It’s been an extraordinary season at every level of English football

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Cheltenham secure promotion
Cheltenham secure promotion
Cheltenham secure promotion

As we careen headlong into the final days of this extraordinary season, it is time to take stock of just how many incredible stories there have been at every level of English football.

At the very top, Leicester City, and the most unlikely title win since Nottingham Forest in the mid-1970s. In the Championship, Middlesbrough securing promotion against closest rivals Brighton on the last day, despite the manager having walked out halfway through the season before returning 48 hours later. In League One, a second successive promotion for Burton Albion, who will play in the second tier in 2016 having not played league football until 2009. And in League Two, Northampton securing the largest points tally of any of the 92 clubs, at the end of a season which started with the threat of liquidation.

All stories which deserve to be told and remembered. There have also been plenty of tales worth knowing in level five, the National League.

Cheltenham Town are already back in the Football League having won the title a year after being relegated, amassing 101 points, 12 more than their nearest rivals.

They are managed by Gary Johnson, who not too long ago was one came away from guiding Bristol City to the Premier League. No offence to Cheltenham, and Johnson has had a couple of dodgy spells since, but that does appear to be a man punching under his managerial weight.

The play-offs, meanwhile have been fought out between Forest Green and Dover, Grimsby and Braintree. It will be Grimsby and Forest Green who compete in the final, but Braintree are worth a word.

They are one of only a handful of semi-professional clubs in the National League, can seat only 550 fans in their ground and often have crowds of fewer. Manager Danny Cowley is a PE teacher as his main job, with his brother Nicky, also a teacher, as his assistant.

Yet they came third in the league, and won at Grimsby 1-0, before losing 2-0 at home in the second leg after extra time and having a man sent off.

Whether they can repeat anything like this success next season is highly debatable, but having never come lower than 14th since initially being promoted to this level for the first time ever in 2010, it would be churlish to call this a flash in the pan, for what is a very well run and admirable club.

So, the play-off finalists. On one hand Grimsby, who spent 106 years in the Football League, who are the only current non-league club to have previously played in English football’s top tier. They have history on their side.

On the other hand Forest Green, a team named after a place that does not exist and who play on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, who have never played in the Football League and are the world’s only vegan club. They have the future on their side.

Whichever team joins Cheltenham in League Two next season, it will be yet another great story to add to this season’s book, the greatest compilation since Aesop’s Fables.

by Matt Smith

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Scottish football: Poor Ronny Deila & Rangers return

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Poor Ronny Deila. It has got to the stage where if he wanted to make an impression on continental Europe while simultaneously dominating the domestic scene and pleasing the fans, he would have been better staying at Stromsgodset.

Instead, for the heinous crime of winning the Scottish Premier League – or more for the actually heinous crime of losing to Rangers while they are in the division below – he will leave Celtic at the end of the season, and it is hard to imagine him finding another managerial job outside of Scandanavia any time soon.

That defeat however, combined with how convincingly Celtic’s main rivals won the title this season, does raise an interesting question for Scottish football – can Rangers win the title next season, straight after promotion from the Championship?

This season, a benchmark has been set by Hearts, who have reached the Europa League for next campaign having won the second tier last year.

In the rest of the league, the face of the Premier League has been changed by teams coming up from the second division and supplanting the better known faces: Ross County, for years bouncing between tiers two and three, will finish in this year’s top six; Inverness Caledonian Thistle, who had a poor season this time but who have qualified for Europe recently.

While after four years an SPL without Rangers has begun to look a little more normal, their return should not, really, require any settling in period, they should be able to emulate the sides mentioned above.

They also come in with a manager pragmatic enough to engineer success based on logic and skill rather than base passion or sentiment. The struggle and eventual failure of last season under three different managers has been replaced by the side steamrollering their way to the title under Mark Warburton, a man who, if he can get Brentford to the English Championship play-offs, is surely capable of engineering a Rangers side that can finish above Partick Thistle and Hamilton Academicals.

They have the players for the job too. To compare to Hearts again, the Edinburgh side is full of foreign imports, thrown into the Scottish game to good success. Rangers meanwhile are built around experience of the SPL, with players like Lee Wallace, Kenny Miller, Andy Halliday and Dean Shiels.

With the exception of American Arsenal loanee Gedion Zelalem, all of the Rangers team hail from Britain and Ireland. Compare this to a Hearts team drawn from Poland, Turkey, Ghana, Morocco and Canada, among others.

