By Chris Wright

After spending the majority of the Primera Nacional B season firmly rooted in the top two of Argentina's second division, Insituto dropped out of the automatic promotion places and into third after losing 3-2 to fifth-place Boca Unidos on Monday night a result which saw both River Plate and Rosario Central move above them in the standings.

The Serie B seesaw has tipped and the slow descent to the end of the 2011/12 season has begun. Most onlookers had Torino pegged as certain for automatic promotion if not the title after ten wins, two draws and a solitary defeat cemented their position at the summit of the table. The superstitious amongst us might gape at the beginning of their demise, after the thirteenth game, and puzzle over.

Chasing the Big Leagues Fortuna Dusseldorf (Bundesliga II) is a post from: Just Football

Tales from Tier Two is a new series on Just Football in partnership with @tiertwofooty, in which we assess the promotion chances of the clubs in tier two of Europe's major leagues at the halfway point of 2011/12.

Two points separate the top four sides in the Championship going into this weekend's action, with leaders Southampton in danger of falling out of the automatic promotion spots for the first time this season.
Nigel Adkins' men wasted no time in acclimatising to life back in the second tier, surprising those who bet on the Championship to quickly build up a healthy lead over the rest.

Cardiff City, the team from the Welsh capital, are heading to the Carling Cup final. The team defeated Crystal Palace in the first completed Carling Cup semi final. They will now play the winner of the Liverpool vs Manchester City tie which will be completed on Wednesday evening at Anfield.

Chasing The Big Leagues West Ham United (English Championship) is a post from: Just Football

Tales from Tier Two is a series on Just Football in partnership with @tiertwofooty, in which we assess the promotion chances of the clubs in tier two of Europe's major leagues at the midway point of 2011/12.

When OTP heard that Lee Clark had today been sacked as Huddersfield Town manager, our first thoughts were: "Hmmm, thought they were doing pretty well. We must have lost track of their recent results." But after double-checking our facts, the League One table and the Terriers' results, it turns out we were right.

Blackpool's accession to the Premier League was, on the surface, one of the feel-good stories of 2010. A club with a tight wage budget had broken up from the bottom division of the Football League and reclaimed a place in the top division that it had last held almost forty years previously. The team itself battled hard in the Premier League once there, winning a league double against Liverpool and beating Tottenham Hotspur at Bloomfield Road before succumbing to relegation by a single point on the final day of the season.

For a long while the Championship promotion battle seemed to be in effect a race for the play-offs and the chance to join Southampton and West Ham United in the Premier League. The big spending duo seemed to be a class above the opposition, but things have got interesting recently as the Hammers have faltered.

The four players who left Newcastle last year have not done particularly well at their new clubs. Demba Ba - may not want to leave Newcastle Joey Barton is struggling to stay in the Premier League with QPR, Kevin Nolan is struggling with West Ham to nail down an automatic promotion place, and the Hammers are now [.

The Championship Race for Promotion: Southampton, Reading and the Play-Off Candidates - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

With 6 games to go in the season, the race for promotion to the riches of the Premier League is hotting up.

It is seemingly a three-horse race for the two automatic promotion places on offer.

There is, perhaps, little to surprised about regarding the decision of Steve Evans to leave promotion-chasing Crawley Town for Rotherham United this morning. Rumours had been circulating for the last few days that Rotherham were interested in taking him and his baggage on and even the timing with six games of the season left to play and Crawley Town two points off an automatic promotion place isn't a major shock.

[T]his time four years ago Carlisle United stood on the brink of glory. A single win from their last three games against Leeds United, Southend or Millwall would have been enough for the Cumbrians to claim the final automatic promotion spot from League One and reach the heady heights of English football's second tier for the first time in 20 years.

By Chris Wright

"Quick Robin, to the Bat Cave!"

A week after coming off the bench and scoring two goals in the last five minutes to sink Leeds, Adam 'The Melt' Le Fondre knocked in another couple of late'ns after coming off the bench at St Mary's last night to send Reading three-points clear of Southampton at the top of the pile.

David Beckham's hopes for participating in the Olympics have cleared the first hurdle.

Team Great Britain manager Stuart Pearce has narrowed down his long initial list of candidates for his 18-man roster down to 80, with Beckham, Gareth Bale, Craig Bellamy and Joe Cole being among the other players whose names have been released.

Don't panic, the Kickette Special Investigation Unit are on this. They should have a definitive answer for you by the time Javi Martinez retires. Image via twitter.

