Month: May 2024

In a direct dispute for a place in the European club tournaments, Manchester United welcomes Newcastle to Old Trafford. Throughout the season, Erik Ten Hag’s team suffered from a severe number of injuries, and at the end of the season, the Dutch manager could not rely on the majority of his defenders. This led to poor results, and it is not a surprise that not only Manchester United but Newcastle are now sixth and considered favourites for the three points today.

Over the weekend, both teams lost points. This was expected for Manchester United, who lost 0-1 to championship contender Arsenal on their home ground. Even surprisingly, the Red Devils were the team with more time in the opposing half, but it was more of a move by Mikel Arteta, who was convinced that the opponent could not overcome his defence.

It was a slightly different situation for Newcastle, who were expected to get past Brighton relatively easily in Saturday’s home fixture. I was of that opinion, too, and was even surprised that the bookies expected the Seagulls to score. In the end, it was a pretty even match, albeit with a slight advantage for Newcastle. Anthony Gordon’s winning goal was ruled out after a VAR review in the 85th minute.

Erik Tan Hag definitely can’t cope with the missing pieces in his squad, but how can he be competitive when Bruno Fernandez, Marcus Rashford and his best defenders are off the pitch? Crystal Palace thrashed the Red Devils 0-4 at the start of the month, and the result could have been even more emphatic.

Despite personnel issues and poor play, Manchester United didn’t lose many of their home games in 2024. However, Tottenham, Liverpool and even Burnley were not far from victories here, while Sheffield United scored two goals. Newcastle is also a team whose performance has been disrupted by missing players throughout the season. However, Eddie Howe has been much more adept at dealing with the situation, and his team is playing winning football, which I expect will lead to the three points today.

On Wednesday night, Brighton welcomes Chelsea. Both teams are in the top half of the standings, but while the hosts are fighting to stay there, the visitors’ main goal is to qualify for the European tournaments next season. Earlier in the campaign, Chelsea won the meetings between them 3-2, and the Londoners’ better form makes them favourites in today’s encounter.

Brighton’s performance in the current year has been disappointing, especially in the last two months. The team lost quite easily in the matches against Arsenal and Manchester City at home, with a significant margin and even without scoring. It was interesting that the Seagulls were also defeated by 3-0 away against Bournemouth. And only a week later, Brighton had already presented the best of its capabilities. At home, Aston Villa was totally outplayed, although the success came only by 1:0. Over the weekend, the Seagulls also played another strong game away to Newcastle, and surprisingly for me, they didn’t lose – 1-1.

It’s not very often in the season that Chelsea is on a run of three wins in a row, be it in all competitions, not just in the league, which is the situation now. At the end of the season, the Blues play great football, and they indeed regret the wasted autumn that cost them a Top 4 battle. In the winning streak, Chelsea won the derbies at home to Tottenham (2-0) and West Ham (5-0). On Saturday, the Blues also recorded their first away win since February 12 against Nottingham at the City Ground.

During the season so far, both teams have won their points mainly at home, but with their current form, I expect Chelsea to win today. The Seagulls have only conceded three home defeats this season, but they were goalless against Arsenal and Manchester City just recently. I was definitely surprised by the team’s play against Aston Villa and Newcastle, where I expected losses. At the end of the season, however, Chelsea showed strong championship form, and I expect them to finish the campaign with five consecutive wins in the English Premier League.

The champion of England will be decided on the last day of the championship. However, it is not yet clear who will enter from the first position in the 38th round, Arsenal or Manchester City. It seems crucial as the title contenders are unlikely to lose in their home games. However, there is a possibility that England’s fourth representative in next season’s Champions League will also be decided on Sunday. That will happen if Tottenham win all three points today against Manchester City.

Yesterday, we witnessed an extraordinary drama at Villa Park, where Liverpool squandered a two-goal lead, and Aston Villa won a precious point in a 3-3 draw at the end. This sets Tottenham up for a must-win today over the champion if they are to keep their chances of qualifying for the rich man’s tournament. However, the stakes for Manchester City are even higher – a fourth consecutive English Premier League title.

There are theories that Tottenham won’t give a damn today as they would otherwise hand the title to Arsenal. However, we are in times of professional football, and even if Aston Villa had settled the fourth-place dispute yesterday, Postepoglou’s boys would not have been less motivated. It’s another matter that Spurs are in terrible form, and in the previous round, they barely defeated Burnley at home, which at least put an end to four consecutive losses against four of the strongest teams in the league.

