Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Simon Burnton

Football League: Norwich savour Wes Hoolahan’s ‘perfect finish’

Wes Hoolahan of Norwich City
Wes Hoolahan of Norwich City walks on the pitch with his children after grabbing a goal and an assist on his final appearance for the club at Carrow Road, against Leeds United. Photograph: Stephen Pond/Getty Images

Championship

• Wes Hoolahan bade an emotional farewell to Carrow Road with Norwich’s first goal in a 2-1 win over Leeds. It was his 380th league appearance for Norwich and his manager, Daniel Farke, declared it “a perfect finish”. “If I had to a paint a picture of how Wes’s career for Norwich would finish that would have been it,” Farke said. “He scored a goal, got an assist and put in an excellent performance, and of course we won the game.”

• The big clash at the bottom of the table saw Burton beat Bolton 2-0. It was a third successive success for Nigel Clough’s side, who head to Preston – who beat Sheffield United 1-0 and need another win to have a chance of sneaking into the play-offs – on the final day. Burton’s goal difference is so poor that they will need to win if they are to save themselves. Barnsley, who like Burton have 41 points, beat Brentford 2-0 and travel to Derby next Sunday.

Premier League

Champions: Manchester City

Europe:
 Manchester United will finish in the top four, with Liverpool and Tottenham favourites to join them. Chelsea are five points behind Spurs in fifth. Arsenal could still reach the Champions League by winning the Europa League. Burnley look certain to finish seventh and return to Europe after 51 years away.

Relegation: West Brom
 are now five points from safety with two games to play. Stoke are just two points above the Baggies, while Southampton are now a point behind Swansea, who they play in their penultimate match. West Ham and Huddersfield are still looking over their shoulders.

Championship

Champions: Wolves

Automatic promotion: Cardiff need a home win over Reading to seal promotion, with Fulham hoping to pounce on any slip-up against Birmingham on the final day.

Play-offs: Aston Villa and Middlesbrough, with Derby leading the race to join them. Preston can still force their way into the top six while Millwall have only a mathematical chance

Relegation: Sunderland will finish bottom with BurtonBolton and Barnsley separated by a point. Barnsley can secure survival with a win at Derby on the final day, while Burton go to Preston and Bolton host Nottingham Forest.

League One

Automatic promotion: Wigan and Blackburn have sealed promotion and will fight for the title on the final day. A point at Doncaster will realistically be enough for Wigan.

Play-offs: ShrewsburyRotherham and Scunthorpe, with Charlton needing a point to secure the final place ahead of Plymouth.

Relegation: Bury and MK Dons are down while Northampton are all but mathematically relegated. Oldham and Rochdale are fighting to avoid the final spot; they face Northampton and Charlton respectively.

League Two

Champions: Accrington Stanley 

Automatic promotion: Luton Town, Wycombe (pictured)

Play-offs: Exeter City, Notts County and two from Coventry, Lincoln and Mansfield, who need to beat Crawley on the last day to have any chance.

Relegation: Barnet's win at Morecambe took the race for survival to the final day. If the Bees beat already-relegated Chesterfield, they can leapfrog Morecambe if the Shrimps lose at Coventry.

National League: Macclesfield Town have secured the only automatic promotion spot, with one from Tranmere, Sutton, Boreham Wood, Aldershot, Ebbsfleet and AFC Fylde to come up via the play-offs.

Scotland

Premiership: Celtic sealed their seventh straight title by beating Rangers, who are fighting for European places with Aberdeen and Hibernian. Relegation looks to be between Partick and Ross County.

Championship: St Mirren are champions, with Livingston, Dundee United and Dunfermline set for the play-offs with the 11th-placed Premiership team. Brechin are relegated.

League One: Ayr United are champions with Raith, Alloa and Arbroath joining Dumbarton in the play-offs. Albion are relegated.

League Two: Montrose are champions with Peterhead, Stirling and Stenhousemuir joining Queen's Park in the play-offs. Cowdenbeath will face a relegation play-off with Cove Rangers.

Derby could have made sure of a place in the play-offs with victory at Aston Villa, whose own top-six place was already secure, but despite leading for 70 minutes they could only draw 1-1, thanks to Lewis Grabban’s 84th-minute equaliser. They could still be caught by Preston or Millwall – though the latter would need a significant goal-difference turnaround – but a draw at home to Barnsley next weekend will probably be enough.

Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Wolverhampton 45 46 99
2 Cardiff 45 30 89
3 Fulham 45 35 88
4 Aston Villa 45 31 83
5 Middlesbrough 45 22 75
6 Derby 45 19 72
7 Preston North End 45 10 70
8 Millwall 45 10 69
9 Brentford 45 10 68
10 Bristol City 45 10 67
11 Sheff Utd 45 6 66
12 Norwich 45 -7 60
13 Ipswich 45 -3 59
14 Leeds 45 -7 57
15 QPR 45 -10 56
16 Sheff Wed 45 -5 54
17 Nottm Forest 45 -13 53
18 Hull 45 0 48
19 Reading 45 -22 43
20 Birmingham 45 -32 43
21 Barnsley 45 -21 41
22 Burton Albion 45 -42 41
23 Bolton 45 -36 40
24 Sunderland 45 -31 34

League One

• With Blackburn losing 1-0 at Charlton, Wigan could have secured the title with a win at home to relegation-threatened Wimbledon. But Joe Pigott put the visitors ahead in the first half and, though they had 20 shots to their opponents’ four, Wigan’s only goal came when Michael Jacobs’ effort was deflected in with 20 minutes to play. Jason Pearce, formerly of Wigan, did his best to help his former club by scoring for Charlton. It was the Addicks’ only shot of the game, either on or off target.

