Opta Analyst's Matt Furniss looks at all the key data ahead of Sheffield United v Sunderland at Wembley, with the Championship playoff final providing the last route to Premier League promotion.
This weekend, Sheffield United and Sunderland will battle it out for the final promotion spot to the Premier League, with the two sides facing off at Wembley in the Championship playoff final on Saturday (kick-off 15:01 BST).
Sheff Utd and Sunderland overcame Bristol City and Coventry City in their respective semi-final ties, and the winners will join Leeds United and Burnley in England's top flight next season.
Ahead of Saturday's encounter, we look at the need-to-know info around the fixture and give you the background knowledge on both sides.
Falling away
Sheff Utd finished 14 points ahead of Sunderland in the regular Championship season table – it’s the biggest points difference between two English Football League playoff finalists in the current format (since 1988/89).
The Blades became just the third side in the history of the second tier to win as many as 90 points yet fail to get promoted automatically, after Sunderland in 1997/98 and Leeds United last season.
Although the Blades' 90-point tally meant they ended the regular Championship campaign 10 points behind the top two, Leeds and Burnley, it was a much closer battle throughout 2024/25 than the final table suggested.
Only Leeds (156) spent more days inside the automatic promotion spots than Sheffield United (143), who spent 55 days longer than Burnley (88) in those positions. In fact, Sunderland (100) spent more days in the top two this season than Scott Parker’s runners-up.
Sunderland’s spot in the playoffs looked nailed on for the majority of the season, with the Black Cats spending a total of 266 days in the top six – the most of any side in the division.
Although Regis Le Bris’ side had a superb season overall, their form at the end of 2024/25 was a concern. Admittedly, the final five games of the season were being played knowing they’d already qualified for the playoffs, but they lost every single one of them and scored just one goal. No team in EFL history has gone into the playoffs (in any tier) with such a long run of defeats.
Any worries Sunderland fans may have had about their team losing focus were cast aside with an excellent semi-final win over Coventry across two legs, however. Dan Ballard’s last-gasp extra-time header secured their 3-2 victory on aggregate, which was a good job as Sunderland’s penalty record is horrendous, missing four of the five spot-kicks they took during the regular season.
Fast and furious?
While not among the most direct teams in the Championship, both Sunderland and Sheff Utd like to get the ball forward quicker, and without making as many passes, compared to the two automatically promoted sides.
Sheff Utd ranked ninth in the league for average possession (51.3 per cent), while Sunderland were even lower in 12th place (49.1 per cent), but both were inside the top four for touches in the opposition's box, quite remarkably having the exact same figure (1,160) across their 46 regular-season matches.
With that in mind, it’s unlikely Saturday’s final will be a slow game with lots of patient build-up (as was the case in last season’s incredibly dull final between Leeds and Southampton).
Direct attacks are defined by Opta as the number of open-play sequences that start just inside the team’s own half and have at least 50 per cent of movement towards the opposition’s goal, ending in either a shot or a touch in the opposition's box. Sunderland (70) ranked behind only Middlesbrough (82) in the Championship regular season across this metric, while Sheff Utd were sixth (66).
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The potentially frantic pace of this final could lead to plenty of fouls, too. Sunderland are one of only six clubs to have accumulated more than 100 cards (107 yellow, four red) in the Championship this season, while Sheff Utd are two off joining them in the 100-club with 98 cards in total (96 yellow, two red).
No player in the Championship has been given more cautions this season than Sheff Utd’s Gustavo Hamer (13), while team-mate Anel Ahmedhodzic has collected 11, the same number as Sunderland’s Jobe Bellingham and Trai Hume.
Promoting youth
This final will be between two of the youngest teams in the Championship this season.
Sunderland had the youngest average starting XI age for the third successive campaign, this time coming in at 23 years, 324 days old. Sheff Utd weren’t far behind in the rankings, with the fourth-youngest side in the division (25 years, 86 days).
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The Black Cats have some of the most exciting young prospects in England outside of the Premier League; one of them, Chris Rigg, could win promotion to the top flight before even turning 18.
Rigg has appeared in 44 of Sunderland’s 48 Championship matches this season (including playoffs). This is the most appearances – and minutes (3,120) – that a teenager has played in a Championship season since Ryan Sessegnon for Fulham in 2017/18.
He’s joined in midfield by Jobe Bellingham, the brother of Jude, who is still only 19 years old. Bellingham has played 3,717 minutes of Championship football as a teenager this season, a shade above his total in 2023/24 (3,642). Since 2014/15, no other player has played 3,500+ minutes as a teenager in more than one Championship campaign.
Eliezer Mayenda, who only turned 20 two weeks ago, heads into the final in good form for Sunderland. He’s been involved in nine goals in his 13 starts in all competitions in 2025 (seven goals, two assists), including a goal and an assist in the Black Cats’ 2-1 win over Sheff Utd on New Year’s Day.
While Chris Wilder’s team is young on average, much of that is down to the fact that they have used only three players aged 30 or above this season in the league.
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Arguably one of the most promising youngsters in the Championship, Sheff Utd midfielder Ollie Arblaster, had his season cut short with an ACL injury in mid-November and won’t be playing in this match. The return of the Blades' 21-year-old captain will be exciting, especially if they win promotion back to the Premier League.
In Arblaster's absence, 20-year-old Sydie Peck has been given more opportunities in midfield by Wilder this season, playing in 44 of Sheff Utd's 48 league matches in 2024/25.
Wembley woes
Sheff Utd come into this final having not won any of their last seven matches at Wembley Stadium (D1 L6), with their most recent win there being 100 years ago against Cardiff City in the 1925 FA Cup final.
The playoffs haven’t provided any happiness in the past either. Overall, Sheff Utd have failed to earn promotion in any of their four previous playoff finals, including three in the second tier. No side have appeared in more without ever earning promotion (Leeds and Reading are also on four).
This is Sunderland’s third second-tier playoff final – they lost 1-0 to Swindon Town in 1989/90 (though still ended up being promoted due to Swindon’s demotion) and lost on penalties to Charlton Athletic in 1997/98 after a 4-4 draw.
Should they win this match, it’ll be Sunderland's fifth promotion to the Premier League since it began in 1992. That would draw them level with Norwich, West Brom, Leicester City and Burnley with the most.
Sheff Utd have come up to the Premier League three times before, including in their last Championship season in 2022/23 when they won automatic promotion. Across all-time English league history, only Leicester (13), Birmingham (12), Manchester City (11) and West Brom (10) have been promoted to the top flight more often than they have (nine).
The good news for Wilder’s side is that the team finishing the regular season in third place has both reached the final (16 times) and won promotion via the playoffs to the Premier League (nine times) more than any other league position since the Championship rebrand in 2004/05.
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