Reading 2-4 Swansea

Congratulations to Swansea who will be playing the English Premier League next season after a comprehensive 2-4 win over Reading in the play-off final. A remarkable achievement considering that only eight years ago Swansea were nearly relegated from the football league altogether.

Swansea though have turned their crisis into a windfall and are expected to receive £90m for their effort though the chairman Huw Jenkins was cagey as to how it would be spent during a Radio4 interview this morning. However, whilst yesterday was a great day in the history of the Welsh club one also has to feel sorry for Reading who were inches away from pegging the Swans back to 3-3 after being 0-3 down at the interval.

Nevertheless Swansea, like all good teams, rode their luck and were rewarded when Andy Griffin brought down Borini for a (dubious) penalty which Sinclair duly converted for his hat-trick.

Perhaps what will be most interesting about Swansea next season is their manager Brendan Rogers who could prove something of a revelation. Yesterday for example, Swansea played a 4-2-1-3 which has served them well this season by giving them width in attack through the dangerous Scott Sinclair and Nathan Dyer. Sticking with this philosophy next season could see them catch a lot of teams out and stretch defences across the line. They also appear more solid at the back that other teams promoted to England's highest league in recent times such as Blackpool and they have a better defensive record this season than fellow promotees Norwich. The only question mark over Rogers is his ability in the transfer market but having a lot of money to spend is a problem most managers would envy.

Stoke City 2-1 Aston Villa

Gerard Houllier will have confirmed something tonight that he will already have pretty much known: he's got his work cut out for him at Villa. In fact the match began with neither manager in their respective dugout (a first for the Premiership) as Tony Pulis' mother died earlier on that day. My thoughts are obviously with him and the idea of winning a football match that evening must have seemed quite insignificant and even absurd.

Anyway a win is a win and Stoke started off as the brighter of the two sides with Kenwyne Jones having the closest of all the chances in the first quarter of an hour. It was Villa who took the lead though through Stewart Downing whose diving header at the far post gave him his second goal of the season.

Villa will regret not doubling their lead given the vast amount of chances they squandered before the half-time whistle blew. In particular, Downing had another stretched shot at goal which was clawed off the line by Stoke stopper Thomas Sorensen.

Pulis arrived at half-time and gave his team a huge moral boost as they stepped on to the pitch for the second period. They almost equalised just five minutes in but Jones' header was well saved. After this, chances were few and far between but Stoke pressure was rewarded in the 80th minute when Kenwyne Jones got his first goal in a Stoke shirt as he powered a header past Friedel in the Villa goal.

Not satisfied with the draw, Stoke continued to push and got the winner in the 90th minute when a low cross from the left was poked home by Robert Huth to give the Potters their first win of the 2010/11 season.

Villa had the chance to go third this evening but this is the second time that they have lost to 'weaker' opposition. Going down at the Britannia is no disgrace per se but one gets the impression that Aston Villa under Martin O'Neill would not allowed their goal to come under so much pressure late on in the game.