The fight for 6th is well and truly on!

5th isn't out of the question, but it is unlikely.......

Good Morning Ladies and gents,

Happy Friday!!

Today I am going to summarise the run in to the finish line of the premier league season, there is still a lot to play for and European places up for grabs

The highest we can possibly finish is 5th, with Spurs currently occupying that position sat on 60 points with 3 games to play, unfortunately they face 2 of the bottom 3 as well as potential champions Manchester City, we would need spurs to pick up a maximum of 3 points for us to achieve a 5th placed finish, which means they would need to lose 2 of their 3 remaining games, at the end of the day its Spurs and anything is possible with them. It wouldn’t surprise me if they lost to Burnley and Sheffield United but beat City……..Anyway, 5th is unlikely but there is still hope.

On to 6th place and that is currently occupied by Newcastle but they arguably have the toughest run in out of themselves, Man United & us. With Brighton at home this weekend and then Manchester United and Brentford away from home it wouldn’t be out of the question to see Newcastle lose all 3 games, but also it could be the other end of the spectrum and I wouldn’t be overly surprised to see them win all 3. For us to finish ahead of Newcastle we need them to get a maximum of 6 points with us winning all 3 of our games, their goal difference is +11 better than ours which equates to an extra point at this stage of the season.

Manchester United look truly woeful right now and they host current league leaders Arsenal this weekend which could be a blood bath if they perform the way they did away to Palace on Monday night, they will be looking for an improvement but Arsenal are in fine form (unfortunately) and wont let anything get in their way to keep the pressure on Manchester City. After the Arsenal game United host Newcastle and Travel to Brighton on the final day, similarly to Newcastle this is a difficult run in and they could quite easily lose all 3 games although I am hoping they beat Newcastle. As long as we win our games United won’t catch us, I am certain they wont win all 3 of their games and any dropped points from them just cements our place in the top 7.

Now to Chelsea and as you all know we have a fairly average end to the season but with Chelsea they could literally do anything from make these teams look world class to absolutely annihilating each one. We are away to Forest on Saturday evening who are fighting for their lives and will produce an excellent home atmosphere, their man of the moment is former Chelsea youngster Callum Hudson-Odoi who will want to prove a point, we will have to weather storms in that game but if we do it professionally we will come out as winners. We then travel away to Brighton in midweek who have been pretty poor in recent weeks but also picked up their first league win in 7 weeks last weekend, our final game is at home to Bournemouth, a team we have notoriously struggled against over the years.

Our final 3 games are must wins and if we do manage to win all 3 I think we will find ourselves sitting 6th upon the conclusion of the Premier League season, I would have taken 6th before the season and I do believe it would be a fair reflection of our season, especially given our form since the turn of the year, I said it around Xmas time and I still back it now, any European football is good European football for us next season, if we manage to throw that way now, that would be incredibly frustrating!

All we need to do is focus on ourselves, win our games and the rest will take care of itself.

Where do you think we will finish? How do you see the games panning out between now and 6pm next Sunday (19th May)……..

For anyone that believes in irony, 19th May………Chelsea and European football have a bit of a connection on that day👀👀

Thanks for reading

Luke Rushbrook