If we are what we eat, call us fast, cheap and easy.

Just thought you needed to know that, Kickettes.

GOOD WEEK

Fashion Feil: After our probing interview technique last year, we didn't think there was anything left to learn about the Benny Feilhaber.

Having been around or about the League One automatic promotion places for much of the season, the last few days have suddenly become rather uncomfortable for Sheffield United. A single goal defeat in Milton Keynes at the weekend coupled with a home win for local and promotion rivals Sheffield Wednesday cut the gap between second and third place in the table to a single point with just two games left to play, but even this precarious state of affairs is now threatening to be overshadowed by events off the pitch.

With two games remaining in the regular League One season, the race for automatic promotion couldn't be much tighter. Sheffield United are now just one point ahead of their steel city rivals, Sheffield Wednesday, and must now contemplate life without top scorer, Ched Evans.
Evans, 23, was sentenced to five years in prison, this week, after being found guilty of rape.

Wolverhampton Wanderers chief executive, Jez Moxey, insists a horror run of form and the club's relegation from the Premier League has not damaged Terry Connor's reputation at the side. The side have been odds-on for the drop in Premier League betting for a number of months.
Caretaker manager, Connor, inherited a flagging side from his former boss, Mick McCarthy, in February, and is without a win in his first 10 games in charge, losing eight.

It is not that often that league title races are open enough to go to the final day of the season with the whereabouts of the championship trophy still undecided, but this season two of the divisions of the Ryman League will end with five clubs still hoping to win automatic promotion as champions of their division.

By JOHN BOSCHINI

The Manchester derby is always a tense affair, but when the Premier League title is on the line it becomes one of the must-see games of the season.

Manchester United have seen their eight-point lead from two weeks ago shrink to a mere three points, and Manchester City now control their own destiny because of their superior goal differential.

Npower Championship 2011/2012: Promotion and Relegation Review - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The 2011-12 Championship league fixtures have come to an end and finally the automatic promotion positions have been confirmed. However, at the other end of the table, the relegation picture had been clear for some time.

West Ham United fans will have to wait just a little longer to see their side back in the EPL after the Hammers failed to secure automatic promotion despite a 2-1 win over Hull City on the last day of the Npower Championship.

West Ham find themselves in the third place in the standings with 86 points three behind winners Reading and two behind second place Southampton.

Birmingham: Premier league dreams, play-off anguish and losing your head - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

This is a funny old time of year for any team in the Championship. Depending on how you've fared, you could be singing, crying, or just plain tearing your hair out. Any team from the Championship can be sorted into one of these categories:

1) Promoted this is the holy grail of this league, you're going to be playing Premier League football next season.

The end of season play-offs are both exhilarating and exhausting. For the clubs that finish in places just below the automatic promotion places, everything comes down those two or three matches at the end of the season and they come so quickly after the end of the normal league season that the work that has gone into securing a place just above that dotted line can feel as if it has come and gone all too quickly.

Championship Play-Off Final Preview: Hammers and Seasiders seek immediate Premier League return - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

When you get relegated from the Premier League, it's not easy to get back there quickly. And sometimes, it gets worse before it gets better. Just ask Southampton, who are headed back to the top flight after seven years away and after being in League One only last year.

There was always something inherently contradictory about Stan Flashman. He is, perhaps, best remembered as the "King Of The Touts" (often with the prefix "Self-Styled" attached to it), but when he craved respectability he would rebrand himself as a "Ticket Broker." Ultimately, though, he himself stated that he didn't care what he was called as long as the money was right.

West Ham are back in the Premier League after defeating Blackpool 2-1 at Wembley today in the npower Championship play-off final.

Ian Holloway's Blackpool had much the better of the opening exchanges, with Matt Phillips missing two chances, but it was West Ham who took the lead after Carlton Cole nicely controlled Matt Taylor's pass and slotted the ball past Matt Gilks in the 34th minute.

By Alan Duffy

From SHEFFIELD UNITED, I said, not JAIL, in case you are confused. Anyway, Sheffield United have finally decided to axe their infamous striker Ched Evans, who was convicted of rape and sentenced to five years imprisonment last month.

The Blades only recently suffered the heartbreak of losing on penalties in the League One play-off final, while it is a strong possibility that if their top-scorer Evans had not committed such a thoroughly vile crime and totally messed up a number of people's lives in the process, United could well have secured an automatic promotion place.