The Weekend Review: They Could be Playing in the Champions League Next Season
The Premier League is more or less done and dusted, but the National League South seems to be contracting to a singularity ahead of the last weekend of their season.
A split article this morning, and the majority of it is below the cut. There’s Premier League for all above it, but if you want more than that… well, that’s for paying subscribers. It’ll be open to all on Friday morning.
With five games of the season left to play, the Premier League is almost all wrapped up. Two of the three relegated teams have now fallen, while the third is hanging on by its fingernails and will almost certainly have gone by the end of next weekend. Farewell Roodles Van Noodles, we hardly knew ye. I mean, I presume. They’ve got to get rid of him now, haven’t they? HAVEN’T THEY?
At the top of the table it’s the same story. The title could have been decided had both Liverpool won and Arsenal lost, but Arsenal were away to Ipswich Town, so that was hardly likely. They won 4-0 so the race remains on, but one more Liverpool win will give them the title, regardless of what Arsenal may or may not do, and that’s not even taking into account their midweek game against Crystal Palace. Liverpool’s next opponents, by the way, are Spurs.
But the race for those Champions League places is continuing to tighten. Arsenal are more or less home and hosed, but the other three places remain up for grabs, with five teams separated by just three points chasing them. Nottingham Forest briefly dropped to sixth but then jumped back to third by beating Spurs fairly comfortably on Monday night. Manchester City won at Goodison, while Chelsea won at Fulham.
On Saturday evening the other two met, and there were fireworks. The narrative seemed obvious. Newcastle have been outstanding in recent weeks, Villa would be deflated by having given everything to get past PSG in the Champions League and just falling short. AWAY WIN.
Except that wasn’t how things turned out. Villa were excellent. They might have scored eight. Newcastle looked suddenly and unexpectedly leggy, to a point at which you wondered whether about the extent to which their players must be missing Eddie Howe. Villa won 4-1 but stayed seventh. Newcastle lost 4-1 but stayed fourth. Make it make sense.
The other exciting chase in the Premier League is for the 13th Place Cup. Kings of the Losers, if you will. Well, Everton we’ve already briefly mentioned; they remain in pole position in this particular table despite losing to Manchester City. But the race is narrowing now, with just two points between the Toffees and 17th-placed West Ham United, who haven’t won since the end of February.
Elsewhere, Spurs dropped to 16th over the weekend and stayed there following another insipid performance against Nottingham Forest on Monday night, for a second week in a row following up strong European performance by publicly defecating and smearing it all over the walls. Alarmingly, Spurs are currently the favourites to win the Europa League this season. They could be playing in the Champions League next season. Dear God. Hope they don’t draw Forest.
The other two in this title race met at Old Trafford, and I do feel as though I’ve started to run out of superlatives on the subject of the mediocrity of 2024/25 vintage Manchester United. In some respects, they were the anti-Spurs last weekend, turning the high of their extraordinary Europa League comeback against Lyon into that absolute mess.
But in another altogether more consequential way, they were effectively Spurschester United, putting in a performance fully befitting a team in 14th place in the Premier League against a Wolves team who rose to 15th with Pablo Sarabia’s rather lovely late-ish free-kick.
United might also be in the Champions League next year. They are currently the second favourites to win this year’s Europa League, behind Spurs. It does feel rather as though someone has broken that competition, if the final ends up being 14th vs 16th in the Premier League.
And finally for the Premier League, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth played out a goalless draw because the Football Gods determine that Crystal Palace finish 12th every season, even when they don’t. At the time of writing they are 12th in the Premier League. At least in one sense, all’s right with the world.
The EFL ain’t fooling me, fitting in two rounds of fixtures over the course of one weekend. We may as well skip to where we are as of Monday evening, which is that Leeds United and Burnley have now both been promoted back to the Premier League with two games to spare.
Leeds put in a most unlike-Leeds performance in demolishing Stoke City 6-0 to guarantee their place back, and in the evening game Burnley beat Sheffield United 2-1 at Turf Moor to put second place beyond the visitors and seal the home side’s return. Congratulations to both on their immediate return, but it would be nice to see some different names to those who’ve just been relegated from the Premier League near the top for once, next time around.
The race for a playoff place is looking rather like a parents egg and spoon race on school sports day after the five teams below the top two in the Championship all lost. Fair enough, Sheffield United lost to Burnley, but what’s the rest of your excuses? HMMMM? Okay, well Sunderland have one. They were already secured a playoff place, and they lost 1-0 at home to Crisis Club Blackburn Rovers, their third successive defeat.
