🔍 What's at Stake for All 20 PL Clubs

And we’re back. It feels like a long time since anyone played any Premier League football. Technically it’s not even three weeks, obviously, but worlds have been born and universes extinguished in the time that has elapsed. Arsenal has been knocked out of two competitions that, deep down, they don’t care about. Tottenham fired one manager and appointed another. We sent people to the literal other side of the moon.

I like this little hiatus before the run-in. Handing over the entire weekend immediately after the international break to the FA Cup is the secret: two weeks would feel like an inconvenience; a delay that we would all spend tapping our feet and glancing at our watches... Three (almost) is different. Three is headspace. Three is a chance, for all of us, to gather our strength for the stresses to come.

That is important to remember. This stage of the season is not meant to be enjoyable: whether your team’s aim for the next few weeks is to win the title, to qualify for Europe, to avoid relegation or something a little more esoteric, it is going to strain every sinew and shred every nerve. But given that every team has something to play for, at least we’re all going through it together.

Arsenal

Let’s start with the obvious. Defeats to Manchester City and Southampton might have cast the word “quadruple” from everyone’s dictionaries for another nine months or so, but Mikel Arteta’s team is still on the cusp of glory. A first league title since 2004 is within reach: all Arsenal has to do, over the next seven games, is not be noticeably worse than City. After three years of near – or near-ish – misses, it is so close the club’s fans can taste it. Beating Sporting CP on Wednesday, meanwhile, leaves Arsenal well-placed to reach another Champions League semifinal. It is the biggest club in Europe never to have won the game’s biggest honor. That wait might soon be at an end, too.

Manchester City

A domestic cup double remains very much on the table for Pep Guardiola’s team: having beaten Arsenal to the Carabao Cup last month, City should beat Southampton to make the FA Cup final, too. The Premier League is more complicated: City has to beat Arsenal at home, win its game in hand, and then hope that Arteta’s side stumbles somewhere along the line. But all of that, to be honest, is secondary to the real issue, which is whether Guardiola himself decides to stick with all that he has won, or twist once more. The irony is that – and this is just a guess – the less City wins over the next six weeks, the more likely he is to stay.

Manchester United

Just nice to play football sometimes, isn’t it? United has not had such a light season for a century or so, having missed out on Europe and then been knocked out of both domestic cups. There is no trophy to play for, then, but Michael Carrick’s squad is so fresh that third place – an incredible turnaround after finishing FIFTEENTH last season – should be attained relatively smoothly. And that should, really, be enough to get Carrick the manager’s job full-time.

Aston Villa

There’s an argument that Villa might yet have a more triumphant end to the season than any team other than Arsenal (if, if Arteta’s team hangs on). Villa’s financial situation basically makes clinging on to a Champions League slot a necessity. But Unai Emery will have one eye on the Europa League, too. Not because it is a backdoor into the main event next season, but because Villa has not won a major honor for 30 years, and it is a competition Emery has made his specialty. Winning in Istanbul would cement his legacy.

Liverpool

Barring a miracle – and it really would be a miracle – against PSG at Anfield, Liverpool’s only target for the rest of the campaign is somehow gathering enough points to qualify for the Champions League. Two things rest on doing so: having the funds and the appeal to rectify the glaring holes left in the squad, and giving Arne Slot chance to prove this season has been the exception, and last season was the rule.

Chelsea

The temptation is to assume what is true of Liverpool is also true of Chelsea, at least in the Premier League: Liam Rosenior could still end the campaign with the FA Cup. But the priority will surely be finishing in the top five of the table, both for his future and for that of the club. Chelsea seems to announce a record loss of some sort every other week. Quite how the finances would work without the Champions League is anyone’s guess.

Brentford

The defining Premier League team of the season – their manager promoted from a position as set-piece coach, their right-back famed for his ability to hurl the ball into the box, their style mimicked by everyone – will likely fall short of a place in the Champions League, but either of the lesser European competitions is very much in play. For a club of Brentford’s size, that would rank as a colossal achievement.

Everton

I’d expected this to be a season of blissful boredom for Everton: a mid-table finish as David Moyes’ team settles into its new home. It might prove to be much more than that. Moyes has turned Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall into one of the Premier League’s best midfielders and even managed to get Beto scoring goals. A place in Europe would be a deserved reward. And, crucially, it would mean a genuine shot at a trophy next season. 

Fulham

English football is not great at measuring relative success. If it does not end in a parade, it tends not to meet our impossibly high standards. What Marco Silva has achieved at Fulham – a team that, as far as I can tell, has not signed a player since 2009 – should be an exception to that. The club’s main task, between now and August, is probably persuading him to stick around.

Brighton

This has been a slightly curious season on the south coast. Fabian Hürzeler’s team is one of the in-form sides in the Premier League at the moment – four wins in the last five – but that came after the German found his position under intense scrutiny. For the first time, there is a little unease at Brighton apparently hitting a plateau. The club, this summer, must rediscover his mojo in the transfer market. Qualifying for Europe would help.

Sunderland

It is not too much of a stretch to say that Regis Le Bris’ team accomplished their main aim for the season a couple of months ago. Despite coming up through the playoffs, Sunderland hit the ground running in the top flight; there has been little or no risk of relegation since October. Now the job is to complete a perfect hat-trick: beating Newcastle home and away and finishing above them in the league.