With Celtic reeling from a disappointing season by their standards, perhaps bloated by the ease of what will soon be five straight titles with only passing competition, and the Rangers fans backing them up, I would say Warburton’s boys are not only a possibility for the title next year, they really should be right in the hunt.

Not that Ronny Deila will care. There are only so many jobs in the football world where you can win the title in both your seasons and still be judged a failure, and he picked one of them.

by Matt Smith

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The slow painful death of Aston Villa

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So, Villa have gone. In fairness, they are only the fifth worst team in Premier League history as far as I am concerned: Swindon in 1993, the two Sunderland lowest point record setters, and obviously Paul Jewell’s Derby, probably come beneath them in the pecking order.

Their departure means the list of Premier League-era ever presents has been dwindled even further; as of next season, there will only be six clubs who have played in every season in the top flight since 1992 – Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.

This stat just indicates how far Villa have fallen, it is easy to forget amidst their slow, painful death through uninspiring management and a lack of investment, that not too long ago they were to the league what Spurs are in the modern day, perennial European qualifiers and title outsiders.

Their best Premier League finish was in the very first season of the brave new Sky-funded age, when they were runners-up to Manchester United.

It wasn’t very close, they finished 10 points back, but under the management of Ron Atkinson (remember him?), and with PFA Player of the Year Paul McGrath at the back, there was a feeling that the 90s could see a battle for dominance between the North West and the Midlands, the second and third cities aiming to be first in football.

It was not to be, with Villa an example of what may appear to be a footballing oxymoron – mid-table inconsistency. They were just as likely to challenge for the top four as to be in lower mid-table. But they were never going to be relegated.

In 2007, Randy Lerner became chairman and Martin O’Neill became manager, and hope once again reared its alluring head.

Three successive sixth-placed finishes followed, with the Villans on each occasion threatening Champions League qualification – in 2009/10 they finished only six points off fourth – and at various points had opportunities to go top of the table, although they never managed it.

Investment was plentiful, and indeed many fans criticised the team for not achieving more. Offer a Villa fan sixth place these days, and they wouldn’t just rip your hand off, they’d tear you in two.

What was the moment that things started to go wrong for Villa? I would say the seeds of the current crisis were sown on August 9, 2010 – Martin O’Neill resigns as manager, after a lack of funding was provided that summer by Lerner. The Cleveland Browns owner has not changed his tune since.

Villa’s choices of management have been bemusing since – O’Neill was succeeded by an out of touch Gerard Houllier, who left before the season was up due to ill health.

Then came Alex McLeish, from Birmingham City, who could have won the Champions League and still not have won over sections of the Holte End.

The dire football of Paul Lambert came after, and by the time Tim Sherwood got his hands in things were only going one way, accentuated by the surprisingly incompetent Remi Garde who followed.

Many of us are not surprised by Villa’s relegation, but in the wider scheme of things, it shows how much the face of the English game has changed.

by Matt Smith

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Solihull Moors and other Non League guff

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Following non-league football, you will often come across the same names in the so-called National League from season to season.

There are names familiar to the more casual observer too – Kidderminster, Welling, Altrincham, Halifax, and Chester, to name a few.

However for next season, a selection of these teams are in serious danger of relegation from the fifth tier of English football – Kidderminster for example need to win all four of their remaining games as they are in a Villa-type situation – and being replaced by names unfamiliar to the top table of the non-league banqueting hall.

It is not just Leicester who are changing the guard in the English game, Solihull Moors are doing just the same.

14 points clear at the top, they will be promoted unless they lose all their remaining games and nearest rivals North Ferriby United win all theirs.

Founded just nine years ago in 2007 by a merger of Solihull Borough and Moor Green, neither of whom had ever come close to promotion to National League before – Moor Green’s best being ninth in Conference North in 2006, Solihull Moors seventh in 2011.

For 25 years, Moor Green and later the Moors were ably managed as a model non-league club by Bob Faulkner, who sadly died of cancer in February 2011; since then, the reigns have been held by former Football League defensive jobber Marcus Bignot, who has slowly but surely used his contacts to build one of the most complete squads at that level.

It will be interesting to see how far Solihull go, if they can emulate the likes of Eastleigh and Dover in dominating at tier six before pushing hard for promotion to League Two.

