The title has been wrapped up. No one cares about Liverpool and Spurs. So it’s down to the bottom to see who will join West Ham come 5pm on a sunny Sunday in the UK.
Wolves and Blackburn have the best chance of survival, as they are both sitting on 40 and are playing against each other.
The winner goes through, although doesn’t help much, buit’s definitely odds on for one of those sides to stay in the Premier League for one more year.
Birmingham and Blackpool have it toughest out of the five however.
The Blues will face a Spurs side away from home who need a victory to ensure they have European football next season.
Meanwhile Blackpool have to go to Old Trafford and do the unthinkable, beat a Man U side who has a record of 17 wins and 1 loss at home this season.
Wigan are also facing an uphill battle, with a tough away fixture to Stoke, whose home form would see them in a European berth.
So who will prevail and who will sink down to the Championship, and potentially, oblivion?
We’ve seen teams such as Charlton, Southampton and Norwich fall and keep falling after being relegated and it’s a rare occasion that teams can bounce straight back up, which is testament to Chris Hughton and the Magnificent Magpies.
I have a massive soft spot for Blackpool, how can’t you?
With a personality like Ian Holloway who is using Crocodile Dundee’s words of wisdom to fire up his troops, you really have to love them.
They’ve shipped in a massive 74 goals, but only five sides have scored more then them this season.
Beating Liverpool (twice), Tottenham as well as ending Northeast giants Newcastle’s 26 unbeaten home run, they’ve also served out 2-3 losses to Man U, Man City and a scorching 4-3 victory over Bolton last week.
The Premier League needs Ian Holloway!
Wolves and their whingeing ex-Scum manager, Micky McCarthy can go back down to where they belong. After their disgraceful tactics to wind up wor Joey in both fixtures against the Toon, this biased scribe wants them gone.
Next we have Wigan, punching above their weight since 2005, their fans are a terrible, terrible excuse for the word ‘vocal support’. I would love to see Charles ‘Insomnia’ get relegated after leaving Toon for ‘bigger and better things’.
Who have we got left? I almost can’t see due to the massive cloud of anger, bias and years of suffering as a Toon fan filling my eyes.
Ah yes Blackburn. What have I got against Blackburn?
They were bought out by chicken growers, or something like that, and sacked a manager who played the worst football you can imagine, but still somehow managed (poor choice of words) to scrape his teams over the line.
Enter a backstabbing assistant with little experience, but with worse results. Go figure. Serves the trigger-happy new owners right.
I am definitely not a fan of Big Fat Sam, but the manner in which he was banished from the helm was disgraceful (unlike at the Toon where he deserved everything he got).
Birmingham are left and they can stay out of lack of better choice. They actually have a decent side and shouldn’t be in the position they are in. Alex McLeish is a decent bloke too.
Now to the predicted results, Blackpool will face a full-strength Man U side and walk all over them to a 2-0 victory.
Birmingham will manage to scrape a 1-1 draw against Tottenham, who will still make Europe because Andy Carroll missed ten sitters against Villa due to his hair getting in his eyes.
Blackburn will defeat Wolves with Steve Kean somehow coaxing a performance out of the away side. Everyone will have to put up with McCarthy’s deluded antics post-game, as Wolves are denied three clearly offside goals which ‘were definitely onside’. But at least that will be the end of it.
That will leave Wigan, who will storm to a three-goal lead through an ‘Insomnia’ hat-trick, but will then fall at the last hurdle, with Kenwyne Jones deciding he actually wants to play football for the last five minutes of the season to inspire a 4-3 comeback.
So the final standings will be as follows:
Blackburn: 43
Blackpool: 42
Birmingham: 40 (goal difference -20)
Wolves: 40 (goal difference -17)
Wigan: 39
The two Ws will join West Ham, leaving the three Bs to face the depths of the unknown. Blackburn fans will be treated to a processed chicken party, Holloway will scream with joy and liken the victory to the elation of getting lucky after five years of misery and Alex McLeish will give the cameras a brief two-second smile.
*This writer does not condone feelings of joy when a team is relegated. It’s a terrible business.
The table ahead of the final games
Blackburn
(P GD PTS)
37 -14 40
Wolves
37 -19 40
Birmingham
37 -20 39
Blackpool
37 -21 39
Wigan Athletic
37 -22 39
West Ham United (relegated)
37 -24 33
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