Newcastle

What was once the most ambitious project in English football – in theory, at least – seems to have ground to a halt. Newcastle does not have a vast amount to play for on the field, beyond finishing above Sunderland, but there are countless questions to answer off it. Will Eddie Howe remain? Will Ross Wilson, the sporting director, be able to retool the squad? And, most important of all, how much do the owners, who are absolutely not the nation state of Saudi Arabia, care?

Bournemouth

As of the time of writing, Bournemouth’s season can probably be classified as mildly disappointing: the prospect of Europe has faded, although so strange is the Premier League table that Andoni Iraola’s team is still only four points off sixth place. But there probably is no team quite as changeable, and so it is perfectly possible Bournemouth will end on a high. And it may well be an end: Iraola’s contract is up, and few managers will be quite so coveted.

Crystal Palace

After all the unhappiness of the autumn – and also the winter, and a little bit of the spring – Palace’s purpose this season is crystal clear. Oliver Glasner is leaving. Adam Wharton will probably follow Marc Guéhi and Eberechi Eze this summer, too. The greatest team in the club’s history will be no more. But it can sign off with one final golden moment: adding the Conference League to the FA Cup and the Community Shield. There is no risk of relegation. All the focus should be on Europe.

Leeds United

A month or so ago, everything was smooth sailing for Leeds. Daniel Farke’s team had a little air between itself and the relegation battle. Dominic Calvert-Lewin was in England contention. All was well. Now, things are not quite so comfortable. Leeds needs three wins, realistically, from a kind fixture list to survive. A journey to the semifinals of the FA Cup, and a prospect of a first major honor for 34 years, might help inspire that.

Nottingham Forest

Vítor Pereira’s team’s win at Spurs – all the way back in the dim and the distant past – may have been the most significant result all season. Before that game, Forest had not won in the league since January 25. Now, the task ahead of them is clear: get more points between now and the end of the season than one of Spurs and West Ham.

Tottenham

Avoid disaster. Avoid probably the most remarkable relegation of the Premier League era. Avoid making this the worst season imaginable – Tottenham being relegated in the same year that Arsenal wins the league. If that happens, Spurs may have to fold as a club. It would be the only decent thing to do. Fortunately, my guess is that appointing Roberto De Zerbi will be enough to make the difference. Probably. Maybe. Just.

Burnley

I can’t claim that this is an original thought – I have stolen it from a friend – but it was pointed out to me the other day that mid-table, in the Premier League, extends from third place to 20th, with the exception of 19th. All Scott Parker and his team can do now that relegation is all but mathematically certain is try to get relegated in as uplifting a style as possible.

Wolves

As we pointed out a couple of weeks ago, football is sometimes quite hilariously cruel. Wolves’ fans had accepted relegation months ago. They were laughing about it. It no longer hurt. And then Rob Edwards came along and got some good results: not good enough to save the team from an inevitable fate, but good enough to make sure that relegation still brings with it pain. The aim for the next few weeks is probably to make that pain as searing as possible.

Timing is one of those factors in determining a season that we maybe do not think about as much as we should. It sounds a little woolly, a bit too close to being an excuse for comfort. But it does matter. It was probably better to play the unhappy Nottingham Forest of Ange Postecoglou than the more focused version of Vítor Pereira’s. It helps if you play Manchester City after a long European trip. It’s not a bad thing if your opponent’s best player is suspended when you meet.

At any other time, then, there would be little reason to look forward to Arsenal’s game with Bournemouth. It would just be a run-of-the-mill Premier League fixture. After those defeats to City and to Southampton, though, it suddenly stands as a daunting psychological test: beating Sporting in the Champions League will have settled Mikel Arteta’s side’s nerves a touch, but they will know they cannot afford to offer City so much as a glimpse as the title race resumes.

Plenty of people have expressed a rich variety of emotions at FIFA’s… interesting approach to the pricing of World Cup tickets. There are, as far as I can tell, two camps: those who think that $2,800 might be a bit much to attend a group game, and those who, well, don’t. I’m not here to pick sides in arguments, though. So won’t be expressing an opinion.

But I was quite taken with this framing, from Craig Gipson, who recently spent six and a half hours in a virtual queue for tickets before discovering that inventory for all the games he wanted were sold out. “A Category 1 ticket for the final on July 19 will mean bleeding $11,000 from one’s bank account,” he wrote. Again, is that too much? We can’t know.

“To put this gross amount in perspective, we could compare it to the median American household income or view it relative to a year’s tuition at a public university. But perhaps FIFA’s own currency would serve as a better point of perspective.

“Among the contents of the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of FIFA was the note that, before his death, Chuck Blazer paid $6,000 a month for a Trump Tower apartment just for his cats. That a single ticket to the final would now be nearly double the monthly rent of Blazer’s feline companions is a rate of inflation not even Gianni Infantino could defend without a small prick of guilt.” 

It’s not for me to express an opinion here. But Craig’s final observation, that ticket prices – not to mention parking and transport and all the rest of it – are so high that they dwarf even the proceeds of actual corruption is well-made. Chuck Blazer’s cats should not have to choose between rent and going to the World Cup final.

That’s all for this week. Please do keep sending your ideas, your questions and your thoughts about former officials’ pets to [email protected] – we read every one, and appreciate them all.

Take care,
Rory

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