West Brom on verge of top flight

Arsenal hit Derby for six

Cardiff appeal red card

Taylor to leave Stevenage

West Bromwich Albion and Southampton drew 1-1 at The Hawthorns to effectively assure the home side of promotion to the Premier League while leaving the Saints in the relegation zone. Adam Lallana put Saints ahead against the run of play on 77 minutes but Chris Brunt equalised with six minutes to go. Despite being held to a draw the Baggies are as good as up as, with one game left, they are now three points clear of third-placed Hull and have a vastly superior goal difference. Southampton on the other hand remain in the bottom-three, below Leicester on goal difference and know that even if they beat play-off chasing Sheffield United at St Mary’s Stadium on the final day they could still be relegated to League One.

Arsenal slammed Derby County 2-6 at Pride Park. Nicklas Bendtner opened the scoring for the visitors on 25 minutes but James McEveley equalised six minutes later. Robin van Persie restored the Gunners’ lead on 39 minutes before second-half substitute Emmanuel Adebayor made it 1-3 after 59 minutes. Rob Earnshaw pulled one back for Derby on 77 minutes only for Theo Walcott to restore Arsenal’s two-goal advantage a minute later. Adebayor completed his hat-trick with goals on 81 and 90 minutes.

Cardiff City are to appeal to the Football Association of Wales against skipper Darren Purse’s sending-off in Saturday’s 3-3 draw against Burnley at Turf Moor. Purse saw red late-on for a challenge on Andy Cole and, if banned, could miss the FA Cup final against Portsmouth at Wembley on May 17.

Stevenage Borough have confirmed that Peter Taylor will leave his position as manager later this week after six months in charge of the Blue Square Premier side. Stevenage chairman Phil Wallace said: “When Peter took the job none of us ever believed that Gillingham would sign four conference players from us to play in League One. From the first week Peter was fire fighting and that continued right through the January transfer window and into February. In fact, we still had players making home debuts in March. No side can seriously expect to compete for promotion under those circumstances, although we remained optimistic and had a good go at it. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Peter – he’s straightforward, honest and, like anyone who has reached the top of their profession, works very, very hard. We created a relationship built on mutual respect and I wish him well wherever he goes. It’s been difficult for all of us, but now we need to regroup, rethink and go again next season with a new management team to try and win promotion to the Football League.”

Nathan Davies