EFL Extra: Round up and play-off Predictions
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ipswich did it on the last day...but with that squad were they always going to?
Wrexham missed out to Hull City. That is Hull who stayed up on the final day of last season and faced a transfer embargo in the summer - quite an achievement.
So, who makes it through the play-off's - is the smart money on the winner of Middlesbrough Southampton?
In League One Stevenage defy the odds, Challinor does it again and Leyton Orient's Richie Wellens goes in two footed on his players.
Lastly, in League Two final day heartbreak again for Salford and a step too far for Harrogate.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:08.6 | This is our EFL Extra Show with me, Tom Clark and the former Football League legend. |
| 0:12.9 | Gregor Robertson and we are looking at the final day in the championship, League 1 and League 2. |
| 0:18.3 | Gregor, let's start at the top of the championship. |
| 0:20.2 | Ipswich Town back in the Premier League, finishing second. Slightly underwhelmingly, we decided when we were just prepping this show. 84 points for the team with the best squad in the league, a manager who's been there and done it, and maybe we're just a bit annoyed that they didn't finish first because we said they would at the start of the season. Who knows? But listen, they got the job done, but maybe not in quite the fashion they were expecting at the start. Yeah, I'm sure all the fans on the bus parade today will not give a damn that we're saying that or how they've done it. But I think it's the truth. I mean, 2019-20 is the last time 84 points we've got you promoted automatically really |
| 0:56.0 | I wouldn't even have got you I think it's fourth and fifth in the last couple of seasons so |
| 1:00.5 | it's kind of teams with particularly teams with parachute payments I've been aiming for like |
| 1:05.5 | nine points 90 plus point mark even into the hundreds recently so it is different is that because the championship is stronger across the board? I'm not sure. Some people have said that. I don't think that's true. I think that, as you say, Epswich, I've underwhelmed a little bit. And, you know, there was a big turnover of players in the summer. I think they seemed 11 players. They didn't win for their opening four games. |
| 1:30.2 | And then they sent another couple in January, |
| 1:32.8 | Mehetti and Dan Neal to get them over the line. |
| 1:33.5 | And it worked. |
| 1:35.2 | I think they lost one of the last 15 games, |
| 1:37.2 | which really, that's the difference, actually. |
| 1:38.7 | Millwall won a game more than them. |
| 1:41.2 | Millwall won 24 games to their 23. |
| 1:43.5 | But Epswich only lost eight times. |
| 1:47.0 | And, I mean, having said all that you think about |
| 1:49.3 | Keir McKeown as achievement |
| 1:51.6 | in itself in isolation |
| 1:53.0 | three promotions in four years and |
| 1:55.1 | after obviously the difficulties in the |
| 1:57.9 | Premier League I said this |
... |
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