The last weekend of the Premiership has finally arrived, and its crunch time for Arsenal, crunch time for Tottenham Hotspur and crunch time for Newcastle United in a final battle for third place.
All three teams will be kicking themselves for finding themselves bogged down in a situation where any of them could fall out of the top four. And to make matters worse, there is another unknown element: Chelsea.
Although I have read that most punters have written them off with regard to winning the Champions League, I am not so sure – they were written off against Barcelona, and look what happened there.
Bayern Munich is an exceptionally good team, but anything can happen on the day. And a win there takes away a much coveted fourth place from the Premier League, which would, in effect, be devastating for the other teams.
That’s why winning third place is so important.
Which brings me back to the games in hand. Quite frankly, Arsenal has a stinker of a final game against West Brom which is away from home, and which WBA certainly will be out to win in order to finish as high as possible up the table, as well as giving Roy Hodgson a decent send-off.
To add to this, seven first team players are injured in the Arsenal ranks, including Walcott (doubtful), Arteta and Mertsacker. My prediction for this game is a draw. If Arsenal loses the consequences are dire: they might even end up out of the top four.
Tottenham have a slightly easier game against Fulham. But Fulham have been on form of late, and might not prove to be so easy to beat. Again, I predict that this game will be a draw even though Tottenham have home advantage.
Newcastle travel to Everton. This one is harder to predict because Everton usually play good, dependable football. However, with the outstanding Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse in the Newcastle line-up, I give them the edge and predict a Newcastle win.
Which therefore leaves me predicting a nervy third place win for Arsenal with 68 points (3rd on goal difference), a fourth place for Newcastle also with 68 points , and a drop in position for Spurs to fifth place.
One thing is for sure. Whatever happens on Sunday, there will be sore heads on Monday all round either from joy or sorrow.
But another season would have been completed, and because it is the greatest show on earth, the Premiership will be repeated all over again in August – we have got that to look forward to at least, wherever our teams end up…
image: © Ronnie Macdonald
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