Champions Birmingham set a new EFL points record and racked up another club landmark by beating Blackpool 2-0 in their penultimate Sky Bet League One fixture before promotion to the Championship.

A 33rd win of the season came thanks to goals by Ethan Laird and Alfie May which took Blues up to 108 points, two better than Reading’s previous best set in their 2005-06 title-winning Championship campaign.

City, who finish their historic season at relegated Cambridge on Saturday, have now won 14 away matches in the league, bettering the previous best of 13 established in 1984/85.

Despite celebrating a title success only last Sunday, Birmingham never looked like suffering a hangover against their former manager Steve Bruce.

Goalkeeper Harry Taylor denied Willum Willumsson and Laird before the latter headed the visitors in front after 39 minutes from Marc Leonard’s inswinging corner.

May doubled the advantage with his 17th goal of the season six minutes after the restart to seal victory.

Birmingham and Wrexham set to spend big in PL push

Analysis by Sky Sports News senior reporter Rob Dorsett:

Birmingham City and Wrexham are expected to flex their financial muscles this summer and are likely to be among the biggest spenders outside the Premier League once the transfer window opens.

Both clubs are ready to mount a push for the top division and both have spending power on a par with those Championship clubs that already benefit from Premier League parachute payments.

Sky Sports News has been told that Birmingham and Wrexham are likely to be targeting similar players to the likes of Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton – and some of the smaller Premier League clubs this summer.

There are striking similarities between both the ambitions and the strategies at St Andrew’s and the Racecourse Ground. Birmingham and Wrexham both have wealthy American owners. Both have a rapidly expanding commercial base which dwarfs much of the competition they have met with so far.

Both have produced major TV documentaries to showcase their mission and widen their global appeal. And both have a business strategy, which is planning specifically for life in the Premier League. Sooner rather than later.

Crucially, because both have been promoted from League One, where the financial fair play rules are very different to the Championship, both have a lot of freedom to invest in their teams this summer.

In League One, clubs have only been allowed to spend 60 per cent of their total turnover on players although this is changing for next season, to further limit the amount wealthy owners can pump in.

In the Championship, the rules say no more than £39m can be lost over any three-year period. For Wrexham and Birmingham, that gives a lot of leeway to invest in the squad because a new three-year cycle starts now.

Theoretically, both clubs could gamble the family silver for the next two years, trying to reach English football’s promised land, knowing that if they fail, they have a third season to claw costs back and still remain within the PSR limits.

It has been made clear to me that neither Birmingham nor Wrexham want to do that and “gamble” on getting to the top division. Instead, both are looking to expand their commercial revenues even more spectacularly, so that they have even more cash to spend on players. But their spending power is already mighty and impressive.