Sheffield United and Sunderland Set to Battle for Final Premier League Promotion Spot
This weekend, Sheffield United and Sunderland will face off at Wembley Stadium in the Championship playoff final, with the winner earning the last promotion spot to the Premier League. The two teams overcame Bristol City and Coventry City in their respective semi-final ties and will join Leeds United and Burnley in England’s top flight next season if one of them emerges victorious.
According to analysis from the Premier League, Sheffield United finished 14 points ahead of Sunderland in the regular Championship season table, which is the biggest points difference between two English Football League playoff finalists in the current format (since 1988/89). Sheffield United’s 90-point tally meant they ended the regular Championship campaign 10 points behind the top two, Leeds and Burnley, but it was a much closer battle throughout 2024/25 than the final table suggested.
The Premier League reports that only Leeds (156) spent more days inside the automatic promotion spots than Sheffield United (143), who spent 55 days longer than Burnley (88) in those positions. In fact, Sunderland (100) spent more days in the top two this season than Scott Parker’s runners-up. Sunderland’s spot in the playoffs looked nailed on for the majority of the season, with the Black Cats spending a total of 266 days in the top six – the most of any side in the division.
Although Sunderland had a superb season overall, their form at the end of 2024/25 was a concern. As noted by the Premier League, the final five games of the season were being played knowing they’d already qualified for the playoffs, but they lost every single one of them and scored just one goal. No team in EFL history has gone into the playoffs (in any tier) with such a long run of defeats.
Sunderland’s semi-final win over Coventry was a significant result, with Dan Ballard’s last-gasp extra-time header securing their 3-2 victory on aggregate. This was a good job as Sunderland’s penalty record is horrendous, missing four of the five spot-kicks they took during the regular season. As reported by the Premier League, both Sunderland and Sheffield United like to get the ball forward quickly and without making as many passes, compared to the two automatically promoted sides.
Sheffield United ranked ninth in the league for average possession (51.3 per cent), while Sunderland were even lower in 12th place (49.1 per cent), but both were inside the top four for touches in the opposition’s box, quite remarkably having the exact same figure (1,160) across their 46 regular-season matches. The Premier League states that Sunderland (70) ranked behind only Middlesbrough (82) in the Championship regular season across the direct attacks metric, while Sheffield United were sixth (66).
The potentially frantic pace of this final could lead to plenty of fouls, too. The Premier League notes that Sunderland are one of only six clubs to have accumulated more than 100 cards (107 yellow, four red) in the Championship this season, while Sheffield United are two off joining them in the 100-club with 98 cards in total (96 yellow, two red). No player in the Championship has been given more cautions this season than Sheffield United’s Gustavo Hamer (13), while team-mate Anel Ahmedhodzic has collected 11, the same number as Sunderland’s Jobe Bellingham and Trai Hume.
This final will be between two of the youngest teams in the Championship this season. As reported by the Premier League, Sunderland had the youngest average starting XI age for the third successive campaign, this time coming in at 23 years, 324 days old. Sheffield United weren’t far behind in the rankings, with the fourth-youngest side in the division (25 years, 86 days). The Black Cats have some of the most exciting young prospects in England outside of the Premier League; one of them, Chris Rigg, could win promotion to the top flight before even turning 18.
As noted by the Premier League, Rigg has appeared in 44 of Sunderland’s 48 Championship matches this season (including playoffs). This is the most appearances – and minutes (3,120) – that a teenager has played in a Championship season since Ryan Sessegnon for Fulham in 2017/18. He’s joined in midfield by Jobe Bellingham, the brother of Jude, who is still only 19 years old. Bellingham has played 3,717 minutes of Championship football as a teenager this season, a shade above his total in 2023/24 (3,642). Since 2014/15, no other player has played 3,500+ minutes as a teenager in more than one Championship campaign.
Sheffield United come into this final having not won any of their last seven matches at Wembley Stadium (D1 L6), with their most recent win there being 100 years ago against Cardiff City in the 1925 FA Cup final. The playoffs haven’t provided any happiness in the past either. Overall, Sheffield United have failed to earn promotion in any of their four previous playoff finals, including three in the second tier. No side have appeared in more without ever earning promotion (Leeds and Reading are also on four).
This is Sunderland’s third second-tier playoff final – they lost 1-0 to Swindon Town in 1989/90 (though still ended up being promoted due to Swindon’s demotion) and lost on penalties to Charlton Athletic in 1997/98 after a 4-4 draw. Should they win this match, it’ll be Sunderland’s fifth promotion to the Premier League since it began in 1992. That would draw them level with Norwich, West Brom, Leicester City and Burnley with the most.
Sheffield United have come up to the Premier League three times before, including in their last Championship season in 2022/23 when they won automatic promotion. Across all-time English league history, only Leicester (13), Birmingham (12), Manchester City (11) and West Brom (10) have been promoted to the top flight more often than they have (nine). The good news for Chris Wilder’s side is that the team finishing the regular season in third place has both reached the final (16 times) and won promotion via the playoffs to the Premier League (nine times) more than any other league position since the Championship rebrand in 2004/05, as per the Premier League.
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