Certainly, the area is used to football success, with Solihull’s Damson Park stadium already welcoming the Champions League – Birmingham City women play there.

As for their pre-mentioned nearest rivals North Ferriby, it would be no less of a story should they get to the league formerly known as the conference.

Founded in 1934, the Villagers have spent the majority of their existence playing semi-professionally in competitions such as the East Ridings Amateur League and the Northern Counties East Division.

But since first being promoted into the then-Conference North in 2013, they have been a major force, and have even won the FA Trophy by beating former Football League stalwarts Wrexham on penalties after a 3-3 draw.

It is certain that one, and likely that both, North Ferriby and Solihull will be playing fifth-tier football next year; for a non-league fan this is a monumental occasion.

There is also one big story in the National League South. Automatic promotion will go to a familiar name in either Ebbsfleet or Sutton, but Truro City have a shot at a play-off place – and that is a story.

The highest ranked Cornish club, they were promoted via the play-offs from the Southern League last season. This is their second experience at this level, having previously got there in 2011 via five promotions in six seasons, before a spectacular blow up and administration.

They are back in the saddle however, and the idea of York and Grimsby fans having to muddle their way down to Cornwall is an idea I must say I thoroughly enjoy.

by Matt Smith

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Who should replace Hodgson after Euro 2016?

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I have made some pretty poor predictions this season, it has to be said.

A personal highlight was my prediction of Watford’s relegation from the Premier League on the grounds of their forwards not being able to adapt to the higher tier.

26 goals between Deeney and Ighalo, a Wembley semi-final, and mid-table security have made a firm mockery of that statement – although in the same article I did say Villa’s goose was cooked, for which I feel some dignity can be salvaged.

Perhaps my most wildly off the mark statement, however, was predicting on September 28 that in 10 months time, Gary Neville would become England boss.

The omens seemed good – plenty of international caps and experience in the bank, a respected punditry career, and a place on the coaching bench behind Roy Hodgson. Gnev seemed more than ready to step up.

He did step up to management, but not in the way anyone expected. I have also written about being in the Sky Sports News studio as the news broke of his appointment by Valencia. I was in the far less glamorous surroundings of my Tottenham bedsit when news broke of his sacking.

I think Neville has the makings of a good manager, maybe even great. I think he will make his return in the English game next season, perhaps at a big club on hard times – Wolves, Nottingham Forest or QPR spring to mind.

But he will not be England boss – the FA will know the retribution will be savage if they replace a newly popular Roy Hodgson with a man who has only won three league games in his career.

So the question must be asked again, who is going to be England manager after Euro 2016?

When the favourite for the post is now Neville, followed by Alan Pardew, whose Palace have not won a game in 2016, you know the talent pool is less Olympic than paddling.

Names like Brendan Rodgers and Jose Mourinho, tempting last summer, have lost a great deal of lustre, and as a Boro fan, I can warn the FA away from giving Gareth Southgate the senior job with some experience. Also the U21s were terrible last year.

For me, there can only be one man – the man in possession right now.

Hodgson, off the back of his young blood finally showing some teeth and talent against top opposition in the meaningless but still impressive comeback win over Germany, has a new ace to play if he wants a crack at Russia 2018, and that seems like the best option to me.

Roy has done a good job, and is hungry to make up for the 2014 travesty – and England were, without any hint of bias, in a very tough group in Brazil.

People continue to parade Hodgson’s constant selection of Rooney as evidence he is out of touch – ignoring the fact he also gave England debuts to Kane, Vardy, Drinkwater, Shaw, and Stones. And the fact Rooney is captain, and really quite good.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it – particularly if you have some fairly stable glue to hand already.

by Matt Smith

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Accrington Stanley, who are they?

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Accrington Stanley, who are they? They’re heading for promotion to League One, that’s who.

Often regarded as a byword for small, scabby English clubs with a ramshackle stadium, anorak-clad fans and a terminal shortage of cash (my kind of club), Stanley have had one of the most impressive seasons in their history.

They are sat a shade below the automatic promotion spots, above the big names of the division like Portsmouth, Leyton Orient and Luton, with none of the budget but all of the quality and class.

Much of Stanley’s success can be put down to their scoring prowess, over 60 netted already this campaign. Top scorer Billy Kee (pictured above) has all the hallmarks of a lower league striker who has been around the block more than once, seen it all, and knows exactly where the goal is – all by the age of 25.

