Wycombe Wanderers are looking to bounce back to the Championship at the first attempt on Saturday as they take on Sunderland in the League One play-off final. 

Gareth Ainsworth hopes to replicate the promotion win of 2020 when they take on the Black Cats in the Wembley showpiece, to earn their second season in the second tier.

They go into the battle losing just one of their last 14 games, enjoying a 13-match unbeaten run in the process.

Ironically, their only defeat was the 1-0 away loss at Milton Keynes in the second leg of the play-off semi-finals, which sent them to Wembley, as they won 2-1 on aggregate.

Sunderland have also had a strong end to the season.

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They are unbeaten in 15, have won five of their last seven games with Alex Neil losing just one of his matches in charge when taking over in February.

And with promotion to the Championship on the cards for both teams, let’s take a look at how life in the second tier could impact both clubs.

Wycombe Wanderers

Despite relegation from the Championship, the Chairboys finished one point and one place from safety, proving a lot of their doubters wrong.

A second shot of life in the second tier would surely see an improvement to the side with a bigger know-how of how to avoid the bottom three.

This was seen at the end of their 2020/21 campaign as Wanderers lost only two of their last nine games, winning five of them.

This season, the Chairboys continued that good run which included making Adams Park into a fortress, as they won 15 league matches at home.

With fans not being allowed to enter the stadium last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the club lacked that roar of encouragement to get them over the line, which has worked this season due to the number of late goals Wycombe scored at Adams Park.

Those extra couple of points the crowd could earn by roaring on the team could easily push the team to survival.

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Additionally, spectators returning could also see major success in the industry and surrounding area of the club.

With empty stadiums being a regular thing during 2020/21, the club were unable to benefit from visiting fans traveling to Wycombe which could have helped the town's economy.

With every region across the country being hit by the pandemic and subsequence lockdowns, promotion would really help breathe some much-needed life into areas of the area that may have been left behind.

All of this together would make promotion a really exciting aspect for the Chairboys, who could go on to find a new era for the club less than a decade before they almost dropped out of the Football League.

Another chance in the division is certainly something many Wycombe fans will feel that they deserve to see especially since they didn’t get to witness it all unfold last time.

Sunderland AFC

Sunderland are a club with a large and rich history.

They are currently England’s sixth most successful club, with their major honours consisting of winning the top division six times and the FA Cup twice.

Since their relegation to League One in the 2017/18 season, they have often been touted as one of the biggest in the division due to their large stadium, fanbase, and rich past.

Yet, they have struggled to get out of League One in three consecutive seasons.

In their first season back in League One, they lost 2-1 to Charlton Athletic in the 2019 League One play-off final.

This was followed by an eighth-place finish in 2019/20, and a 3-2 defeat on aggregate to Lincoln City in last season’s play-off semi-finals.

League One has been such a heavy fall for the club who had spent 14 of their last 18 seasons in the Premier League.

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In their most recent run in the topflight, they lasted for 10 consecutive seasons before relegation from the top-tier in 2017.

During their decade stay in the PL, they defeated clubs such as Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, and even got to the League Cup final in the 2013/14 season.

Back-to-back demotions in 2016/17 and 2017/18 are what caused this steep drop down the divisions from which the club is still yet to fully recover.

Victory against Wycombe on May 21 might finally allow the club to start rebuilding their status and put them on the path to get them into the Premier League.

Turn-outs such as the one against Sheffield Wednesday show the potential the club has as they broke not just the League One playoff semi-final attendance, but the record throughout the EFL with 44,742 fans showing up.

The sleepy giant may finally be awoken, with determination to get back to its previous glories in the Premier League.

The match will kick-off at 3pm.