After another entertaining series of fixtures this weekend in the Premier League, the finish line is well and truly in sight. If this was a marathon then we’d be in the final mile or two now, which is as nerve-racking as it is exciting. As you can probably tell by now there’s still a lot of things that need to be resolved and sorted out, which is the best thing possible for the league at this late stage of the campaign. It’s easy to focus our attention on the Champions League if there’s nothing ‘thrilling’ going on domestically, but this time around, that isn’t the case.

Every single team in the division has something to fight for in one way or another, whether it be the title or simply pride. In a lot of ways those two things are equally as important, which is obviously going to sound a little bit ridiculous to most folks out there. We don’t mean that they have the same kind of financial gain or anything like that, but just think about what it would do for the confidence of Huddersfield Town if they can register a win or two before their drop back down into the Championship is confirmed.

Title Race

The title race has been one of the most thrilling in years, and we mean that based on one thing: the outstanding quality of the two primary contenders. Manchester City and Liverpool have been neck and neck pretty much since the first day of the campaign, and they’ve continued that forward momentum ever since. As it stands one of these two teams is obviously going to miss out on the championship, but the worst part of it is that they’ll do so having collected almost 100 points – which would be more than enough to claim the title during most other years.

City are the ones in the driving seat in our personal opinion, because all they need to do is win the remainder of their games. That can obviously be easier said than done, especially in the top flight, but they don’t have the Champions League to worry about anymore. There’s the FA Cup Final coming up but that’s not for a while yet, whereas Liverpool have two games against Barcelona right around the corner. It’s almost certainly going to go down to the wire which is a really intriguing prospect, but Reds fans should probably prepare themselves for another runners-up medal.

Top Four War

Does anyone actually want to finish in the top four this season or not? We’re going to go out on a limb and suggest that the answer is no. Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United have been waging war all season long with the end goal being to finish in the top four and qualify for the Champions League. Up to this point they’ve all stumbled and they’ve all had their own things to deal with, and by that, we mean that three of the four teams listed are actually going to be in European semi-finals over the course of the next few weeks.

In terms of where we think this is going to end up, we’re going to go ahead and back the North London sides Spurs and Arsenal to get the job done. Chelsea are just a bit too inconsistent, and we feel like they’re going to end up focusing their attention on the Europa League sooner rather than later. For United, the wheels have completely fallen off for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in recent weeks, and there’s no real way of getting around that. Plus, with the Blues and Red Devils facing each other this weekend, we know for a fact that at least one of them will lose even more ground.

Scrap for Seventh

Finishing in seventh place isn’t always a big thing to scream and shout about, but this season, it is. As we know the team in fifth are automatically given a spot in the Europa League, whereas sixth and seventh are only awarded places if teams in the top five win the League Cup and FA Cup. The League Cup was won by Manchester City, and if City are able to win the FA Cup when they take on Watford in a few short weeks time, the seventh place team in the Premier League will indeed enter the Europa League next season.

Following the results over the weekend, it seems as if there is now a clear favourite for seventh: Wolverhampton Wanderers. Leicester will be in with a shout if they beat Arsenal alongside Everton and Watford, but to be honest, they’re all going to be relying on Fulham to get the job done at Molineux next weekend. Interestingly enough if Wolves do finish seventh, the only team that could stop them from reaching Europe is Watford – the same team that beat them in the FA Cup semi final earlier this month.

Relegation Battle

Huddersfield Town and Fulham just couldn’t keep the pace this season, and that’s the harsh reality of it. They’ve given it their all but their all just has not been good enough – and that’s an understatement. With their relegation being confirmed a while ago we’ve been waiting to see who will join them in the third relegation spot, with the expectation being that Cardiff City will drop down. Now, at this stage of the campaign, the Bluebirds will need to pull off a remarkable escape in order to play Premier League football next season.

Brighton & Hove Albion are the only other team now that can take Cardiff’s spot, but after their hard-earned point against Newcastle at the weekend, that also feels unlikely. Neil Warnock has given it everything he’s got this season, and to be honest, it feels like this isn’t even that big of a disappointment for them. Many fans were expecting them to finish bottom of the table so in a weird way, at least they’ve been able to take this run as far as it can go. Still, we’ve seen weird comebacks and resurgences before, so we aren’t going to count them out just yet.

As you can probably tell by our rundown we’re pretty excited to see what goes down in the next few weeks, and in truth, you should be too. The summer always feels much longer when the Euros/World Cup aren’t on, and that’s the case this year as we prepare for the long wait before domestic football begins. So then, before we have to deal with all of that (and the lovely weather), let’s soak in all of the Premier League action that we’ve got left.

Receive exclusive betting tips and offers directly to your inbox. Receive exclusive betting tips and offers. SIGN UP