The EFL playoffs for 2026 are set, featuring Millwall aiming for a Premier League return. Key matches include Coventry City vs. Ipswich Town and Southampton vs. Middlesbrough.
Key points
EFL playoffs for 2026 are underway
Millwall seeks Premier League promotion
Coventry City and Ipswich Town have secured spots
Southampton faces Middlesbrough in semifinals
Salford City and Grimsby Town compete in League Two
MillwallCoventry CityIpswich TownSouthampton
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Forty-six rounds of games later, the race for promotion in the English Football League has hit its thrilling conclusion. It's the playoffs, the 15 games in League Two, League One and the Championship that seem never to disappoint.
In the fourth tier, Salford City will be looking to make amends but will have to overcome an opponent in Grimsby Town who have that most valuable of intangibles at this stage of the season: momentum. In League One, only two points separated the quartet of Stockport County, Bradford City, Bolton Wanderers and Stevenage with two further teams only a few steps behind.
It is in the Championship that we begin, however. Coventry City and Ipswich Town have punched their spots in next season's Premier League; the winner of the richest game in sport will join them. The second semifinal will pit Southampton, bidding to extend their yo-yo-ing between the top flight and second tier, against a Middlesbrough side who have twice fallen short since relegation in 2017. Before that, though, it's a clash between Hull City and a side bidding to reach the top flight for the first time since 1990, Millwall.
1. Playoff specialist Neil well-placed for final
There has been a particular rhythm to Millwall's seasons since they got back to the Championship in 2017. Lacking the budget or big names of others in the league, they are rarely the sort who get weighed down with expectations before a ball has been kicked. The Lions tend not to burst out of the traps either and that might be what costs them in March and April as they fall just short in a late push for the playoffs. Not this season. They might have lost key players in Zian Flemming and Japhet Tanganga but Alex Neil was still in place. This time, it didn't take that long for Millwall to get going. For a while, it looked like they might even pip Ipswich at the post.
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That they even got close is a triumph, given that their playing budget is significantly lower than those ex-Premier League clubs with their parachute payments. What Millwall have to their advantage is a well-defined playing style that preceded their current manager but suited him. No team in the second tier plays a higher proportion of their passes forward. No one hits more crosses. No one has more attacking sequences involving throw-ins that end in goals. This, though, is not a club adapting to English football's new meta. It's English football seeing the value in a very clasically Millwall way of playing.
Pair that with a head coach who knows his way around this stage of a season and it promises to be a good recipe. Neil has twice won promotion via the playoffs, leading Norwich to the Premier League in 2015 and turning around the sinking ship Sunderland seven years later. "We're just going to attack the first game, see what the lay of the land is," Neil said ahead of Friday night's trip to Humberside. "If we don't win the game and we draw it, then we're coming back to our place. Then we'll go and try and win it. If we're not winning or we're losing, we'll double down and go and try and win it even more. So we don't think about what anything might look like after that."
There is reason to be confident about the semifinal at least. Hull City snuck past Wrexham on the final day but it is hard to really grasp how they got this far in the first place. The only team with a worse expected goal difference with them across the entire second tier is continually sanctioned Sheffield Wednesday. That graph below has the look of a team who just about avoided the League One dropzone the previous year. They did.
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Now, when a team have been defying their underlying metrics for 46 games like Hull have, you have to open yourself up to the possibility that the data might have missed something. Certainly, Sergej Jakirovic does not want for experience in his squad and when Oli McBurnie, the hero on the final day of the season, speaks of the "hard work" and "grind" that got Hull across the finish line, you have a clear picture of what that might be. And of course Hull did win 3-1 at The Den earlier in the season, losing by the same scoreline on March. On that basis, this might be a close one, no matter what the data says.
2. Can Southampton keep up their momentum?
As November dawned over the EFL Championship, there was every reason to believe that one of the recently relegated sides from the Premier League might be about to "do a Sunderland" and carry on their descent into League One. It's just that you probably would not have put your money on that being Leicester City. After all, following a 2-0 defeat to Preston North End, Southampton were 21st in the division, just three points clear of safety. The next day, Southampton sacked Will Still, the managerial wunderkind whose hiring had been hailed as a triumph in the summer.
Under-21s boss Tonda Eckert took the helm, initially only as interim. Then Southampton won and won and won. A slight wobble around Christmas and into the New Year meant there was still ground to make up but they hurtled forward. Their final 19 games delivered 47 points, seven more than any team in the division. Across all competitions, Southampton's final 24 games delivered a record of 18 wins, five defeats and one almighty scare for an eventually victorious Manchester City at Wembley. The Saints are flying and it is a truism of the playoffs that the team with momentum tends to carry that to promotion.
Middlesbrough haven't had that much of that of late. A rough run in March and April saw them slip out of the automatic promotion spots that they had occupied for most of the season. Back-to-back wins against Sheffield Wednesday and Watford, the latter by a convincing 5-1 scoreline, stopped the rot and were followed by a draw with Wrexham, a result that meant they ceded home advantage in the second leg. Boro could feel that over the broad sweep of the season, they have been a more consistent side than Southampton but what really matters right now is not how you played in September and October but whether you have sprung into shape.
3. Further down the leagues
Most bookmakers would tell you there is no obvious favorite to escape League Two alongside Bromley, Milton Keynes Dons and Cambridge United. Salford City, owned by Manchester United legends David Beckham and Gary Neville, are probably the big name of the quartet, something of a forerunner to Wrexham in their existence as a content vehicle alongside a football club. Their failure to beat Crawley on the final day will sting given that the win would have earned them promotion. That they've landed against a Grimbsy Town side who beat them home and away is even more of a worry.
Across from them is a match with some proper needle to it, Derbyshire vs. Nottinghamshire as Chesterfield take on Notts County. There's a little bit of proximity behind this rivalry but also familiarity that has bred contempt, including the 2023 National League Play Off Final. By way of an example of how much these two dislike each other, the last time they met -- a 3-2 barnburner won by Chesterfield -- County had a man sent off inside nine minutes. Ollie Norburn's crime? Lobbing a shoe.
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In League One, it is similarly hard to call an outright promotion favorite. Perhaps Bolton Wanderers are first among near equals. They had the best expected goal difference in the division. Based on the underlying metrics, their attack has a little more juice than the other four teams. Of course, the moment when that matters most, though, is in the league season. Come knockout football, might Bradford's slightly superior defense help them get the job done in this battle between grand old teams fallen on hard times?
Meanwhile, Stockport County will be believing that their rise isn't done yet. At the turn of the century, the Hatters were established in the second tier but a disastrous financial situation sent them careening down the divisions and into administration in 2009. The pain did not stop for supporters who had to endure six seasons in the sixth tier. Since escaping the National League North in 2019, it has been onwards and upwards: League Two three years later, League One the season before last. After all the pain, Dave Challinor's side now find themselves favorites to overcome Stevenage. Do that and Wembley awaits.
