Fulham will need to swallow quickly the pain of missing out on automatic promotion to Cardiff City after a shock defeat on the final day in the Championship when Bolton avoided relegation with an extraordinary comeback win.
Trailing at home against Nottingham Forest, Bolton were heading for League One until David Wheater equalised three minutes from time and, 60 seconds later, Aaron Wilbraham popped up with the winner. The result proved a hammer blow for Barnsley and Burton Albion, who were relegated after defeat at Derby County and Preston North End respectively.
“That was the greatest moment of my career, I can’t tell you how good that felt,” the 38-year-old Wilbraham said. The defender Mark Beevers added: “At full‑time I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I did both.”
For Nigel Clough, this was his first relegation as a manager; his Burton side drop into the third tier after a remarkable climb from the Unibond League to within one division of the Premier League. Hope Akpan’s goal had pulled Burton level at Preston with an hour played, only for Alex Neil’s side to snatch a late winner while Bolton performed their heroics.
“We were minutes away from keeping the dream going,” Clough said. “To lose in those circumstances when you think you are safe is extremely cruel. But it’s not over the course of today but it is 46 matches and 41 points was not good enough.” A point at Cardiff in a 0-0 draw was enough for Reading, who finished three points above the bottom three.
Victory for Fulham at St Andrew’s could have steered Slavisa Jokanovic’s side to the Premier League but instead they succumbed to stage fright at Birmingham City. They lost 3-1 as their 23-game unbeaten run and all hope of automatic promotion came to a grinding halt. First-half goals by Lukas Jutkiewicz and Harlee Dean gave them a mountain to climb and, although Tom Cairney pulled a goal back, Fulham were off-colour, unusually placid and suffocated by a lively Birmingham side who ended a miserable season on a high.
“The key point was finishing the season on our terms,” the Birmingham manager, Garry Monk, said. “It’s what the fans want to see; they want commitment and fight and then, on top of that, they want to see some quality, and we had that.”
Fulham, for the second season running, face the lottery of the play-offs, with a visit to Derby on Friday first up. “I always believe we can win the next game and because we have lost one game I am not going to change my mind,” Jokanovic said. “We have shown many times we are good enough. We need to be calm, be confident and we must accept and be ready for the next steps. We are disappointed because we lost a great chance.”
Gary Rowett’s Derby ran out 4-1 winners to clinch their top-six spot and simultaneously relegate Barnsley, who announced after the final whistle they had parted company with the head coach, José Morais, formerly an assistant to José Mourinho at Chelsea and Real Madrid. “Today is a sad day, we will discuss later what has gone wrong during the season,” the club’s chief executive, Gauthier Ganaye, said.
The title winners, Wolves, slipped up 3-0 at the managerless bottom club, Sunderland, and Middlesbrough’s late equaliser at Ipswich Town catapulted them to fifth, resulting in a two-leg date with Aston Villa in the play-offs.
“If you had given me a play-off position when I took over I wouldn’t have cared who we were playing, so I can’t be judgmental, or care or worry about who it is,” Tony Pulis said. “We have got Villa who most probably have the strongest squad in the Championship and it will be a real tough game.”
