It is high season for engravers, a fertile few weeks for after-dinner speakers to make hay at elaborate end-of-season dos, but not every Championship team has something worth celebrating. Last Saturday, three hours after Cardiff’s players sank to the turf when the final whistleconfirmed their relegation to the third tier, a division the club has not played in for 22 years, the squad slipped into suits for their annual black-tie awards night in a suite overlooking the same surface.
At some point, Rubén Sellés, the Hull head coach, seemingly got wind of the jarring circumstances and cancelled his team’s bash, which had been scheduled for Tuesday, to prevent a similarly tone-deaf evening.
Hull’s position is so delicate he even suggested he did not want his players having the added stress of adhering to the dress code. “It was my decision,” he said. “I told the club before we announced the player of the season [awards] that if we were playing for something, we didn’t want the distraction. The team needs to get out of the situation … I didn’t want the week to become a one-person week. The club respected that.”
It has been that kind of week, at that time of the season. While Burnley and Leeds head into the final day of another enchanting English Football League season with eyes on taking the title, and the five-way fight for the two remaining playoff places promises more lunchtime drama, it is at the bottom where there is most jeopardy. Five teams – Stoke, Derby, Preston, Luton and Hull – are fighting to avoid joining Cardiff and Plymouth, who are all but mathematically relegated, in League One next season.
Sellés made another call this week, giving his players Monday off despite a late defeat at home to Derby plunging them deeper into trouble. “Under pressure, people need an extra space to breathe,” he said before their trip to Portsmouth. “Three training sessions this week will be enough to prepare the game.”
The buildup has not been helped by the late payment of wages, even if Sellés says it pales into insignificance compared with the myriad of problems he encountered at troubled Reading, where at one point delays were commonplace.
It appeared a significant upgrade when Sellés left Reading for Hull in December, but the teams could trade places if the Berkshire club, beset by off-field problems and awaiting a takeover, land a playoff berth on the final day. Last season, Hull went into their last game targeting the playoffs. Their hopes ended with defeat at Plymouth and three days later Acun Ilicali sacked Liam Rosenior, Hull’s owner citing a conflict of opinions. Rosenior, who led Hull to seventh in his first full season, is pushing to qualify for the Champions League with Ligue 1 Strasbourg, while his previous club are at risk of dropping into League One.
That provides another reminder the grass is not always greener. All the teams involved in the scrap to retain their second-tier status changed manager during this campaign – with mixed results. On 13 February, the day Derby turned to their former midfielder John Eustace to save their season, Luton were propping up the division and Preston were 11 points clear of the relegation zone. As recently as 3 March, Preston were closer to the playoffs than the bottom three, and they had a game in hand on Luton and Derby, who by that point had slid to the bottom after a winless start under Eustace. Paul Heckingbottom’s Preston had alsojust beaten their rivals Burnleyto advance to the FA Cup quarter-finals.
Now Preston, who travel to playoff-chasing Bristol City, are bottom of the form table after taking six points from the past 30 available. Derby, who host Stoke, are one of the form teams after two defeats in their past 10 matches. Luton, who visit West Brom, have won three games on the spin under Matt Bloomfield, who made a slow start after jumping up a division.
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Bloomfield’s first win after leaving a Wycombe side gunning for promotion came at the ninth attempt, but they have hit their stride. Mark McGuinness, their marquee signing from Cardiff last summer, has impressed in defence as has Thomas Kaminski in goal.
Kaminski started Luton’s priceless victory last Saturday over Coventry, another team vying for the top six, despite the death of his father, Jacek, three days earlier. Bloomfield got the Eurostar to Brussels to accompany the Belgian back to England 48 hours before the win. “It means everything to me,” a teary Kaminski said. “Normally I should have had a message from my dad … I didn’t have it today but I know he is watching and with us and would have been very, very proud.”
The only certainty from here is that the pendulum of emotions will continue given the stakes. This time last season Luton were winning friends in the Premier League, duking it out with Nottingham Forest to avoid the dropbefore succumbing on the final day. Derby were in party mode after clinching promotion as runners-up. Stoke finished strongly to dispel relegation worries. Preston, meanwhile, ended 10th – nestled in the safe zone – after a dismal five-match losing run.
For one team, things are about to take a turn for the worse.