Title race
Liverpool’s 12-point lead means they need a maximum of 16 points from their nine games to put themselves out of Arsenal’s reach and secure the title. If Arsenal go on a winning run this could take Liverpool into May even without dropping any points, but if Mikel Arteta’s side lose their next three it could all be over as soon as 13 April, when Liverpool play West Ham at home. In the immediate future a couple of teams in particular could go a long way towards deciding things: Arsenal host Fulham and visit Everton in their fixtures this week, while Liverpool host Everton and visit Fulham. Even beyond those games the sides have comparable fixtures this month – neither will play a current top-half team – but Arsenal also have two Champions League fixtures against Real Madrid to deal with and must close the gap before the start of May.
Champions League
This looks like being a curious month in the race for European qualification, with every one of the 34 fixtures scheduled to be played by teams currently in the Premier League’s top seven over the course of April (as well as another two which need to be rearranged after Manchester City and Nottingham Forest qualified for the FA Cup semi-finals) pitting them against teams currently outside that group. This is to be followed by an epic, hold-on-to-your-hats month of May in which a third of their 21 games will be against each other, though by then there may be less on the line.
When it is all over it looks increasingly likely that the top five teams will qualify for the Champions League, with England in pole position to snaffle one of the two bonus places offered by Uefa to the continent’s most successful nations. As of 31 March England topped this season’s rankings on 24.25 points, ahead of Spain with 21.678 and Italy with 19.937, with Germany another couple of points behind. With five teams still involved and accumulating points compared with Germany’s and Italy’s three, and despite tough Champions League draws for Arsenal and Aston Villa (who face Paris Saint-Germain), England looks more likely to extend its lead than to be overhauled.
Manchester City are precariously positioned in fifth, one point ahead of Newcastle and Brighton and a mere four better off than Bournemouth in an apparently distant 10th. But they also have the kindest fixture list, with only two of their last nine games against teams currently in the top half – and those are Bournemouth and Fulham, respectively 10th and eighth at the moment, who they play in their final two outings (though they also have to negotiate a potentially tricky derby at Old Trafford this Sunday).
Villa, Tottenham and Manchester United will also hope to secure Champions League places by winning either the Champions League (in Villa’s case) or the Europa League. They play their quarter-final ties in the weeks of 7 and 14 April.
Other European places
Newcastle are the first English side to secure a place in European competition for next season, snaffling a spot in the Conference League playoff stage by winning the Carabao Cup, though it will become up for grabs again if they qualify through the league for one of Uefa’s more prestigious competitions.
The number of teams still able to qualify for Europe by other means than league performance makes this a blurry and confusing picture: Chelsea would qualify for the Europa League if they win the Conference League, Arsenal could win the Champions League, Tottenham and Manchester United are in the Europa League, Aston Villa could win either the Champions League or the FA Cup, which would earn them a Europa League place, while Nottingham Forest, Manchester City and Crystal Palace also remain in the FA Cup.
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The right combination of results (or the wrong one, depending on your perspective) would result in seven English teams qualifying for the Champions League and that Conference League place falling into the lap of the team that finish a lowly 11th. All that can be said with certainty is that at least one Europa League place will be allocated through final league positions, most likely to the side that finish sixth (unless they also win a cup).
Relegation
The good news for Southampton, in last place with only nine points, is that when it comes to the earliest Premier League relegations they are not even going to end up with a podium finish. The bad news is their fate could be sealed by the end of the week: two defeats plus a pair of wins for Wolves would end their survival hopes. And Derby’s Premier League record low points tally – 11 in 2007-08 – remains under threat.
Wolves, 17th and with the next-worst side eight points above them, are the team the bottom three sides will all be hoping to catch. But not only is their form decent – only five teams have outperformed the three wins and a draw they have claimed in the past six games, while the bottom three have one win, and four points, between them – so are their fixtures. Wolves played every one of the current top seven in their first nine games, a disastrously difficult run which they ended with two points, and now it is time for cosmic payback: they play only two of them in their last nine, a run they start with a home game against the side immediately above them, West Ham, and a trip to the team immediately below them, Ipswich.
Two wins there and the fate of the current bottom three may be all but sealed, particularly as the fixture list looks much less kind for Ipswich and 19th-placed Leicester, both of whom play three top-six sides and only one from the bottom half – Wolves in both cases – this month. A David Moyes-inspired revival has hauled Everton clear of all but the faintest relegation worries but spare a thought for them; they play the current top five in their next five games.