There are few words to describe Pep Guardiola’s professionalism and the quality in Manchester City’s squad. In 2024, the Citizens have lost just six points, with three draws, and at the most important time, are now on a run of seven consecutive wins. Most of them were achieved with ease, and Arsenal’s huge lead in goal difference has been reduced to just three goals in their favour.

If one could describe today’s match, it would be a final before the final. Both teams need the three points, and a draw would be disastrous for them. The big favourite is Manchester City, who are in excellent form, and it is virtually impossible to see how the Spurs can defeat them today. Back in the years, however, Man City have always been the big favourites but has not always come through to victory. Tottenham is the team that has been most successful against Manchester City in recent years. In the autumn, the duel at the Etihad ended in a 3-3 draw. On their ground, on the other hand, the Spurs have four consecutive victories over the opponent for the championship, where Manchester City last played in London in 2018.

In recent weeks, we have seen a relatively poor start to games for Tottenham and a wake-up call midway through the second half. This was the case against Arsenal and Liverpool, where the team was about to make up a huge deficit and remained not far from the draw. A week ago, against Burnley, Spurs again played a much stronger second 45 minutes. Tottenham scored 100% in their home games this season, and I expect them to do it again. However, I expect dominance from the champions and another success to reduce Arsenal’s realistic title chances to a minimum.

Today Aston Villa can finally put an end to the dispute with Tottenham for the fourth place in the English Premier League. However, it won’t be easy for Unai Emery to decide everything today, as his team is in a mini-crisis and the opponent is Liverpool in Jurgen Klopp’s last visit as a manager in England.

This season we rarely see Aston Villa helpless, but that has been the case since the beginning of May. The team has lost in three consecutive games in which the opponent was simply better. On Thursday, the Villans suffered another collapse against Olympiacos in the UEFA Conference League semifinal, which they lost by a total score of 2-6. A week ago, Aston Villa played perhaps their worst game of the season in England and miraculously lost only by a goal margin away at Brighton.

Liverpool failed to keep up the pace at the top and surrendered the title battle to Man City and Arsenal. Relieved of the pressure, however, the team’s players are inspired to honour the last games with Jurgen Klopp as their manager. A week ago, the Merseysiders totally dominated Tottenham at home and easily took a 4-0 lead before an hour of play had elapsed. Somewhere in there, however, Richarlison came into play, which led to a reversal of the initiative and two goals for Spurs, who had enough good attacks until the end with which they could have even equalized.

In September, Jurgen Klopp had no difficulty overcoming Unai Emery in the coaching clash in a 3-0 success for Liverpool at Anfield. However, Aston Villa are a solid home side and Liverpool have won in just 50% of their away league games. The problem for the Villans, however, is that they had too many games in short period of time, and the players are not used to such a busy end of season cycle, and at this important time, the injured players for Emery are not few. Aston Villa have looked endlessly tired and helpless in their recent games, and a rested Liverpool, with all their best, are chasing a decent end to the season.

Arsenal visit Old Trafford in round 37 of the English Premier League. Yesterday, Manchester City knocked the Gunners off the top, and they achieved another resounding success on Saturday – 4:0 over Fulham. Thus, until the end of the season for both teams, there are only two matches left. Today, we will find out if Arteta’s boys can climb back to the top, at least until Tuesday, when Manchester City will visit Tottenham.

With a lot of injuries in the squad, Manchester United is living a nightmare in the league. The team has slumped to eighth place and could be out of European club competitions if they do not win the FA Cup final. Last week, the Red Devils conceded a vast defeat at Selhurst Park, where they were thrashed 4-0 by their hosts Crystal Palace. The success over Sheffield United on April 24 remains the only one for Manchester United in over two months now.

At the end of the season, Arsenal are playing their best football, but in all likelihood, even that will not be enough for the title. If City become champions again, countless times the Reds fans will go back to that 0-2 defeat against Aston Villa at home. All four league games after that were won, including the London derbies with Chelsea (5-0) and Tottenham (3-2). A week ago, the Gunners also ran over Bournemouth 3-0 at home.

