PLEASE pull out your calculators. There are eight games to the end of the EPL. There are 24 points at stake. How many points any of the teams get at this juncture will determine the winner of the title.
It sounds outrightly trite. Better put, the contest has moved from a title race to a chase for others. The keener quest is in the final placing for the remaining 18 teams.
Only Man City and Liverpool are in the race. They can decide on Sunday. They can extend the anxieties by a draw but this game has all the settings to settle the EPL with seven games to play.
Who will draw more from the remaining points? Who will lose more? Sunday will set the pace in answering those questions. Maybe more questions would be thrown up.
A win for Liverpool will see them overtake City with two points which would be considered massive in the circumstance. A draw will retain the City’s one-point headship of the log.
Whatever happens, it is guaranteed that henceforth the grittiness of the EPL would be clearer to all. A loss, a draw, a win would have more meanings as the contest rounds the final curve.
Other teams have watched their opportunities slip until their quests have quietened. They have moved from contenders – some were pretenders from the beginning – to contestants.
The week will be busier with UEFA Champions League quarter-final games for Liverpool and City. Atletico Madrid will visit City in a crunchy game that which the Spaniards will throw in loads of tackles. Atletico lost the first leg by a goal.
Liverpool has a more relaxed time with the Portuguese side Benfica, having won the earlier leg 3-1. But anything can still happen.
Six days after Sunday’s thriller, both teams hit each other again in the FA Cup semi-final which should be another grudge game. Who will triumph?
A look at what lies on City’s path to the title presents a clearer picture of their trials and tribulations: Wolves, Brighton, Leeds, West Ham, Newcastle, Watford, Aston Villa.
Liverpool’s EPL outcomes will be affected by tangles with Wolves, Southampton, Aston, Newcastle, Tottenham, Everton, and Manchester United.
It is time to pull out the calculators again. How many of these games will end in losses, draws, and wins at a time that every point counts and will be counted?
Why are Chelsea out of the race? If Chelsea wins their nine remaining matches, they will amass 86 points, the 13-point deficit between them and City is telling, and it is minus 12 points with Liverpool.
A title chance exists for Chelsea if City loses at least five matches and Liverpool does not take advantage. The other teams are of it completely. Their only chase is to supplant Chelsea or another team in the contention for the top four that earn spots in the lucrative UEFA Champions League.
Tottenham and Arsenal appear more poised to take that final spot.
Crystal Palace will also be busy. From an EPL stop at Leicester City, they will take on Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final in a season of ups and downs, mainly stretched downs, for Chelsea. Palace’s 3-0 defeat of Arsenal was remarkable at the same time Chelsea took their 4-1 bashing from Brentford.
It was a crazy week for Chelsea that conceded seven goals, Real Madrid added three in Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League. Chelsea managed to score only two through the week.
Manchester United have moved from pathetic to peripatetic with their sights down. It would be a wonder if they make the top four.
Have a great weekend of football.
Saturday 9 April
Arsenal v Brighton
Aston Villa v Spurs
Newcastle v Wolves
Southampton v Chelsea
Watford v Leeds
Everton v Man Utd
Sunday 10 April
Leicester v Crystal Palace
Brentford v West Ham
Man City v Liverpool
Norwich v Burnley
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