Well done everyone, we’ve made it through another interlull. Or at least the England part of it which is all that actually matters anyway, isn’t it?
It’s now straight back to the proper stuff! Straight back to the Premier League. Except it isn’t. We’ve still got to wait a week because the FA Cup simply refuses to die no matter what indignity we visit upon it year after year after year. Take the hint, World’s Oldest Cup Competition – you’re embarrassing yourself, grandad.
But then it’s back to the Barclays. There are only 91 games left of the Premier League season, which still seems quite a lot once you realise they are wedged into the last seven weeks of the season.
And then it seems like an awful lot when you remember this season has mainly been kind of a washout and actually not very many of these remaining games actually matter that much. And don’t give us that ‘finishing position prize money’ bullsh*t. That was a lie made up by Big Television to convince you end-of-season beach-based, flip-flop-clad, cigar-chomping dead rubbers actually matter. Don’t be fooled.
Still, that’s not to say there aren’t any matches that still matter left to wade through. Here are literally 10 that might not be completely meaningless in the grand scheme.
Liverpool v Everton – Wednesday April 2
The first week back gives us a lovely big fat Merseyside Derby between a Liverpool side for whom the international break probably came at a good time given the slight loosening of a few wheels that preceded it, and an Everton side having a lovely old time of it since getting back together with David Moyes.
This also probably gives us our last chance for anything approaching actual peril in the title race. It will need Arsenal to have done the necessary against Fulham the evening before, but assuming that goes off as planned suddenly the gap at the top has gone from 15 points to nine points without Liverpool even playing any league games.
And the really good news is that we don’t even necessarily need the formbook to go entirely out of the window for Everton to rattle Liverpool senseless again as they did so memorably at Goodison earlier this year.
Anything less than a Liverpool win in this one gives us a shred of hope that something might occur. Probably not, though. And also it will probably be 3-0.
Ipswich v Wolves – Saturday April 5
And just as that Liverpool game offers our last hope of even pretending there might be a title race, so on Saturday we have our final, final hope of pretending there’s something afoot at the bottom of the table.
The gap between Wolves and the bottom three has ballooned from basically nothing to nine points in recent months, with the most damning thing about that the fact that Wolves have achieved this separation via a run of 11 points from 11 games.
Ipswich did mug Wolves at Molineux earlier in the season, and if they can repeat the trick at Portman Road a couple of weeks from now it will at least give us all the chance to pretend for another week or so. It’s all we ask.
Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest – Saturday April 5
One thing that definitely is still to be settled and will not be until the very final days of the season is the European qualification picture. Loads of teams involved here, and a glance at the fixture list reveals that while current Big Cup quarter-finalists Aston Villa may have a tough – but not impossible – task to get themselves in the top five this time around they could have a significant kingmaker’s role in deciding who does given their remaining fixtures.
Nottingham Forest have pointedly refused to slip away from the top-five picture, always producing a magnificent response to any apparent wobble, but this is a big test for them and the first of several chances for Villa to either close the gap or lose touch altogether with one of their key rivals.
Tottenham v Southampton – Sunday April 6
Uniquely among the matches on this list, we’re not even going to pretend this one matters at all really. But sometimes fun for its own sake is still fun, isn’t it? And this has all kinds of potential for mischief. Could it be the game where Southampton finally put the Derby comparisons to bed by hauling themselves beyond 11 points?
And more importantly: can Spurs complete an astonishing hat-trick of losing at home to every single member of the worst bottom three the Premier League has ever known? With at least one eye on the following Thursday’s Europa League clash with Eintracht Frankfurt and Spurs’ heightened commitment to nonsense this season – even by their own impeccable standards – we are ruling absolutely nothing out here.
Aston Villa v Newcastle – Saturday April 19
Villa again. Direct top-five rival again. Also, and we can’t fully explain why, but the most powerfully and entirely ‘Saturday 5.30pm’ fixture we can think of. It’s no Super Sunday clash, but it’s definitely a TV game and there’s nothing remotely lunchtime about it. Saturday evening it must be.
Man City v Aston Villa – Monday April 28
Other teams do have games in the run-in, we’ve checked, but it’s absolutely true that Villa appear to have an above-average number of relevant ones to squeeze in around their Champions League commitments. Although we don’t think we’re speaking too much out of turn here in suggesting that by this point they may well have joined City on the sidelines in that particular competition.
What is unlikely to be done and dusted, though – even if as seems very likely this game has to be shunted around to make room for an FA Cup semi-final involving at least one of these two – is qualification for next season’s competition, with Villa certainly grateful for the fifth-place possibility but City to their own utter mortifying shame also in potential need of that particular safety net.
And that’s assuming City haven’t by this point been FFP’d into oblivion, which everyone has very conveniently spent the entire international break convincing themselves is a thing that might imminently happen during the current absolute news vacuum created by England being the worst thing they can ever be: quietly, vaguely impressively competent.
And with regards to that now all-important fifth spot, Villa can at least claim to have put a significant number of points in the coefficient pot to earn that extra place for the whole league. City cannot say the same.
Brighton v Newcastle Sat/Sun May 3/4
We’re throwing things so impossibly far into the future now that the final timings and TV picks haven’t yet been confirmed. This looks a standout from the opening weekend of May, assuming as we shall that the Premier League table then looks anything like the Premier League table now with these two right on the edge of a Champions League spot.
Liverpool v Arsenal – Sat/Sun May 10/11
We can probably assume it’s actually going to be on Super Sunday can’t we? And it’s replete with possibilities. Liverpool could win the title here. Arsenal can still just about mathematically do likewise if we get some very, very funny results indeed over the next six weeks ago.
Funniest of all is surely the ‘Liverpool wrap up the title a week earlier and Arsenal have to give them a guard of honour’ option, though. That’s the one we’d choose. But they’re all good.
Newcastle v Chelsea – Sat/Sun May 10/11
Heading deep into the realms of the unforecastable now, but it wouldn’t take a particularly extravagant or indeed insightful leap of faith to conclude that this clash between a team currently sixth on 47 points from 28 games and another currently fourth with 49 points from 29 games might be as important then as it looks now.
We are absolutely not ruling out an outright and total Chelsea implosion, though, nor an extended post-Carabao hangover for Newcastle. This could just as easily be eighth v ninth and of no value whatsoever by the time it comes around. That’s half the fun.
Nottingham Forest v Chelsea – Sun May 25
Only a fool would try and predict the biggest game of the final weekend when there are still 81 matches to wade through before we get there. We are indeed that fool, because this again looks a reasonably safe bet.
Maybe not. Maybe we actually are on the bizarro-world timeline where Southampton v Arsenal is of vital importance at both ends of the table, or maybe the wildly unlikely “11th place could qualify for Europe” permutations are all falling into place and someone out there is desperately hoping for Spurs to beat Brighton or Man United to beat Villa to pinch a top-half finish and keep it all on track.
But in terms of singling out a game on the final day that has genuine prospects of being significant for both parties it has to be this meeting of two teams currently in the top four.
One of the very best things about this season is the fact it’s Chelsea who are far, far likelier to have dropped out of contention by the final stride.