The others didn’t have the excuse of not having much to play for. They were even all playing teams that you’d have expected those desperate to shore up a playoff place for a spot in the Premier League to win pretty comfortably. Bristol City might have joined Sunderland as confirmed in the playoffs had they won at Luton Town, who are in the bottom three, but they were beaten 3-1. Coventry City occupy the final playoff place, but they were beaten 3-1 at Plymouth Argyle, who were bottom of the table at kickoff and remain there now. Middlesbrough could have drawn level on points with Coventry, but they were beaten 2-1 by Crisis Club Sheffield Wednesday.
On this particular Opposites Monday four of the bottom six in the Championship won with the other two meeting and drawing against each other, meaning that Plymouth remain as close to the precipice as ever and Luton haven’t clambered out of the bottom three despite their wins. Cardiff and Oxford drew 1-1, while Hull lost at Preston and Derby County beat West Bromwich Albion. There are two games to play and three from seven are going to be falling (Preston are seventh-bottom). It could be any of them, really.
At the top of League One, Wycombe Wanderers blew it in spectacular fashion, losing 4-0 at home to Charlton Athletic with a performance that not only dropped them back behind Wrexham but which also blew away the last of the goal difference advantage they had over their promotion rivals. Wrexham won 2-1 at Blackpool and are now two points above Wycombe. Champions Birmingham City are now on 99 points following a 2-1 win at Burton Albion.
The chase for the final playoff place in League One–with whoever doesn’t go up between Wycombe or Wrexham, Charlton and Stockport already guaranteed to get one–can now be boiled down to two clubs following a fourth consecutive defeat for Bolton Wanderers, this time 4-2 at Lincoln City. WIth at least 14 goals to make up in goal difference, it would appear that they’ve blown it. That race is now a straight chase to the line between Leyton Orient, who jumped into the final spot on goal difference on Friday, and Reading, who were beaten at home by Lincoln while Orient were beating Barnsley 4-3 at Brisbane Road. They both won on Easter Monday, so it’s as you were.
This Monday’s team in the bottom six to get an unlikely win and keep their unlikely chances of staying up a boost were Crawley Town, who beat Exeter City 3-1. Everybody else down there lost, so it’s still two from Mansfield Town, Burton Albion, Bristol Rovers, Crawley Town or Cambridge United to join them, though Cambridge need to win their last two games to have any chance and Crawley need at least four points to have any chance, while six might not be enough.
League Two would seem better-named as The League That No-One Wants To Get Promoted From. Only one of the top eight won on Monday, and the only ones to do so, Doncaster Rovers, were duly rewarded for their 3-0 victory against Colchester United by going top of the table. The three below them all drew–Walsall are now finally out of the automatic promotion places–while Wimbledon, Notts County and Colchester all lost, and Grimsby Town drew. Only two teams in the entire top half of the table won, and anyone down to 12th could still make the playoffs.
None of the bottom five won. Morecambe are down after they were beaten 1-0 at Bromley, and it’s looking bleak for Carlisle United, who had high drama against Port Vale on Good Friday but who could only draw 1-1 with Accrington in the big game of the day at the foot of the table. Carlisle really needed to win that one. Tranmere’s goalless draw at Barrow meant that nothing was resolved beyond Morecambe’s inevitable relegation and the fact that it’s now looking very difficult for Carlisle.
At the top of the National League and with two games to play, Barnet are now more or less there after they won 3-1 at Sutton United while York City were held 1-1 at home by Oldham Athletic. Barnet are six points clear and with a better goal difference. It’s all over bar the shouting. Oldham themselves are more or less there themselves alongside third-placed Forest Green Rovers, with six teams fighting it out for the other three available places. At the bottom of the table, the four clubs above the already-relegated bottom club Ebbsfleet United all drew. With Fylde also already down as well, it’s two from five to join them.
With one game of the season now left to play, neither the National Leagues North nor South are anywhere near resolved. The National League North still has three teams with a chance, though Scunthorpe have probably blown their chance after losing two of their last four to drop three points off the lead and a worse goal difference and one game left to play. All three won, so Kidderminster and Brackley Town remain tied at the top on 89 points.
And then there’s the National League South, which seems to still be getting tighter even though there’s now only one game left to play. Now, I’m going to be going into much more detail about this later in the week–like, much more detail–so bear with me on that, but the headlines at the top of the table are that Truro City now top the table by two goals on goal difference from Torquay United, with Eastbourne Borough and Worthing both a point behind them and tied on points.
Two points behind them and also tied on goal difference are Boreham Wood and Dorking Wanderers. They are three points off the top but have the best goal difference of the top six. Astonishingly, none of the top six play each other on the final day of the season this weekend either, so if the five above them all lose, Dorking Wanderers could be 6th at 4pm and the Champions by 5. This would be a fitting end to a National League South season which has broadly defied rational analysis since it started, last August.