A short, fruitless spell at Scunthorpe was ended last summer, and he has been knocking them in at the wonderfully named Wham! Stadium ever since, ably supported by one of the most recognisable names in the Football League game.

Josh Windass, son of Dean, has limited time left in Accrington, having agreed a pre-contract deal at Rangers, in anticipation of their re-ascent to the top of the Scottish football molehill. In the meantime, he has scored 11 league goals and driven the team from the midfield engine to their impressive league position.

Yet the most interesting factor in Accrington’s sudden threat to reach the third tier is the man behind the march – manager John Coleman.

Himself a lower league forward of some repute, particularly at Southport, he first took charge of Accrington Stanley in 1999 and stayed for 13 years.

When he took over, they were in the seventh tier of English football, having not played league football for decades – astonishing as one of the 12 founder members, although in that period they had gone out of business and reformed.

By the time Coleman first left in 2012, they had been promoted three times and were well established in League Two. The fact that in the decade since they first entered the fourth tier that they have never been in any true danger of returning to the fifth – on a minuscule budget – is quite an achievement and in no small part due to Coleman’s sturdy foundations.

Three short unsuccessful spells in two years elsewhere, with Rochdale, Southport and Sligo Rovers, saw him come back to Accrington and pick up where he had left off. The team came 17th last season – this current campaign has been a different kettle of fish.

So what would modern football be like with Accrington Stanley in League One? Certainly it would cement the feeling of having fallen a long way for the likes of Sheffield United, but really it would prove that success stories in football need not be flashes in the pan; they may in fact have been years and years of hard work in the making, and as a neutral, I am right behind them.

by Matt Smith

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What a curious 10 days or so it has been at Middlesbrough FC

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It all started with manager Aitor Karanka storming out of a team meeting midway through Friday, having allegedly told the team he didn’t want to manage them anymore, which is a phrase that seems more at home in the mouth of a sulky six-year-old than a forty-something former Spanish international centre back.

He was then relieved of first team duties for the weekend game away to relegation certainties Charlton, whose fans seemed hell-bent on cancelling the game – holding a mock funeral beforehand, throwing beach balls onto the pitch from the first minute, imitating the referee’s whistle, setting of flares, and, obviously, staging a pitch invasion.

Boro wish the game had been abandoned, as, despite facing a side whose fans didn’t even want to see them win, turned in a worst showing of the season and a 2-0 defeat.

No points, no manager – no hope surely?

Not quite – in an unprecedented turnaround in recent English footballing history, Karanka was reinstated as manager on Monday after a twenty-minute meeting with Boro chairman Steve Gibson, before speaking to the press and telling them, and the fans, absolutely nothing about what had been going on.

He took charge of the team on Friday night’s home game, a crucial encounter against fellow promotion challengers Hull, where defeat could have been the death knell for their automatic promotion hopes.

Boro kept their hopes alive with a 1-0 win, thanks to a last minute goal, despite playing no better than they had against a Charlton side 19 places lower in the table than Hull. Funny old game.

So what, if anything, have we learned from all this? One lesson springs to mind – no matter how big for their boots the players get, fan power will always win out.

On Friday night, the Teesside Gazette ran a poll, asking fans if they wanted Karanka to continue as manager. 94 per cent of fans backed the former Real Madrid player and assistant manager – a result which would have surprised even the staff at the paper I think.

If the Boro fan forums are to be believed (which, even if they are, must be taken with an enormous pinch of salt), certain players had not taken well to his rotation policy and had been texting mates about not wanting to play for the club – star players, fan favourites for much of the campaign; not any more judging by the language used to describe them on said forums.

On his reinstatement, a solid 94 per cent of fans were commenting their delight, celebration, and that Karanka had done the right thing – his dressing room, his team, and his rules.

The fans sang his name from the off on Friday – fan power had won.

I have a spurious un-researched feeling that Steve Gibson may well have seen that poll, and realised that even in this most unusual of scenarios, the chairman staple of sacking the boss was not an option.

This, combined with the Premier League finally reducing and capping away ticket prices after months of supporter pressure, tells us that it is not just a tired punditry cliché that fans are central to the game.

by Matt Smith

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Know your history

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The FA Cup is a stranger beast than normal this year

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The FA Cup is a stranger beast than normal this year – in most cases, a semi-final line up where only one of the five is counted among the traditional big boys, and a quarter-final where both Arsenal and Chelsea were comprehensively beaten, would make for a major shock that would be talked about for days.