In the autumn, Arsenal won the derby with Manchester United relatively easily 3:1, but at Old Trafford, they lost their last two visits, although they had a better season than their opponents and finished ahead of them. In the current campaign, the Red Devils are also showing a not-so-bad face at home, where they are in better form and winning most of their points. The Gunners, on the other hand, have triumphed in 66% of their away league games this season.

With what both teams have put on display lately, I don’t see how Manchester United can get anything out of this match. Their chance lies at home, but the infirmary is packed, with the team’s entire central defence there and the attack lacking the creative pieces. Mikel Arteta can rely on almost all his players to establish intense pressure and score a goal early in the match.

Nottingham has yet to avoid relegation from the Premier League but hopes to do it this round. There are several options for that to happen, but the most desirable is for Chelsea to be beaten at the City Ground. However, the visitors from London are showing the form that could easily have seen them challenge for the Top 4 if they had started playing this way a little earlier.

Nottingham hasn’t won often of late but did so in their most crucial game of the season so far. It was last week at Bramall Lane, and the host in that game, Sheffield United, deserved to be at least two goals up at the break. Luck, however, was in Nottingham’s favour. After the break, the Red and Whites were the better team on the pitch, and they managed to win three valuable points with a score of 3:1.

At the end of the season, the mood in the Chelsea fans returned. In their last two games, the Blues managed to win the city derbies against Tottenham and West Ham, not even conceding a goal at Stamford Bridge. The Hammers were beaten 5-0, with four players among the scorers. The final score could have been even more expressive, as the xG statistic (4.31) suggests.

Nottingham needs three points today, and they already achieved those against this opponent earlier in the season. The Red and Whites won 1-0 on September 2, but at this point, Chelsea looks much more stable than they did back then. The fact is that the good results for the Blues have been mainly at home, and an away win has been missing since five Championship visits, but it might be time for a win in the last home game of the season.

Nottingham Forest were unlucky at their previous home fixture, and Chris Wood was to blame for the 0-2 loss to champions Manchester City. We have seen that the team can be hazardous in attack, but at times lack quality up front. Against Sheffield United, on the other hand, Nottingham looked frighteningly bad defensively in the first half, while Chelsea played very well in the attack and recently also had good performances in defense.

The Crystal Palace team is in outstanding form, but the end of the season is too close, and the only thing the Eagles can achieve is to climb into the top half of the standings. They are currently in fourteenth position, seventeen points more than Luton, who, in turn, are the only side in the relegation zone that can still fight for a place in the Premier League next season. In this 36th round, Palace will visit Wolverhampton, who is just two places above them in the standings with a three-point lead.

Only second-placed Manchester City have earned more points than Crystal Palace in the last five rounds. The Eagles have won thirteen points and even have more than the leader in the standings, Arsenal, who have twelve. On Monday, Palace players played one of their most vital games of the season and thrashed Manchester United 4-0 at home. In the other four rounds, the Eagles beat Liverpool, West Ham and Newcastle and drew 1-1 away at Fulham.

Last weekend, on the other hand, Wolverhampton suffered a heavy loss after losing 1-5 in their visit to Manchester City, who are currently second, a point behind Arsenal, but with one game less played. Seven days before that, Wolves recorded a 2-1 win over Luton, which also broke their streak of seven consecutive games without a win. During this period, the upcoming hosts conceded five defeats, one of which was in the FA Cup (2-3 against Coventry).

In the first leg, Wolverhampton and Crystal Palace scored between them a total of five goals, with all of them coming in the second half. The Eagles came away with a 3-2 victory, their fourth consecutive home win over Wolves. Palace, however, lost their last visit to Molineux Stadium after going down 0-2 last season. I think that with the form the Eagles show, they will do the double against Wolves, but I expect them to fail to keep a clean sheet now as well.

If the Luton team loses in the upcoming match against West Ham, they will indeed get relegated back to the Championship. Currently, the Hatters sit in the eighteenth position, three points behind Nottingham Forest, which, however, also has a much better goal difference. West Ham went on to win the first leg at Luton. The Hammers won 2-1 in their visit to Kenilworth Road, with Jared Bowen and Kurt Zouma scoring for them. The goal for the Hatters was scored by Mads Juhl Andersen in the 92nd minute, who has been injured since December.