MK Dons needed to beat Scunthorpe to keep alive their hopes of avoiding relegation but a 2-0 home defeat means they drop into the fourth tier for the first time in a decade. The three points lifted Scunthorpe into the top six, and a draw at home to mid-table Bradford next Saturday would – unless Plymouth beat Gillingham by nine goals – make their play-off place safe.

Northampton needed to get something out of their visit to Walsall to make survival any more than a notional possibility. They got within a minute of a draw before George Dobson scored in stoppage time. There is only one side currently outside the bottom four whom they could still catch, in the shape of Oldham who drew 0-0 at home to Doncaster. Oldham’s goal difference is currently better by an offputting 17 but the two play each other on the final day, meaning the Cobblers have to win by nine (and for Rochdale, for whom Callum Camps conceded two penalties in a 2-1 defeat at Oxford, to lose at home to Charlton. “I wouldn’t want to stand here and lambast Callum but he knows and I think everybody knows that they are challenges that he doesn’t need to and shouldn’t make, but unfortunately he did,” sniffed Keith Hill, the Rochdale manager).

Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Wigan 45 59 95
2 Blackburn 45 41 93
3 Shrewsbury 45 22 87
4 Rotherham 45 19 76
5 Charlton 45 8 71
6 Scunthorpe 44 13 70
7 Plymouth 44 4 68
8 Peterborough 45 10 64
9 Portsmouth 45 -1 63
10 Southend 45 -4 62
11 Bradford 44 -10 61
12 Blackpool 45 6 60
13 Bristol Rovers 45 -6 58
14 Oxford Utd 45 -4 56
15 Doncaster 44 1 55
16 Fleetwood Town 45 -11 54
17 Gillingham 45 -8 53
18 Walsall 44 -11 51
19 AFC Wimbledon 44 -11 51
20 Oldham 45 -17 49
21 Rochdale 45 -9 48
22 Northampton 45 -34 46
23 Milton Keynes Dons 45 -27 42
24 Bury 45 -30 35

League Two

• The automatic promotion spots are now all taken, after Wycombe came from behind at Chesterfield to win 2-1 and secure the third. They still needed Exeter to lose and Notts County to drop points, and in the end both faltered. County’s defeat was particularly dramatic: Grimsby, needing a win to secure their place in the division, took a first-half lead through Nathan Clarke and clung on to it thereafter, only for Dan Jones to grab an equaliser in the 90th minute. In the third of five minutes’ stoppage time the substitute Jamille Matt turned in a corner and Grimsby had the three points they needed.

Lincoln needed a point to be sure of a play-off place but they lost 1-0 at a jubilant Wham Stadium, where Accrington Stanley’s latest success secured them the title. They would still have wrapped up a top-seven spot if Mansfield had slipped up at Yeovil but the Stags twice came from behind to keep their own promotion hopes alive with a 3-2 win. With his team 1-0 down at half-time David Flitcroft brought on Lee Angol – formerly of Lincoln – and the 23-year-old scored within three minutes to bring his side level and went on to take two crucial free-kicks – the first was handled by a defender, Kane Hemmings scoring from the resulting penalty, and the second went straight in. Though they will not have been pleased to see Mansfield win, Lincoln will not be disappointed by Yeovil’s continuing poor form – running now to five defeats in seven winless matches – given that they play them next week and need only a point. Mansfield are at home to Crawley.

Coventry’s last 10 games have featured 44 goals and they produced another arresting scoreline to leapfrog the Imps on goal difference and into sixth place. Marc McNulty scored a hat-trick in a 6-1 win at Cheltenham, even if Maxime Biamou’s overhead was the goal of the day.

Barnet had to win at Morecambe to take their fight against relegation into the final day and, thanks to Alex Nicholls’ unanswered second-half strike, that is precisely what they did. The two teams will now do more distant battle next week with the unwanted prize of a place in the National League at stake: Barnet, two points behind, must beat Chesterfield and, with their goal difference inferior by seven, are likely to need Morecambe to lose at goal-crazy Coventry if they are to avoid the drop. Even if it ultimately ends in failure, Martin Allen has coerced a remarkable surge from his Barnet side: when the first game of his fifth spell at the club ended with defeat at Luton last month they had won four out of 33 games, 21 of them lost. Since then they have won four out of six and can be optimistic: their opponents next weekend, Chesterfield, have lost six of their last seven and drawn the other, and Morecambe have not won in nine (though they have drawn six times in that run).

Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Accrington Stanley 45 33 93
2 Luton 45 48 87
3 Wycombe 45 18 81
4 Exeter 45 9 77
5 Notts County 45 23 76
6 Coventry 45 17 74
7 Lincoln City 45 16 74
8 Mansfield 45 15 71
9 Carlisle 45 8 66
10 Swindon 45 -1 65
11 Newport County 44 -1 63
12 Colchester 45 2 62
13 Cambridge Utd 45 -9 61
14 Crawley Town 45 -8 58
15 Stevenage 45 -4 55
16 Crewe 45 -14 53
17 Cheltenham 45 -5 51
18 Grimsby 45 -27 48
19 Port Vale 45 -13 47
20 Yeovil 45 -16 47
21 Forest Green 45 -20 47
22 Morecambe 45 -15 45
23 Barnet 45 -22 43
24 Chesterfield 44 -34 35
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.