaking the Football League’s Financial Fair Play rules.
If the championship is tight then take a glance at the bottom half of League One, where 11 clubs are within six points of each other in the fight to avoid relegation.
AFc Wimbledon, another of Bassett’s old teams, are fighting for survival under his pal Wally Downes, while at the bottom of League Two, notts county, the world’s oldest league club and a founding member of the Football League, are bottom of the 92 with seven to play and braced for a plunge into non-League.