The upcoming match is irrelevant for West Ham as the team is now without chances to reach the top six of the standings. Two rounds before the end of the season, the Hammers are in the ninth position, seven points less than sixth-placed Newcastle. Last weekend, West Ham sealed their fate after conceding their thirteenth loss. The “Wine Reds” fell heavily 0-5 away to Chelsea, who, with this victory, passed them by five points. This was also the fourth consecutive game without a win for the Hammers. Previously, they drew 2-2 with Liverpool and lost to Crystal Palace and Fulham.

Luton’s team also won only one point from the previous four rounds. The Hatters were on a run of three successive defeats but broke it on the third day of this month when they drew 1-1 with Everton at Kenilworth Road. Striker Elijah Adebayo scored the goal that brought the point for Luton. Otherwise, the upcoming visitors scored one goal again in their previous three games but conceded 1-5 losses to Manchester City and Brentford and fell 1-2 to Wolverhampton.

In the upcoming away game at West Ham, the Luton team will try to break their streak of five consecutive away defeats. The Hatters are also winless as an away side in 2024. However, since December, Luton has scored in each of their matches away from home, with the exception of their visit to standings leader Arsenal. I think that the Hatters will not miss to score, but they will most likely continue their negative losing streak, which will equal relegation to the Championship.

Tottenham’s chances of qualifying for next season’s Champions League are minimal. This is due to the terrible results in recent weeks, which have led to the team even being in danger of being overtaken by Newcastle in fifth position if they continue with the losses. Today, the Spurs will look for their first points since April 7 at home to Burnley, who can now officially bid farewell to England’s elite.

Tottenham’s streak of four challenging games against rivals is now over. The Spurs were beaten in all of them and conceded as many as 13 goals. Interestingly, Tottenham started each match rather timidly and woke up somewhere in the second half. This led to a return of intrigue in the games against Arsenal and Liverpool. Last week at Anfield, Tottenham trailed 0-4 after an hour of play but managed to cut it to 2-4 and eventually even had chances to congratulate themselves with a point.

Too late Burnley showed that they want to play in the elite division next season. Within eight rounds, the Clarets lost only to Everton, but only two wins left the team in the relegation zone. Last week, Burnley deservedly lost 1-4 to Newcastle at home, and only a miracle could leave the team in the English Premier League in the next campaign.

In September, Tottenham won 5-2 at Turf Moor, and in January, they beat their current opponents 1-0 in the FA Cup. These marginal victories have been relatively common in games of this rivalry, or to be precise, in four of their last five meetings. Today, however, I think the goals will be a lot more, as is the trend in the current season in the Premier League.

Tottenham may have conceded a lot of losses recently, but only a few teams have taken points off Newcastle, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, in the Londoners’ current form. Spurs have recorded two-thirds of their wins this season at home, with a total of 60 goals scored at their stadium so far. In ten of their home games so far, Tottenham have won and conceded a goal. Burnley, on the other hand, have scored in nine consecutive games and have done so more often away than at home.

Newcastle have already established control of sixth place in the English Premier League, but why not take aim at fifth-placed Tottenham, who are in desperate form and just four points ahead. The Magpies face a home game at Brighton today. The Seagulls have been one of the disappointments this season, although they still have a real chance of finishing in the Top 10.

Late in the season Newcastle are doing great. For the last seven games the team lost only to Crystal Palace and did not beat Everton at home. Last week, the Black and Whites created countless chances to score against the struggling Burnley to survive and the 4-1 success seemed to be the least the Wine Reds could get away with. A week earlier, Sheffield United were beaten 5-1.

Brighton have performed terribly in the new year. Last Sunday, however, the Seagulls played a rare solid defensive game and their pressing in attack paid off late in the game when Joao Pedro first missed from the penalty, but scored the rebound for the 1-0 win over Aston Villa. The win was Brighton’s first in the league since March 10.

At the beginning of September, Brighton won 3-1 at home from the rivalry, but today I don’t think that as an away team can even fight for the point. With a more relaxed schedule and a few less injuries, Newcastle are playing the football they are capable of. The Magpies are the fourth best home side in the league and I have no hesitation in them winning today.

There haven’t been many clean sheets for Newcastle this season, but in early April we saw consecutive ones against Fulham and Tottenham. At home, the Magpies haven’t conceded a goal in 44% of games, which isn’t a bad achievement considering the high league scoring rate this season. Against Aston Villa we saw a rare good performance from Brighton recently, but I don’t think it can be repeated. Before this game, the Seagulls had only scored against Burnley for five consecutive games.