Bournemouth can join Watford in dreamland as Championship hurtles towards final fortnight

Following the Hornets' promotion, if Bournemouth follow, Jack Pitt-Brooke thinks it would be a triumph for the two most exciting sides in the Championship

(Getty)

If Bournemouth beat Bolton Wanderers at home tonight they will, barring a miracle on Saturday, join Watford in next season’s Premier League.

It would be a triumph for the two most exciting footballing sides in the division but also a denial, of sorts, of the climactic final weekend that many had been anticipating.

The top four teams in the Championship have been bunched together for weeks and, before this weekend, it felt as if they would not be successfully separated until the final day on 2 May.

Watford began the weekend of Championship football with a 2-0 away win at Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday lunchtime, which it was felt would merely secure their first place until the final reckoning.

Watford celebrate the win over Brighton, which ultimately sealed their promotion (Getty)

The rest of Saturday afternoon, though, saw Middlesbrough and Norwich City stumble in their attempts to keep up.

At Craven Cottage, Aitor Karanka’s Middlesbrough slipped to 3-1 down and had a man sent off against a Fulham side with nothing to play for.

They fought back to 3-3 and, in added time, sent goalkeeper Dimi Konstantopoulos up at a corner in pursuit of a winner. Fulham broke, Ross McCormack completed his hat-trick and Middlesbrough were beaten.

That was implausible enough and so was what happened at the same time at Rotherham. Norwich, the fourth team in the hunt, went 1-0 up through Gary Hooper and were just four minutes away from a crucial win.

But Jordan Bowery got a vital equaliser for relegation strugglers Rotherham and Norwich drew 1-1.

The final whistle at the New York Stadium sparked wild celebrations on Watford’s team coach coming back from Brighton and a night out which led to wing-back Ikechi Anya tweeting at 1.34am yesterday morning: “Lost my wallet in either Oceana or Yates, if anybody finds it please return.”

Middlesbrough slipped up at Fulham at the weekend (Getty)

Watford’s promotion is the culmination of three years’ work by the Pozzo family, who bought the club in 2012. Since then they have recruited from across the world, through their other clubs Granada and Udinese, and they might well have come up at the first attempt.

Watford played excellent football under Gianfranco Zola in 2012-13 but froze in the play-off final and were beaten 1-0 by Ian Holloway’s Crystal Palace.

This season started dismally, with manager Beppe Sannino leaving in August, Oscar Garcia having to step aside after heart trouble and Billy McKinlay lasting just eight days in the job. Only when Slavisa Jokanovic took over in early October did they find any stability and eventually start getting results.

Miguel Layun, Watford’s Mexican left-back, told The Independent in mid-February, when Watford were sixth, that they should target automatic promotion. “I’m not just thinking about promotion, or about the play-offs,” Layun said.

“I want to go to win the Championship, and get promotion with first place. I know it’s not easy, but I think we can do it. We have to want to win the Championship, we have to win every single match.” If Watford beat Sheffield Wednesday at home on Saturday, they will do it.

It would be the Cherries' first taste of Premier League football (Getty)

Bournemouth are now the likeliest team to join them in next season’s Premier League. Eddie Howe’s ambitious, expansive side have had to wait nine days to make up for their disappointing 2-2 draw with Wednesday, when an added-time penalty cost them two crucial points. That result wiped out their margin for error but Saturday has restored it and released some of the pressure.

If Bournemouth win tonight they will go three points ahead of Middlesbrough with a goal-difference advantage of at least 17 over them. From that position it is almost inconceivable that they could be beaten so badly at Charlton on Saturday that it would cost them their place in the top flight.

That would be an even more impressive promotion than Watford’s. The club were in League Two, fighting to stay in the Football League, only six years ago but under the intelligent management of Howe, and the investment of Russian billionaire Maxim Demin, they have climbed up the divisions.

This is already, by a distance, the best league finish in their history and they are very close to achieving something even more significant, and welcoming Premier League football to their 11,500-capacity ground next season.