Luton Town (6/4) – Huddersfield Town (2/1)

13 May 2022 

• Luton Town are winless in their last four meetings with Huddersfield (D3 L1), losing 2-0 last time out.
• Huddersfield kept a clean sheet in both of their regular league meetings against Luton this season, drawing 0-0 away and winning 2-0 at home. The last time they kept three clean sheets against an opponent in a season was in 2010-11, doing so against both Carlisle United and Tranmere Rovers.
• This is just Luton’s third appearance in the Football League play-offs, with the Hatters losing in the semi-final both times – against Crewe in 1996-97 (third tier) and Blackpool in 2016-17 (fourth tier).
• Since the introduction of the Football League play-offs, only Blackpool (6) have been promoted via this method more often than Huddersfield (4).
• The team finishing in sixth place has gone on to reach the Championship play-off final in two of the last three seasons, as many as in the 13 previous campaigns. However, sixth place hasn’t been promoted to the Premier League since Blackpool in 2010.
• Third placed Brentford won the Championship play-offs last season – however, the team finishing third hasn’t been promoted in consecutive campaigns since both the 2011 (Swansea) and 2012 finals (West Ham).
• Since his first competitive appearance in English football in the 2017-18 season, Luton’s Elijah Adebayo has scored 49 goals in all competitions, while 13 of his 17 strikes for the Hatters this term have come at Kenilworth Road.
• No team scored more goals from corners in the regular Championship season than Huddersfield (14), with this accounting for a league-high 22% of their overall league goals this term.

Sheffield United (13/10) – Nottingham Forest (12/5)

14 May 2022

• Both league meetings between Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest this season ended 1-1, with Forest netting late equalisers in both games (83rd and 90th minute respectively).
• Sheffield United are unbeaten in their last eight home meetings with Nottingham Forest in all competitions (W3 D5), since a 2-1 loss in April 2004.
• This is the second time Sheffield United and Nottingham Forest are meeting in the second tier play-offs, with the Blades winning 5-4 on aggregate in 2002-03 (1-1 away, 4-3 at home).
• This is Sheffield United’s fifth appearance in the second tier play-offs, with the Blades reaching the final on three of the four previous occasions (1996-97, 2002-03 and 2008-09), though they have never won promotion via this method before.
• Nottingham Forest have won just one of their eight matches in the Football League play-offs (D2 L5), never reaching the final in any of their previous four attempts (2002-03, 2006-07, 2009-10, 2010-11).
• The team finishing fifth has only won the first leg of the Championship play-off semi-final once in the last nine campaigns (D3 L5), with Aston Villa beating West Bromwich Albion in 2018-19.
• Iliman Ndiaye scored in each of Sheffield United’s last three league games in the regular season. The last player to score in four consecutive appearances for the Blades in all competitions was David McGoldrick in January 2019.
• Brennan Johnson finished the league campaign with 16 goals and 10 assists – one of five players in the division to reach double figures for both – whilst being the first Nottingham Forest player to manage this in a second-tier season since Joe Lolley in 2018-19.