Yet in this season, of all seasons, it seems highly appropriate – a League Cup final featuring Manchester City beating Liverpool was an anomaly in a year the proletariat of the Premier League seem set to go all 1917 on the English game’s bourgeoisie.

Who are the contenders? Watford are the first to consider.

I’m too lazy to do the research properly, I don’t have a team to trawl the stats for me, and my girlfriend thinks football is stupid, so I have not checked this, but I would be astonished if Watford were not the only side in history to have made the semi-finals in two consecutive seasons they have been in the top flight, when those seasons are themselves not consecutive.

Basically, Aidy Boothroyd’s Watford made the semis in 2007, losing 4-1 to Manchester United, and were relegated the same year – back in the Prem this campaign for the first time since, they have made the final four again  – which I find quite interesting.

The ‘Orns stunned a feckless Arsenal to end their two-year hold on the old trophy, end their hopes of a first FA Cup hat-trick since the 1880s, and – whisper it quietly – begin the end of the Wenger reign.

Their opponents will be Crystal Palace, last seen in the semis in 1995, and most famously seen in the semis in 1990 when an inspired Ian Wright performance saw them beat Liverpool 4-3 – a win that scuppered the Reds’ hopes of getting back on their dominant 80s trophy trail.

As a conflict between London’s two least glamourous top tier natives, it will be a highly competitive and charged Wembley encounter. My money is on Watford, with their strikers who can actually score and their lack of a relegation fight to consider.

As for the other semi, West Ham and Manchester United will still have to replay to decide who goes under the arch – and I think the Hammers may well have planned for that.

This means they get one final game in the FA Cup at Upton Park – an evening replay against United.

This would explain the slightly anaemic goalless draw the first game at Old Trafford was petering out into, until Dmitri Payet almost ruined it all with his scorching free-kick – how inconsiderate.

No wonder just a couple of minutes later United were able to score, and that no-one really complained that West Ham keeper Darren Randolph was clearly being fouled in the build-up.

How’s that for a conspiracy theory! Anyway, I think United will spoil the party and reach Wembley. LVG can only keep the wolf from the door with European qualification and a trophy, and the FA Cup provides an option for both.

Yet I do not think they will get past the semis. They will be stopped by the team who I have my money on to win the whole thing – Everton.

They have been the definition of inconsistency this season, yet in the isolation chamber of cup games they have been excellent, coming within a whisker of the League Cup final, and beating a strong Chelsea side armed with Diego Costa’s teeth.

They have a manager who has won it before (Martinez). They have a striker who can put away half-chances at a moment’s notice (Lukaku). They have a midfield spark who can create something of nothing (Barkley). They have fans starved of trophies since Paul Rideout’s shock 1995 final winner (er, Everton fans).

I’m backing the blues to beat Watford in the final, and so should you. Although if you lose money, I am in no way culpable, and no, you don’t know where I live.

by Matt Smith

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A lot of the talk in recent weeks has been insulting to the average English football fan

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The news of a secret meeting involving the five chief executives of Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and the Manchester clubs, plus some American bloke whose name I can’t be bothered to remember, was completely innocent, about pre-season tours and certainly not about breakaway Super Leagues. Yeah right.

How ironic it would be if the Premier League, the ultimate money-driven breakaway league in British sport, would be a victim of its own breakaway.

Or that the Champions League, which has long faced criticism of being overblown and exclusive, is made redundant by an exclusive clubs with overblown egos.

What is curious is that the English inclination – where there is any – towards any reform is that there are too many games on the fixture list.

For this reason, they want a smaller, more lucrative Champions League, they want FA Cup games moved to midweek and replays to be scrapped, and they want to slim the League Cup down further.

What surprises me is that they have not considered what would be the simplest and arguably best solution – reducing the number of teams that play in the Premier League.

It makes sense to reduce the Prem down to 18, or even 16 teams. It would mean the TV and prize money can be shared between fewer candidates and therefore mean more dosh in the pockets – if that doesn’t swing the chief executives I don’t know what will.

