Chris Sutton has shared who he thinks are the favourites to win the Championship play-offs this month.
Leeds United, Southampton, West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City are the four sides who will fight for the final remaining place in next season’s Premier League alongside Leicester City and Ipswich Town.
Daniel Farke will lead Leeds against his former club Norwich in a two-legged tie, while Southampton will face West Brom.
Leeds and Southampton both completed league doubles over their semi-final opponents in the league season, but that ultimately counts for nothing at this stage, as the Whites know all too well from 2019 against Derby County.
For the two sides who come out on top in the semi-finals, a trip to Wembley will follow on Sunday 26 May, in what is dubbed football’s richest game.
Sutton predicts who will win Championship play-offs
Not a single one of the four clubs enter the play-offs in good form. Both Southampton and West Brom ended runs of three successive defeats on the final day, while Norwich failed to win any of their last three.
Leeds, though, are arguably entering them in the worst form. A late season collapse saw them miss out on the top two, with Martin O’Neill suggesting Farke now has a big job getting his side ready to go again.
And Farke will have to do what no other manager in Championship history has ever done before, by guiding a team to play-off success after losing four of their last six regular season matches.
Leeds fans are not too confident of their side’s chances heading into it and in a column for the Norwich Evening News, former Canaries striker Sutton does not make Farke’s side the favourites, despite finishing in the highest league position.
Instead, Sutton believes that Southampton are very much the favourites going into it due to the strength of their squad.
He wrote: “It’s good that Norwich have qualified for the play-offs. But now the objective is to get promotion. I’m not someone who thinks now they’ve made the top six, everything is okay. It’s about going up. That has to be the aim.
“I make Southampton favourites for the play-offs. I look at their squad and feel it’s the strongest. If Leeds do click, they could be devastating. Norwich have their own threats. West Brom have shown a real consistency.”
Micah Richards backs Leeds for play-off success
Pundits from across the football world have already started wading in with their predictions, and like Sutton, there aren’t many backing Leeds.
Both Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker have tipped the Saints, but their podcast co-host Micah Richards is still continuing to back his hometown club, Leeds.
He said: “I’m going to go with Leeds. I just think in the last couple of weeks they have underperformed. They went on that amazing run and sort of fizzled out a little bit,” Richards said, on The Rest Is Football podcast.
“The reason why I say Leeds is that in the forward areas, if they get it right, they have the most quality. I know they have (been in bad form). The play-offs is a completely different thing, it’s another chance.”