Coventry may not have been at their free-flowing best during Monday’s goalless draw at Hull City – but it does leave them tantalisingly close to promotion to the Premier League.
Four points from their remaining five games is all they need to secure a top-two spot and end their 25-year wait for a return to top-flight football.
The Sky Blues may even get over the line on Saturday if they beat already-relegated Sheffield Wednesday at the CBS Arena and the chasing pack drop points – again.
“We have five games to go and to be in the position we’re in, from our point of view, we need to cut out the noise and just deal with Sheffield Wednesday in front of us,” manager Frank Lampard told BBC CWR.
“Everyone will expect us to win it from the outside, but we have to put that to the side and approach the game with real professionalism and try to get that done.
“It may not get us absolutely over the line, but we will know it makes it a lot, lot closer.”
Even stats specialists Opta think it’s a done deal, with their prediction table giving Coventry a 100% chance of promotion.
But if the Sky Blues are, indeed, all but up – who will join them in second place?
Just 72 hours on from their eye-catching 2-1 win at fellow high-fliers Middlesbrough, Millwall were the first of the promotion contenders to play on Easter Monday.
The Lions, who started the day in second place after that victory at The Riverside, looked well set to strengthen their hold on that position when Mihailo Ivanovic put them in front early in the second half against Norwich.
But Pelle Mattsson’s stunning equaliser and Oscar Schwartau’s winner for the Canaries with 14 minutes left meant the door was ajar once more for the chasing pack.
“All the games at this stage of the season are physically and emotionally tough because there is so much riding on them,” Millwall boss Alex Neil told BBC Radio London.
“We’re not going to win every game. Although today is disappointing and frustrating, even if we’d got a result nothing is going to be decided yet.
“It’s going to go to the wire and we’ve got to just stay in there.”
Could Ipswich, who were up next at home to Birmingham, capitalise on that slip?
They were given an early scare when Carlos Vicente put the Blues 1-0 up, but the hosts had turned the game around before half-time through goals from Ben Johnson and Kasey McAteer.
The 2-1 victory helped them leapfrog Millwall into the top two and extended their unbeaten run in the Championship to eight games – but this was the first time this season the Tractor Boys had come from behind to win.
“The first comeback win of the season is really important and I think it’s been coming,” said manager Kieran McKenna. “I’ve said that over the last few weeks and months.
“Every time we’ve had a setback our reaction is getting better and better and I think today was the best one because the group took a big body blow in the first half.”
Ipswich hold two games in hand on their rivals but, equally, McKenna and his squad have to contend with seven games inside 22 days to close the season out.
Middlesbrough, who went into the Easter weekend in the top two, still had the opportunity to end it there with victory at Swansea City in the 17:30 BST game.
Alex Bangura set them on their way with a 12th-minute goal but, after two Zan Vipotnik penalties put the Swans in front, Boro needed a Tommy Conway spot-kick to rescue a point.
Boro are floundering with two wins in their past 10 matches and while they scored more than once for the first time in five games, the feeling remains they are a frustrating and inconsistent proposition in front of goal.
Manager Kim Hellberg said after the match there would be more “twists and turns” to come in the fight for promotion – after a day of such similar rollercoaster emotions.
“You’ve got three teams on 72 points – Ipswich have some games in hand, so they’re in a better position than the other two, but we are in a better position than Millwall because of our better goal difference,” he told BBC Radio Tees.
“There will be twists and turns. No team will just go and win games. It’s difficult and you need to just try in this period to get those points and wins.
“We have to keep fighting. It’s tough we didn’t win, because we thought we were good enough in the game to win, but then you have to do it.
“The easy answer at the moment is that we’re not being clinical enough or smart enough in different ways.”
With a four-point deficit to Ipswich, and a vastly inferior goal difference, plus the games in hand the Tractor Boys hold, Hull can be considered the outsiders in this race.
But the Tigers showed against Coventry they can match anyone in the division and once again reaffirmed the fantastic job Sergej Jakirovic has done in his first season in English football under a transfer embargo.
Although when asked about what that point means in terms of the wider context of Hull’s season, Jakirovic was talking more play-offs than automatic promotion.
“Somebody said it is 73, 74, 75 [to reach the play-offs] but God knows how many. Until we are in this position we will just look at ourselves and try to take points in every game,” Jakirovic told BBC Radio Humberside.
“Norwich are coming, Derby is there, Southampton… but, no matter, we must look at ourselves.”
