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After the play-off weekend which the Reds just missed out on, Doug O’Kane looks at the 23 clubs who will join them in the second tier from next season
Fulham, Last season: 18th in the Premier League. Distance from Oakwell: 179 miles.
Reds’ record: Played: 85. Won: 26. Drawn: 23. Lost: 33.
The Cottagers have now been promoted, relegated, promoted and relegated in their last four seasons as they tend to thrive in the Championship but have been double figures for points away from safety in each of their last two top flight seasons. Scott Parker looks set to remain in charge despite collecting just two points from the final nine games of the season. Alfie Mawson, the former Barnsley captain, still has a year left on his contract after his loan at Bristol City was ended by injury.
Manchester City have put four big names up for sale - and Arsenal are readying a £120m move for two of them, while Saturday's transfer gossip claims a Tottenham attacker is ready to leave after just 18 months at the club.
Arsenal
I always feared thereâd come a time when weâd really regret flogging off this countryâs footballing crown jewels, and Spurs, to owners with no grasp of our risk-and-reward pyramid format. And here we are. The ESL closed-shop plan may have gone for now, but in the absence of real governmental intervention, itâll be back. For us Gooners, itâs all felt like the latest step in a barefaced betrayal â one that began with leaving Highbury and was made worse by our absentee landlordâs purchase of the meagre proportion of shares still in private hands. The result is fans feeling like nothing more than an anonymous revenue stream for our sterile new ground.
Pompey Might Not Finish Season Thursday, 1st Mar 2012 15:16
Portsmouth’s joint-administrator Trevor Birch has said that there is a very real chance that Pompey might not be able to fulfil this season’s Championship fixtures. If that’s the case, the games Portsmouth have played would be removed from the record with the Blues, who beat the Hampshire side both home and away, losing six points.
That would see the Blues drop two places to 18th with 34 points six points off relegation in the 23-team division from which two clubs would go into League One at the end of the season.
Rio Ferdinand reveals details of controversial Leeds to Man Utd move
United signed Ferdinand in 2002 | Alex Livesey/Getty Images
In November 2000, Leeds broke the British transfer record and made Rio Ferdinand the world s most expensive defender.
The Whites forked out £18m to whisk Ferdinand away from West Ham, with lofty ambitions to become one of the Premier League s elite funding an extensive recruitment drive.
But while Leeds fortunes began to falter soon after, Ferdinand s stock continued to soar - and soon enough he was being linked with a move to Manchester United, at that time the most dominant club in the country.