Champions League? It could be now or never for Spurs!
The Premier League relegation issues are all but settled with Burnley's return to the Championship confirmed with their 4-0 home defeat by Liverpool. Hull need a mathematical miracle to overtake West Ham, who are the only other team technically in danger. Hull are away to Wigan and at home to Liverpool for their last game, so the Bubble blowers can celebrate their scraped survival already. The Hammers play at Fulham and their last game will be at home to Man City, so we might be interested in that result.
In a final 9 days of this season's Premier League, Spurs and Man City face three games including that oh so crucial fixture at Eastlands on May 5th. Next Saturday City host Aston Villa, who have pushed themselves back into the fourth place reckoning with 4 wins and a draw since their drubbing at Chelsea at the end of March. A draw in that game and a good win for Spurs against Bolton will make us very firm favourites to retain fourth spot. However, Spurs have dropped too many silly points this season to be relaxed about those fixtures against Bolton and Burnley, whose fates are settled. That will mean that the most nervous of our three remaining opponents are likely to be Man City, who will desperately need a result against us. Let's take things one game at a time though, eh?
The race for the Title remains open going into the penultimate week-end. Man Utd are at Sunderland and will be hoping that their enemies on the Mersey can take at least a point off leaders Chelsea. Chelsea incidentally scored 7 goals for the third time in a Premier League game this year, having put Sunderland and Villa well and truly to the sword before today's victims - Stoke.
They used to talk about the "40 point safety barrier" in the Premier League, but last year Hull survived with only 35 points, and the Hammers could survive with only 34. Three teams above West Ham will be lucky to reach that 40 point mark. I think this new level is occurring because the standard in the upper echelons of the league are such where not just the top four are (usually) beating the lower teams, but the form of 4 more teams, down to Everton, has been such that a win is more of a rarity for most of the teams in the bottom half.
The standard of next season's Premier League will be harder still, and it could be now or never for Spurs and the Champions League. Come on you Spurs!
Results 24-25.04.10
Arsenal 0-0 Man City
Bolton 2-2 P'tsmouth
Hull 0-1 S'derland
Man Utd 3-1 Spurs
West Ham 3-2 Wigan
Wolves 1-1 Blackburn
A. Villa 1-0 B'mingham
Burnley 0-4 Liverpool
Chelsea 7-0 Stoke
Everton 2-1 Fulham
Barclays Premier League
Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Chelsea 36 25 5 6 93 32 61 80
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1 Man Utd 36 25 4 7 81 28 53 79
3 Arsenal 36 22 6 8 77 38 39 72
4 Spurs 35 19 7 9 63 37 26 64
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5 A. Villa 36 17 13 6 51 35 16 64
6 Man City 35 17 12 6 69 42 27 63
7 Liverpool 36 18 8 10 61 33 28 62
8 Everton 36 15 12 9 59 49 10 57
9 B'mingham 36 12 11 13 35 44 -9 47
10 S'derland 36 11 11 14 47 53 -6 44
11 Blackburn 36 11 11 14 38 54 -16 44
12 Fulham 35 11 10 14 36 39 -3 43
13 Stoke 35 10 13 12 33 44 -11 43
14 Bolton 36 9 9 18 40 66 -26 36
15 Wolves 36 8 11 17 29 52 -23 35
16 Wigan 36 9 8 19 35 69 -34 35
17 West Ham 36 8 10 18 44 62 -18 34
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18 Hull 36 6 10 20 32 73 -41 28
19 Burnley 36 7 6 23 37 78 -41 27(R)
20 P'tsmouth 36 6 7 23 31 64 -33 15(R)
*Portsmouth deducted 9 points on 17.03.10.
