The race for the Champions League races seems to go off the last moments of the season with Manchester City, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Chelsea and Newcastle all fighting for the last few places
Five in three do not go, as every sultan of arithmetic will know, and the race for Champions League football has never been so tighter.
We all know who won the title, we all know who is the second as usual and we all know who is going down.
But with an extra place for English clubs in the Champions League next season, the Scramble for Top -Five Placing – and up to £ 83 million for a place at the European Upper Table – is full of intrigues.
Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Chelsea and Aston Villa are the five on a treasure hunt, and here the football mirrors the verdict over who the cut makes – and who will end in the Thursday evening of the Europa League.
It is not just an elephant in the room – it is Dumbo and his entire Pachyderm -stem. If those 115 charges against Manchester City are maintained, they must be closer to the National League next season than Champions League.
But on the field, even at their darkest moments this season, it has never really been questioned: City would always end in the top four.
When everything is said and done, they are still the second top scorers of the division behind Liverpool and Pep's crowd still pull a big result out of the fire when it is most needed – as Villa discovered the other night. It is unthinkable that City will not get enough points from Wolves, Southampton, Bournemouth and Fulham to finish above the dotted line.
But let's not keep it sugar: their biggest result this year – if the Premier League ever comes around to announce it – peace in the hands of M'Learned Friends.
Judgment: third
Who ends at the Champions League places? Share your prediction in the comments below
Manager of the season is nailed to be that Dutch geezer with the Temple Dome who won the title in Anfield, right? But wait a minute – when Nuno Espirito Santo wins the FA Cup and Bos leads to the Champions League, he has certainly worked the greatest miracle since the Biblical master chief who changed five loaves and two fish in a party for 5,000 people.
Nor is there a foregone conclusion – but wonders are not much bigger than saving forest on the last day of the season and the top five infiltration only 12 months later.
And 19-goal top scorer Chris Wood, the Kiwi goalkeeper who has become the most unlikely Crown Jewel in the Premier League, has now scored more Premier League objectives than Dennis Bergkamp.
It could all be on a winner-all-all crunch date with Chelsea on 25 May for Nuno de Nino, but neutral would like to see two-time European Cup winners Forest make an encore on the big stage.
Judgment: Just make cutting
Canonization of modern saints is a rare phenomenon, but Eddie Howe is already assured of his place among the football gods of the Geordie Nation.
After delivering the first trophy of the tone in 56 years, Howe is well placed to make a gilded season from a historic season by restricting Newcastle to the European elite. A heavy defeat at Aston Villa will not have helped the recovery in his recovery of pneumonia.
And the last three games against Arsenal, Chelsea and Everton will be robust sequel to flowers, grapes and Getwell cards. But the Run-in from Newcastle begins with what a Banker Home win this weekend should be against the doomed Ipswich, and 11 points of the last five games should be sufficient to avoid the booby prize from Thursday evening that the continent will spread over the continent next season. Get well soon, Eddie.
Judgment: Fourth
They celebrated a big escape in Craven Cottage as if they had grabbed the keys to Europe itself. But for Enzo Maresca, the biggest danger is not the discouraging run-in from Chelsea, including Uit games in top-five Rivals Newcastle and Nottingham Forest-the greatest danger.
Blues -fans stay at a turning point where they are ready to turn on Maresca when he switches the silk wallet of only two Premier League -the defeats for Christmas, when Chelpool were the nearest challengers of Liverpool, in the ear of a sow.
For an incomprehensible reason, Maresca continued to tell that the world Chelsea was not ready to win the title – and the players took him on his word. The last goal of the English Ster Cole Palmer was in January and the last cord striker Nicolas Jackson's last Bullseye was more than four months ago.
If a top five finish is still before taking off by the time they visit the city grounds at the loss of the term, anything is possible -but Chelsea seems more likely to miss the cut than recovered Champions League track.
Judgment: Problems ahead for Maresca
Unai Emery could pay a ferocious price on Tuesday evening for the latter fool of Matheus Nunes on the Etihad. The Aston Villa boss was a portrait of fear, which stood with his eyes thrown, while Manchester City took their 94th minute winner to get the whip hand.
Even a point, at a location where Villa had lost during their previous 14 competition visits, would have been gold fabric and had kept the city within reach.
But now, to finish above the dotted line, Villa not only has to win their remaining home games against dangerous dark horses Fulham and Tottenham, whose Spursy form in the Premier League 18 defeats comprises in 33 games, but a 4-1 lash of Villa six months ago.
In all likelihood, Emery's top-five chances will depend on a last day to Old Trafford … and Villa's record is almost as bad as their standing order of disappointments in the city in the city. This century, in 23 from the matches against Manchester United, Villa won two, two pulled and 19 lost.
Judgment: Back to the Europa League
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