Southampton manager Russell Martin has shared his assessment of the Championship promotion race involving his side, Leeds United, Leicester City and Ipswich Town.
The Saints extended their unbeaten run to 21 Championship matches at Rotherham United on Saturday to finally climb into the top two, ahead of Leeds and Ipswich.
Ipswich had been occupying an automatic promotion spot alongside Leicester for pretty much the entire season, but a run of just one win in eight matches has moved both Leeds and Southampton very much back into the hunt. Leeds have never been worried about the gap.
It is likely that all of the top four are going to comfortably surpass the 90-point mark, a feat unheard of at this level. Leeds themselves have five more points at this stage of the season than they did in their title-winning campaign under Marcelo Bielsa.
Speaking to the Southern Daily Echo after Southampton’s win at Rotherham, Martin hailed all four teams at the top of the table as ‘outstanding’ and believes these are standards that have never been seen before.
Martin makes claim on promotion race
He said: “We had a joke about it this morning at the breakfast table, that we were 20 games unbeaten and fourth in the table. It shows you the competition this year, the level has been outstanding.
“Four teams have done amazing things never been seen in the Championship. It’s exciting to be involved in and you either see it as an opportunity or something to back away from and the lads are head-on and enjoying it.”
Leeds have had to bide their time to get within touching distance of the top two, but a run of five wins in a row at the start of the New Year is what has done it.
Something which could hand Leeds and Ipswich an advantage over the Saints is that they are still yet to play any of the top five away from home. Daniel Farke’s side and Ipswich have played them all.
Farke has been there and done it twice before at this level with Norwich City and incredible second halves of the season is what got them over the line on both occasions. Hopefully he can repeat that at Leeds.
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