In this article…
Leeds v Southampton
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Kick Off: Sunday 26th May at 15:00
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Competition: Championship
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Watch live: Sky Sports Football & Main Event
Leeds United will take on Southampton in the 2023/24 Championship play-off final at Wembley Stadium on Sunday afternoon, to decide which team will compete in next season’s Premier League.
The favourites from the play-off semi-finals made it through in rather similar circumstances. Both semi-finals were 0-0 after the away leg, but both Leeds and Southampton roared away from their opposition in style. This is very much a deserved Championship play-off final, between 3rd and 4th, and the better teams from the semi-finals.
Leeds are emerging as the favourites for the final, which, on the face of it, makes some sense. However, the bookmaker prices for promotion before the semi-finals were the same, and although some would view Norwich as an easier task to dismiss than West Brom, there wasn’t much between the Canaries and the Baggies in the league season, so there is potentially some juice in the Southampton price because of the way the market has moved.
We have the best football tips and predictions for the week’s action up on-site which includes our EFL tips.
We have also tracked all the best free bets for UK customers and the best bet builder bookmakers, to ensure our readers get the best bang for their buck. As well as keeping up to date with the latest odds boosts to enhance your betting experience. Our bet builder tool and cheat sheet guide will come in handy ahead of kick-off, and our new btts acca tips may pique your interest elsewhere on-site.
This final does mean that two of the relegated sides from the Premier League are going to be promoted straight back to the top-flight and with the three promoted sides from last year’s Championship coming straight back down, the optics aren’t great on the league structure and the financial legislation as it stands.
This is not something that the fans of Leeds or Southampton will care one jot about though, and the impact that Premier League football has on their cities is obviously a major thing.
We can now analyse the forthcoming final and find some betting angles of interest ahead of the game.
Leeds v Southampton Best Bets
Leeds have become strong favourites to progress, shifting Southampton to 2.2 to be promoted. In a match where the teams look remarkably close in almost every aspect, that difference in price looks a bit too wide, making Southampton the value option here. It is even possible to back the double chance with Southampton and the draw coming in at 1.57.
However, the best bet probably comes in the bet builder market. Fouls played a big role in the regular season matches between this pair, and they did for Leeds especially in the play-off semi-final.
A recommendation is for Summerville to hit the target at least once at 1.62. He did this in both semi-final legs and will be a key player for Leeds to find in the final.
In addition, taking some of the key trends identified in the research, we think backing Ilia Gruev, Glen Kamara, and Flynn Downes to commit fouls, and Crysencio Summerville and Georginio Rutter to be fouled looks a generous price at 2.31.
📂 Leeds v Southampton Cheat Sheet
You can find Leeds v Southampton match stats, on my bet builder stats tool, along with official line-ups one hour before kick-off.
🏆 Play-Off Final Trends
The Championship play-off final is a very tense match. There is often said to be more at stake financially in this match than any other around the world. This is often played out in the match itself where most finals are tight, tactical, defensive affairs.
In the last decade, only one Championship play-off final has gone over 2.5 goals in regulation time, only three have seen both teams scoring. Three have reached extra time, and two have gone all the way to penalties.
This will be the sixth time in 11 finals that the third-placed team and fourth-placed team from the regular season have met in the final. In the preceding five finals, fourth-place has prevailed three times, but in normal time the results were two wins for each placing and a draw.
Play-Off Final results:
| Year | Winner/league pos | Score in final | Loser/league pos |
| 2023 | Luton (3) | 1-1 (Lut on pens) | Coventry (5) |
| 2022 | Notts Forest (4) | 1-0 | Huddersfield (3) |
| 2021 | Brentford (3) | 2-0 | Swansea (6) |
| 2020 | Fulham (4) | 2-1 (aet) | Brentford (3) |
| 2019 | Aston Villa (5) | 2-1 | Derby (6) |
| 2018 | Fulham (3) | 1-0 | Aston Villa (4) |
| 2017 | Huddersfield (5) | 0-0 (Hud on pens) | Reading (3) |
| 2016 | Hull (4) | 1-0 | Sheff Wed (5) |
| 2015 | Norwich (3) | 2-0 | Middlesbrough (4) |
| 2014 | QPR (4) | 1-0 | Derby (3) |
⚔️ Leeds v Southampton Head-to-Head
On the face of it, Southampton have the edge here. The Saints completed the league double over Leeds beating them 3-1 at home and 2-1 on the final day of the season at Elland Road.
The tricky thing is that there are slight asterisks to be applied to both victories. Dealing with the most recent match first, Leeds knew their fate in the league fairly early on during the game, and this will have undoubtedly affected how the game was played and the Leeds performance reflected the situation that they were in, and cannot be seriously compared to what will be seen on Sunday at Wembley.
The match in September is a completely different case. The teams were certainly going at it from the start, but Southampton had the cutting edge. Adam Armstrong’s goal was peak Armstrong, and a repeat of his performance on that day will have any Leeds defender struggling. However, the Leeds defence on that day is unrecognisable to the one that will line up at Wembley.
Armstrong found space in the gaps between left back Sam Byram and centre back Pascal Struijk, with Liam Cooper and Jamie Shackleton populating the other side of the defence. None of those defenders will be expecting to start in those positions against Southampton for this match, Byram could start, but at right back.
However, there are some events that happened in both matches that can be, perhaps, expected to be repeated, and put together to create a potential bet builder.
Summerville and Rutter were both heavily fouled, Summerville was fouled nine times across the two matches, and Rutter seven times. In terms of the foulers, Downes committed 2 fouls in September to 3 fouls in April, Kyle Walker-Peters was fouled twice in each game, as was Will Smallbone.
The key shots on target hitters were Adam Armstrong, three in September and one in April, and Smallbone got a goal in September and a goal amongst his two shots on target in April.
🤔 What We Learned From The Semi-Finals
We have said already that both teams had very similar play-off semi-final campaigns, with a sturdy defensive display away from home followed by a more dominant one at home.
From a player stats perspective, there were some interesting standouts that may be relevant for the Wembley clash.
The only Leeds player to hit a shot on target in both legs was Summerville. A lot of fouls were committed by Leeds across the two legs, Kamara committed three in each leg, Gruev managed four fouls in the first, and two in the second, and Rutter went two and four, so there were three players committing six fouls across both legs. Kamara was also fouled in each game, but only once on either occasion.
From Southampton’s perspective, there wasn’t much consistency across both legs of the semi-final. The main stat to take out of it from a Saints perspective is that Walker-Peters was fouled twice in each game, which is unsurprising given his Championship record as one of the most fouled players in the league.
* I recommend waiting for confirmed team line-ups before placing any bets.
* All odds displayed correct at the time of publishing.
Written by an Andy verified content writer
18+ please gamble responsibly.