It will give the league more exclusivity – which seems so desired – and mean less games are played, which will prevent players from being too fatigued by the summer, give fans a better footballing spectacle all year round as the footballers can give it 100 per cent, and may even allow for the fabled but oft derided as impossible Winter Break to be born.

The most compelling argument for a smaller Premier League, however, is that there is precedent for the number of teams being reduced.

So all-consuming is the modern attitude towards money, and football as a real-life video game, that even the early 90s Premier League days look and feel like ancient history, and in those days it was effectively just a slightly shinier continuation of the old First Division.

There were 22 clubs in the top tier until 1995, when to compensate four were relegated from the Premier League and only two promoted from the First Division, as it was then known.

Transpose this onto this campaign, and it would read very bad news for the current bottom four, who appear to be drifting away – Sunderland, Newcastle, Norwich and Villa would definitely all go down.

It would also create an even tighter fight at the top of the Championship – Middlesbrough, Burnley, Hull and Brighton would all have only one automatic promotion spot to do everything in their power to not win (so it seems).

For me, it makes the most sense. I don’t expect many to share that view.

by Matthew Smith

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FA Cup 5th Round Preview

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We are coming to the business end of this season of the FA Cup. For me it is less interesting than when teams such as Jarrow Roofing or Bedlington Terriers were in the competition, but it is interesting nonetheless.

With plans possibly afoot to kill off FA Cup replays and play games midweek in order to increase English chances in Europe and in international tournaments, we should enjoy the cup in its current form. Although looking ahead, I’m not seeing too many possible shocks.

I honestly expect an all-Premier League last eight. It would encapsulate what this season has thus far been about in the FA Cup. When arguably the biggest upset occurred in the first game of the first round proper – Salford City 2-0 Notts County if you are struggling to remember – and when the only major upset featuring a Premier League outfit involved Swansea City, you know it has not been a classic.

Also I have been predicting upsets all the way through, jinxing Carlisle et al. If I say no lower league side will triumph, perhaps that will clear the way?

In which case, Arsenal, West Brom, Watford, Everton, West Ham, Spurs, Manchester City and Manchester United are my picks for the quarter finals.

For the holders, things have not been bumpy. Arsenal have not been put off their stride once by the challenges of Sunderland or Burnley at home, so I have no doubt Hull – who they play in London for the third season in a row after meeting in the 2014 final and the 2015 first round – will be stomped over once again. 3-0.

West Brom may have some issues with Reading after only getting past League One Peterborough thanks to a Darren Fletcher thunderbolt and some woeful Posh penalties, but I can see Pulis yanking them through by their tonsils if necessary. 1-1, WBA on the replay.

Of all the Premier League teams outside the European bubble, Watford have possibly the best chance of winning the whole thing. A strong squad, a fan base starved of silverware, no other commitments with relegation not a threat, and feeble opposition in this dire current Leeds brand. 4-0 to Watford.

Both Bournemouth and Everton have been poor this season. You know the Toffees, with their £28m front man and ambitions of breaking the top four, have won only 14 of 34 games this season? No wonder Joey Barton is worried. Still, they are better than Bournemouth, who are starting to show climber’s fatigue. 1-2.

Having been to and loved Upton Park, it would be superb just to get one more FA Cup game at the wonderful old ground. West Ham will have eyes on European football at the Olympic Stadium next season, but Mssrs Brady, Gold and Sullivan would happily take it via a Wembley final. Blackburn aren’t good enough to offer stiff opposition. 0-2.

Tottenham are going to win the Premier League. Sorry, didn’t you know that? Is that a spoiler? Well, clearly you have never been to a pub in Enfield Town. The medals are already in the post, and the Premier League is being renamed the Kane Honorary Trophy. Anyway, a Spurs double is suddenly by no means ludicrous, they face a waning Palace at this stage after all. 2-0 to the Spurs.

Chelsea v Manchester City is the marquee fixture, between two bosses who definitely won’t be there next season and two expensively assembled squads who could miss out on the Champions League (well, the Blues definitely and City will probably come fourth in the end). So this presents both with their best trophy chance. Tut tut. 0-0, then City win the replay.

Finally, on Monday, Shrewsbury host Manchester United. The Shrews stunned a fully Rooneyed Everton a few years back and took Chelsea all the way in the League Cup last season, but Van Gaal won’t allow his beleaguered tenure to end in Shropshire. 0-1. It will be close.

by Matt Smith

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